Dandy Ace [Review]

Game Developer: Mad Mimic Interactive

Publisher: NEOWIZ

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, Playstation 4, XBOX One

Review Platform: PC

Release Date: 25th March 2021 (PC), Summer 2021 (Consoles)

Genres: Action, Indie

Mode: Single Player

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You are Dandy Ace. The hero in the eyes of his audience, but hated by the green eyed Illusionist "Lele" who he feels he was once great, but you have taken all lime light for his work and he wants to punish you for it. You have to explore the ever changing Palace within the Cursed Mirror that Lele has used in order to make you face the hardest of challenges ahead before a great big finale, a head to head between the greatest of the two magicians. As stated it is an ever changing Palace, so with every loss the map will change and the routes you can take will also change along with it.

On death you will lose everything, you will die, die and maybe die some more. But for me this is appealing as that satisfaction of getting passed the difficult areas outways the rage inducing deaths. There are permanent upgrades you can unlock along the way, but be prepared to have your patience tested.

The game is an Over the Top 2D Isometric Rogue Like experience with progression and challenges at every turn. You collect Magic cards, up to 50 available and choose your own path of progression based on these and upgrades you collect along the way. There are thousands of possibilities!

A very interesting take on this title is the Twitch Interactions available to streamers who want to not only add engagement and fun for their viewers, but also a new experience to the game to keep it challenging. Users can vote on being Lele, they are chosen at random and can decide what to spawn in to the world to make your life easier at times, but difficult for the rest of it. In my experience, my viewers enjoyed making me start over and over and making the funny emotes appear on the end screen. The greatest part is the quips from Lele as you venture throughout the game, these are different if you are in a Twitch Run to a Normal Run.

The game overall is beautifully hand crafted, with some quirky and entertaining voice overs. As you may have understood from the review it is a tough game, but that should never be seen as a negative but a positive challenge! Overall, I can see this being a great community game to be used by streamers to have fun with their veiwers! But still a very fun and challenging title to play on your own!

8.5 / 10.0