Move over Doom Guy & Duke Nukem, there’s a new bad-ass space marine on the scene and he’s taking no bullshit! Polish developer ChaosForge brings us Jupiter Hell, a turn-based roguelike spectacle, based on other roguelike games from ChaosForge like DoomRL and DiabloRL (RL standing for roguelike). Published by Hyperstrange, you can pick this game up on Steam.

Playing as a foul-mouthed space marine, you get shot down when flying over Jupiter. A once inhabited base on Jupiter seems to have no signs of life, but who shot your spaceship down and why? Venture throughout the base on Jupiter and find out for yourself. Being a topdown shoot-em-up-styled game I wasn’t expecting the level of mechanics that this game has. From perks to cover systems and hacking drones to special skills, Jupiter Hell is one of the most fun roguelikes I’ve played in a while.

The turn-based aspects within the game really add a tactical aspect to this dungeon crawler. Reloading, moving, using skills, and the most tactical move of all ”waiting” all take a turn. Shotguns, revolvers, and hunting rifles all take 1 turn to reload one bullet, so it makes you have to plan out all your moves in advance. Like the most hardcore game of chess you’ve ever played, you will not survive, but each failure doesn’t leave you with a sense of emptiness, and I couldn’t wait to jump back in to see how further I could progress.

Three classes exist within Jupiter Hell: Marine, Scout, and Engineer. Each class has its individualized perks and skills, although the game has a permadeath mechanic, and progress is lost upon death. When you complete the game, you unlock new modes, challenges, and difficulties, which make the already high replayability of the game seem like you can actually work towards something.

In the modern age of gaming, every developer seems to chase graphical perfection, and in doing so, they attempt to make games more look more realistic than life itself. ChaosForge, however, has paid homage to the classic 90’s era of gaming and the 90’s sci-fi universe, but with modern graphical advances. They have made the game look as if it was on an older style CRT screen, or more so a fish-eye lens effect.

Combine this with blocky, pixelated text, and old-school style in-game menus and inventories, you have a one-way ticket back to your childhood! That being said, the level design is awfully repetitive, but with how fast-paced the gameplay can be and the small level sizes, this wasn’t too much of a massive issue.

Nothing gets the blood pumping and the adrenaline flowing more than blasting apart robot drones, zombies, demons, and the monstrosities within Jupiter Hell than the audio tracks. It doesn’t take long through your gameplay for the face-melting, heavy metal love noises to ensue, and as a lover of all things heavy and metal, I couldn’t help but smile as I cut deep into the flesh with my combat knife while the heaviest of ugga-chuggas was making sweet love to my ears.

To top off the amazing audio, the protagonist is as foul-mouthed as your local mechanic, constantly telling you he “can’t see shit” if you try to pick up nothing, and that he’s “fucking out” of ammo, but fear not parents and guardians, if you are getting this for the sensitive of hearing, there is a profanity filter setting!

Fight, die, try again. Over and over until you progress. Rinse and repeat. No playthrough is the same. If you love dungeon crawling and leaving no stone unturned, embrace your inner loot goblin and pick this game up!

Written by: Bigfoot