One of my favourite games in the past few years is Supergiant’s Hades games. An isometric “godlike” roguelike that perfectly marries the repetitive nature of the genre with some stellar storytelling that unravels across multiple runs. It combines that with its fluid, fast-paced combat, endless build-crafting possibilities, and a gorgeous art style making it extremely memorable.

I don’t think that is supposed to be like that

It’s easy to see why so many developers try to replicate it. Echoes of Mystralia is the latest to attempt to do so, and whilst it definitely does its own thing, the comparisons are always inevitable here, but Borealys Games doesn’t have to worry about much. Echoes of Mystralia is very good, and this is just the start. Releasing in early access with a promising future ahead. 

If you’ve played Hades or just about any other Roguelike ARPG, you will be familiar with the gameplay and structure here. It all feels very familiar. When you begin a new run, you will start right back at the starting area and have to make your way from room to room, clearing waves of enemies or battling mini-bosses on the way to defeat each of the game’s regional bosses and eventually the final boss at the end of the run. Though it’s highly unlikely you will even get close on your first attempts, and when you do die (which will be a lot), you will be sent right back to the start with runs taking roughly 40 minutes. 

Echoes of Mystralia is split into different regions, areas and zones. After clearing a room, you will get a choice of which reward you get in the next room. Eventually you’ll be able to select your route to the eventual boss of the region, which is always the same. The room variety could be a little bit better here. 

The world map lets you tailor your rewards

The gameplay itself is pretty solid with fast and fluid movement as you battle rooms of enemies to progress. There’s a standard array of ranged and melee enemies with their own unique attack patterns to deal with. Breaking their shields and continuing to inflict damage will also stun them out of attacks they are performing. Meaning that adding in some crowd control abilities can make you feel really powerful. 

Where Echoes of Mystralia really tries to differentiate itself is with the rather unique spell-building system. Throughout the game, you will gain access to 4 main spell types that represent the different elements and have their own different attack types. These can then be changed into the different elements, creating 16 basic spell combinations at launch, which adds a lot of variety at the start. At base, you’ll be able to select two of these, which will be bound to your X and Y buttons respectively. Though I did find myself attached to my favourites and sticking to them.

Bosses, for the most part, are relatively fine but often rely too heavily on add spawns that are sometimes more intimidating than the mini-bosses. You will battle mini-bosses frequently between the pinnacle region bosses, which are often much better. Yes, they still have add spawns, but it feels much better to fight. I just wish there was a lot more variety here with more bosses and variants that allow them to change their move sets between runs to keep you on your toes.

Echoes certainly has a striking visual design.

Once you are progressing through the world, you will find different relics and memories that will enhance your abilities and define your build for a particular run. Relics offer more passive bonuses that typically grant things like healing after an encounter or increasing memory slots for your spells. These reset at the end of a run or when you inevitably die. 

It’s the memories where things get interesting; these will modify your spells’ behaviour. Slotting these will take memory slots, with the more potent memories taking up more. These could be standard damage increases, or adding different elements into your attacks or even more drastic changes that completely change the attack patterns or add additional bonuses. There’s a lot in here that makes spells feel completely different between runs.

Back at base, you will be progressing through the meta progression elements of Mystralia. Getting new abilities, uncovering your next objectives, challenges, and unlocking permanent upgrades that will change certain elements of the world. You will also unlocking new rooms with their own challenges, and of course tons more modifiers for your builds to really take shape. Echoes of Mystralia does a really good job of making you feel like you are getting more powerful quickly, and it rarely feels like a slog. Though, the Lotus system that allows you to progress through a small skill tree feels like an afterthought. Giving you minute buffs like “1% Healing after clearing a room” that cost a disproportionate amount of currency to unlock and take a while to get to the good stuff that actually makes a difference.

Yup. Definitely an ARPG Rogue-like

Making progress with either the bosses you fight or the memories you collect will also progress the story. As you meet all sorts of different characters that help flesh out the world. It’s also very much optional if you don’t like the story-driven approach in your roguelikes, with the ability to skip over just about every dialogue sequence.  

The current early access build feels closer to a final product than I thought it would. With extensive build crafting, three full regions to explore and a good chunk of the story to unravel. According to the developers’ Steam page, Echoes of Mystralia aims to be in early access for only around a year. In this time, they will expand the game with another region, more bosses, and additional stories woven into the gameplay. Including the ending, which of course isn’t present here. 

Despite some issues with variety, Echoes of Mystralia is a solid start for the early access launch of the game. With plenty of content to delve into and a fun spell crafting system that will keep you busy for a while. If you are looking for a good ARPG Roguelike and have already played Hades to death, Echoes of Mystralia is an easy game to recommend, and it will hopefully only get better as well. I plan on following this game throughout its update cycle and looking forward to seeing it evolve.