Dark Scrolls Review - Just Another Roguelite....Or is it?

Dark Scrolls

PC/Switch

6/22/26

doinksoft/Devolver Digital

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttkLdkbL7Tc

Some would argue that the roguelite genre has run its course, the jig is up, it's time for developers to move on and try something different. The truth is, people are still buying these games; otherwise, they wouldn’t be making them anymore, now, would they? It’s kind of like all of that terrible over-the-top rage-bait gaming content made by people who don’t actually play games and use poor AI-generated thumbnails to trick you into watching. For some insane reason, that stuff gets clicks and viewers—in fact, more than ACTUAL game coverage in many cases—thus, you see more of it infesting platforms like YouTube. Things get supported, you get more of it; things don’t, they don’t exist. For some reason, lots of people struggle to understand that concept.

Anyways, small rant aside, Dark Scrolls is the latest game to take a swing at what was once considered an exciting genre, though to developer doinksoft’s credit, they are at least attempting something a bit different by having an old-school auto-scrolling screen that can quite literally crush players if they don’t keep moving forward. Add in a touch of arcade-y shoot 'em up gameplay and a sprinkle of platforming, and you’ve got yourself an interesting premise, even if much of what’s here still feels familiar.

Dark Scrolls is officially referred to on its Steam page as, and I quote, “A fantasy-themed action platformer that fuses shmup-style chaos with roguelite progression,” and I'd say that’s pretty accurate. You’ll continuously hold down the action button, hurling blades, axes, magical orbs, or even doggy barks depending on your character, slaying foes to collect coins which in turn allows you to grow stronger through additional abilities. Levels are procedurally generated, you slowly get better with each run, and you’ll go through the same areas ad nauseam. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Starting out, you’ll have just 3 characters to choose from, though more heroes can be unlocked by either discovering them in the game’s different locations and freeing them (which usually involves meeting certain criteria) or by earning enough of a specific currency at the end of each run, which can help in purchasing them. The latter is a grindy affair that takes multiple hours and dozens of runs, along with discipline in not spending crystals on other perks that can help you progress further. Each run begins at a main hub village of sorts, which is a bit confusing upon first encounter as there is a building one must enter to select co-op, but once in co-op, you cannot leave said building to see what else the village has to offer (other than entering gameplay, of course), which in fairness isn’t much other than a “Training room” of sorts with a punching bag. Even still, it feels like there was a better way to integrate multiplayer, such as a drop-in/drop-out system.  

Each character does feel uniquely different from one another. Grizz the barbarian, for my money, is the best of the initial three, with his effective arched axe tossing and powerful buttslam capable of pounding foes into oblivion. I’ve heard of sitting on someone’s face, but this is ridiculous. Everyone also has a varied special attack that can be unleashed after earning 5 stars, achieved through battering enough enemies over time. Specials range from filling the screen with axes to protective shields. Even though some characters were clearly more effective than others, the variety was appreciated. The game also introduces fun little side objectives such as killing a set amount of enemies, which upon completion provide more benefit.

Mercifully, auto-fire is very much an option, meaning that you can hold down the fire button without having to mash away. The downside to this is that you can’t change the direction of your attack by facing left or right; rather, you have to let go of the button and then change which way your character is facing. This feels rather obnoxious and clunky and can take away from the fluidity of gameplay. 

As you scroll through each level in either single-player or online or offline multiplayer, you’ll occasionally come across auto locks, arena‑style battles which require you to clear every foe on screen. Doing so in a set amount of time unlocks a cannon that will blast you through a good portion of the level. While I did encounter a strange bug involving the cannon where activating it would almost always use my 5‑star special, the idea is appreciated, and generally being able to bypass some of the game’s more difficult challenges does come in handy. Winning these battles was much easier with two players.

Unfortunately, that’s the only part of Dark Scrolls that is easier with a player 2 on screen. This is because both you and your assumed friend or partner will be constantly bumping into one another, bouncing around like pinballs in a machine. This leads to some frustrating, bumbling moments that ultimately make the game more difficult and less enjoyable in totality. Should death befall a member of your party, they will return as a spritely spirit, or maybe more like Casper’s evil twin Jasper, the fucking asshole who can still take your hearts and coins, but does nothing in the way of damage or helpfulness. In fairness, if the surviving player is able to complete the area, their comrade is revived at a campsite, which I'll touch on later. So while I love the idea of a game like this allowing for more than one player, the execution is far from perfect. 

