Skelly Selest piqued my interest when it was announced. There is something about pixel art that resonates with me, and I cannot help but gravitate toward games with that art style. In Skelly Selest, you take on the role of a skeleton that is sent from heaven to defeat hordes enemies from Hell. If successful, he will be a hero of the heavens, suffering in damnation. It is an interesting approach for this arena roguelite, and I honestly was not expecting the game to be as addictive and fun as it is.
In terms of gameplay, Skelly Selest is not your average arena roguelite. You have two means of attacking: your ax for melee attacks, and your angelic gun for attacking from a distance. With your ax and gun, you can attack in eight possible directions, so when you are surrounded on all sides by enemies, you can lash out in any direction they come from and defend yourself. Using both weapons in conjunction is highly recommended because your gun’s bullets are replenished by killing enemies with the ax. Hit and run tactics only work here to an extent because even if you run away from your enemies and wait until they are in kill range to score easy killings, some of them follow you and others can teleport right behind you. Overall, it’s best to try to take them out once you notice them coming and not use too much strategy.
After you clear out the waves of enemies, you are occasionally sent to a room where you can get special items such as angelic protection to each heart. Angelic protection sends bolts of lightning down from the sky to damage enemies when you receive damage, and there are lots of other special items. Sometimes you find empty rooms or you are taken to an upgrade screen where you can choose one of three possible random upgrades, changing on each run in true roguelite fashion. My favorites are the shield that generates when killing enemies, health regeneration, or one that sends a brutal shockwave after every swing of the ax. On top of this, if you manage to survive long enough to get all three, the effects stack! This really helps because as you get closer to the boss objective the number of enemies attacking you increases drastically. Once you beat the boss its game over….or is it?
Once you beat the “main” Lichemancer Hunt, you unlock more game modes such the Deamonica Hunt, which is a more challenging run that the previous Lichemancer, and a Colosseum in a survival mode that challenges you to see how far you can get. My favorite mode is a Zelda-style quest much like the Dungeon Pilgrimage. In this mode, you enter a dungeon to save a damned soul from the labyrinths and can unlock other characters to use. I enjoyed this mode more than the others because the exploration sense it gives is more satisfying. There is even a card mode like the image above. You can get the cards to play during your regular runs which are dropped by the enemies. The level of visual customization is also excellent as you can find hats that change your character’s appearance. There is even one that looks like a certain shovel-wielding Knight!
As I said, I like how the game looks and the music accompanies the visuals well. The enemies are varied and the AI is well implemented, making you earn your victories. Because of that, I kept coming back to Skelly Selest even though I was killed right of the bat more than a few times.
Bottom line: Skelly Selest is a fun arena roguelite that offers tons of unlockables and a good challenge. Once you get the hang of it, you are in for a Hell of a good time.
A Review code was provided for this revie