Dandy Ace (2021)

Dandy Ace perfectly embodies the typical mechanisms of roguelites, focusing on direct, fun and captivating gameplay. The combinations that can be made through the numerous cards present push one to vary one's approach to the adventure more and more. The only pity is a not always excellent artistic compartment and a mechanic that gives too much incentive to skip portions of the game, distorting the genre.

Built on a rich setting, challenging combat and very well developed progression elements, Dandy Ace delivers a fairly firm palace of cards, proving to be one of the best roguelikes of the year and easily one of the best independent games of that last quarter.

It would be entirely understandable for a person to come into this review thinking that roguelikes are a dime a dozen these days and that this particular game is no different from the rest of the lot. However, between the traits mentioned above and the card attack system, I feel that Dandy Ace does enough to be a good game in its own right and to be a game that makes for quite the showstopper to stand out from amongst the crowd. I had a great deal of fun navigating the world of Dandy Ace, seeing what each new area had in store for me, and seeing what card combinations I could come up with. Hopefully, upon taking your own trip into the world of the Magic Mirror, you will also come away feeling a touch of magical delight as well.

Dandy Ace nails all its main concepts and ideas. It has a balanced difficulty at all levels, with a very satisfying learning curve and a replay factor that shows that Mad Mimic knows exactly where to go. The theme make the scenarios and characters wonderfully captivating, with emphasis on the PT-BR dubbing, which has known Brazilian youtubers and streamers, such as BRKsEDU, Gabi Cattuzzo and Patife, who add an extra touch of personality to this national indie scene surprise.

Dandy Ace is a great first roguelike and a fun take on the genre. Its very fun combat, not too sharp too fast difficulty, quick load times, and lack of central hub or anything to drag the time between runs on makes it extremely playable and very easy to get sucked into.