Cinderia Early Access Preview: Punchy Action Roguelite with Dark Folklore

Cinderia is a highly stylized, fast-paced action roguelite that is now available in early access on Steam. The story is immediately engaging, with an art style that is both dark and fantastical. The quick, punchy action is incredibly satisfying and can result in back-to-back runs for long play sessions. Despite being in early access, there is a lot of content to explore and enjoy from day one.

First impressions are important, and the first thing that becomes apparent is the tone of the audio and visuals. Incredible high-energy music greets the player upon startup, which is the first indication of the pace of the game. The menu music was effective in guiding my attention to the opening cutscene. The plot is laid out in a couple of minutes of cutscene that tells a little bit about the state of the world we are entering and the motivation behind our characters. The plot tells of mercy and betrayal while presenting a delicious display of art direction. It could be described as Don’t Starve meets Hades. A very low-contrast and dark colour palette sets a moody theme that paints a very distinct view of the environment. The ground, the plants, and the people all have a sort of dark folklore look to them that pulled me in from the first glance.

Gameplay is king.

Does this game deliver those addictive moments?

The short answer is an emphatic yes.

The player starts each run with a basic attack and an ability that has a short cooldown. Our hero must progress through room after room of enemies that spawn in, collecting new abilities upon completing each one. Fighting through the waves of enemies is really punchy and satisfying. What I mean by punchy is that each attack lands with such certainty that it is visually apparent when contact is made. You can see each blow land, and the enemy sprite reacts accordingly. The audio assists by punctuating each hit against the background music. The developers (MyACG Studio) claim that the movement and combat are particularly compelling because of “8-directional 2D skeletal animation, rendered within 3D environments.” That level of technical jargon at the very least tells me that a significant amount of the developers’ care and attention went into the core gameplay loop. This is a case of style and substance in equal measure.

The long game.

The game already has a huge amount of content to support the core gameplay loop. Not only are there branching navigation choices, but every run will be different based on your upgrade choices. When a room is completed, a number of doors will appear, indicated by symbols. These symbols display what sort of upgrade will be rewarded in that room. Each run is sure to be different because this initial decision will determine the reward type, but each reward type has choices of its own! So you complete a passive-ability room and are offered a random selection of three passives. At this stage of early access there are four playable characters, and each one has their own set of 90+ passives. The same random selection situation happens with so-called “Spell Cards” that populate your attack moves. The rooms will generally increase in difficulty as the run continues until an unavoidable boss fight room appears.

Other staple roguelite elements are included, such as a hub world that houses NPCs to upgrade your characters and equipment between runs. All of these systems ensure that there are potentially endless hours of play.

Cinderia is sure to grow and be refined throughout early access, but it is starting from a strong foundation. The game is fun to play, with gratifying action and a gorgeous aesthetic.