Around the halfway point of each level, you’ll encounter a shop where you can purchase new perks through coins that have been collected, which are not shared between characters. There are quite a few available too, which activate depending on the star level you equip them to. For example, hot feet trigger hellish flames that pour out from your character's feet when you achieve star level 3. A very overpowered healing fairy drops hearts depending on the chosen slot, so on and so on. This means you can have around 6 perks equipped to a character in totality, and for the most part, they are interesting and fun to unlock and experiment with. These perks are also not shared between comrades, though, so it’s every man (or dog) for themselves.

Another problem is that I often didn’t have enough coins to afford these enhancements. That’s partly because Dark Scrolls features multiple paths that can be taken, some of which cost a good amount of your coin to unlock. One example of this is a troll bridge guardian who wants 1200 coins for you to be able to cross through a specific gate. I like that there are different areas and paths to take, even more if you find the aptly named Dark Scrolls, but I did feel too short on gold on more than one occasion, which is extremely frustrating, especially when trying to unlock a weapon or star recovery upgrade and definitely amplified in co-op. 

Between all the auto-scrolling mayhem, players will stumble across rest points in the form of the camp I touched on earlier. Here your health will both increase and be replenished, and donations can be made to a well which unlocks even more perks. A main hub area at the start of each run also allows for the purchase of new perks which will be randomly cycled into the shop for future purchase. Yep, underneath it all, this is still very much a roguelite gameplay loop. 

Each level culminates in a big bad boss battle, though honestly, most of these foes can be easily manipulated and dispatched without much issue. They utilize simple patterns that are easily learned after 1 or 2 encounters and can in many cases be butt slammed and spammed out of existence in no time. And with this being a roguelite, prepare to see them many, many, MANY times. In fact, even with procedural generation, I feel pretty confident in saying I got the exact same level layouts on more than one occasion, which made the repetitive nature of the game all the worse. 

I will say this about Dark Scrolls though, it has some pretty neat secrets to discover. There’s lots of content here, whether it be the characters that can be unlocked, emotes that can be used to express yourself, or even hidden locations. Doinksoft has stuffed in an impressive amount of STUFF, even if the core gameplay loop didn’t draw me in as much as I had hoped. 

Dark Scrolls' pixelated visuals are far from original, but do a decent job of paying homage to early 90’s 16‑bit era games. While seeing the same environments time and time again wears out its welcome, the characters and enemy designs are charming, the game has a nice color palette, with lovely chunky sprites and a crunchy Genesis‑inspired soundtrack that sounds farty in the best of ways. The map in‑between levels also reminded me of Ghosts N’ Goblins, which was a nice touch. Sound effects are also pretty decent, though some were a bit annoying like the dog that barked every time he attacked. While there are barely any accessibility settings in the game, you can at least turn the SFX down if the dog gets to be too much for you. Sadly, there’s really no story to speak of here, not that the game needed one desperately. Performance on the PC version of the game was mostly fine, though I did hit a few small bugs such as when a character became locked in place. For the most part though, framerates were stable and things ran without issue as one would expect. 

With its scrolling levels and SHMUP-inspired gameplay, Dark Scrolls does try to stand out a bit, but ultimately still ends up feeling like just another roguelite game that will be forgotten in a month's time. It’s not the worst thing you could spend money on as you’ll get quite a few hours of gameplay and unlockables from it, but I fear that the core loop is simply too dull to keep players around for the required amount of time it takes to achieve 100 percent completion. By the time the four-hour mark rolled around, I was personally over it. The multiplayer is frustrating, the grind feels slow, and the single-player lacks punch. If you’re the type that can’t get enough of this genre and enjoys the monotony that often comes with it, there’s a good chance you’ll have a decent time. Everyone else, this is pretty bland, earning itself the table lamp of mediocrity.

Table Lamp of Mediocrity