Jupiter Hell

What if DOOM were an isometric turn-based tactical game? ...Now we know! Lovingly crafted & intensely atmospheric, you can leisurely slay demons in this rogue-like celebration of gibs, gore, and guns.

Disclaimer: Most of my hours are on the Switch version. The Sonic of rogue-likes. Highly recommend, whenever I get the itch for another actual rogue-like, i boot this because it's the gold standard in my opinion of bringing the "rogue" format into the modern day. Fast, brutal and so, so much fun. The graphics really grew on me over time (pixel fan at heart) and i actually find myself wanting to play this more than JH Classic because of them. 10/10

Jupiter Hell was my first foray into the traditional roguelike genre, which was a corner of gaming that I’d always been curious about but couldn’t muster up enough courage to explore, at least until a friend recommended this title to me. With its relatively short run length of 3 to 4 hours and an easily digestible visual presentation, Jupiter Hell was considered one of the more “approachable” and “beginner-friendly” games in the genre. And at least for my tastes, its Doom inspired setting and the focus on ranged, probabilistic combat reminiscent of XCOM worked in its favor. So how approachable was Jupiter Hell, actually? Despite its modern trappings and 3-D animated art assets, I still found the game to be an intense, unforgiving roguelike that demanded good strategy, build synergy, and of course hard-earned gameplay knowledge for its players to have any hope for victory. However, it also wasn’t such an obtuse game that required me to have a wiki open all the time in order to advance. I felt that anyone with some familiarity with turn based games and an understanding of concepts like cover, hit chance, or the fog of war would be able to adapt to Jupiter Hell’s mechanics without much trouble. But understanding a game’s mechanics and winning with it are different things, and as I set out to clear Jupiter Hell with all 3 classes, the repetitive and predictable early game ended up getting on my nerves after a while. Run variety as a whole seemed to be an issue, with the same sets of enemies and bosses appearing in the same 4 regions during every run. Each of the regions had several different side branches that could be chosen for their unique challenges and rewards, but since the total pool of levels to draw from was so small, it was quite easy for me to predict and even plan builds around them. This no doubt increased Jupiter Hell’s “beginner-friendiness” as it limited the amount of trial and error required to experiment with routes and builds, but it also ended up harming its replayability. I still enjoyed my time with Jupiter Hell though, and even the bland early levels felt helpful while I was still internalizing the game’s basics. One of the more novel mechanics for me was its simultaneous turn structure. In most turn-based tactics games, each character usually has a chance to take action while the rest of the game state stays frozen. In Jupiter Hell and other traditional roguelikes, simultaneous turns seemed to be the staple, meaning that the entire game state advanced whenever I took a single step or a shot. This would’ve been easier to parse in a melee focused game, but every fight was a firefight in Jupiter Hell, and it was crucial to constantly evaluate the entire battlefield and even off-screen variables in order to survive. It became a cause of some dumb deaths on my part, but it was also an elegant way to enhance both the game’s tactical depth and player immersion during combat. Once I finally beat the game, I ended up purchasing several more traditional roguelikes that I’m now excited to delve into. So yes, despite its flaws, Jupiter Hell turned out to be an excellent introduction to the genre.