Survival games are meant to challenge players – mostly at least. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus had to learn (again) that experience does not protect one from bitter defeats. Romestead and its nasty Cyclops boss gave him quite the beating.
I enjoy suffering in games, which is why survival games and soulslikes always manage to captivate me. There’s just something about being beaten up instead of being taken by the hand.
Where I didn’t expect it was Romestead. It’s about rebuilding ancient Rome in a zombie apocalypse, saving survivors, and helping the gods. All of that comes in a deceptively cute pixel look.
Actually, I already have several hours of experience in Romestead and completed the game (in its previous state) before. Now I’m playing again in co-op and significantly longer than would be reasonable, but it’s just fun.
Together with my colleague Benedikt Schlotmann, we ventured into the second boss last night, only to be completely beaten down. Multiple times. I already knew the boss fight by heart.
Modern boss mechanics disguised in retro look
Many survival games focus on building and crafting, exploration, or the combat system itself to make the world more dangerous. Romestead is a bit simpler, which is partly thanks to the graphical interface. 2D pixel games rarely have the combat depth of competitors in Unreal Engine.
Where the survival game compensates for this are the boss fights, all of which I have found to be truly outstanding so far. Other games in the genre often just use bosses as sponges with a few more skills, Romestead brings real mechanics into play.
Even the first boss, an owl throwing lightning, is constantly taking off, stomping around on the ground, and throwing… well, lightning. And feathers. But it’s still manageable, doesn’t do much damage. Our nemesis was the second boss, a cyclops.
I already knew beforehand that this one can shoot lasers with its eye, and you feel a bit like a target in Space Invaders with how it shoots. The goal is to wait for bombs and throw them in its face. It just absolutely didn’t work: we died five times and had to learn how the boss fight functions.
Because in addition to its abilities, the cyclops, as the first boss in the game, also has different phases. Just beating it once is not enough; the health bar simply refills.
In the current co-op run, I was a bit too busy for screenshots, but I had already fought the cyclops solo:
Simply hitting it hard won’t work, we need actual roles
Romestead allows different builds and playstyles, such as melee with spear and shield, two-handed, ranged, or magic. In our game, I am currently a wizard designed to fight many small enemies. Just doesn’t work here in the boss fight.
In co-op, we not only had to fight more enemies than I did solo back then, but we also had to deal with more damage. Significantly more. After the first three deaths, some of which were caused by lags (and yes, I know that’s a popular excuse), we had to adjust our strategy.
Instead of simply playing individually and losing oversight, Benedikt eventually took care of the small enemies, while I healed or threw bombs. Still, it took three more attempts until victory.
By the way: Since we had to run quite a bit every time, the whole thing took almost an hour. I actively play WoW, and even there, I have not felt such strong emotions during boss fights.
Romestead nearly perfects the classic upgrade system
The bosses in the game are not just a gimmick for better equipment; they are gatekeepers for the next tiers of equipment, much like in Valheim. Minerva, the main goddess of the game, always demands an item from the current biome’s boss as a sacrifice for the next recipes.
With these, it’s possible to craft better equipment to avoid being immediately crushed in the next biome. That can end badly in Romestead quite quickly, similar to Windrose, where the sudden spike in difficulty killed me several times.
All the more exciting it is to be able to craft the next better equipment. For example, I now own fancy new wizard robes and a new scroll for even more oomph in ranged combat – and a bit more support. The next boss will go much better, I’m sure!
Romestead is not the first game to have misled me so extremely with its unassuming appearance. One of my newer hidden gems is Witchspire, which looks like a witch game in comic style for kids. Think again: New survival game releases today on Steam, looks totally cute, but that’s misleading
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