MidBoss by Kitsune Games has been in development for over four years. Designed to be a different kind of rogue-like, the game’s unique touches give us a challenging take on the rogue-like genre.
Going up the Ladder:
The story of MidBoss follows the duo of Mid and Boss who are underlings for the bad guy of the land. After being relegated to dungeon guard duty too many times, they decide to try and become the supreme monster.
Each floor of the dungeon is randomly generated from basic themes and possible enemy appearances. What makes MidBoss different is how you grow more powerful. Boss has the ability to take over an enemy’s body using possession.
Possession has to be cast before the enemy is killed and you can only use it while you are Boss. Once you possess an enemy, your stats will change to reflect the enemy. Body swapping is a key element of MidBoss and how you will progress through the game.
Tag In:
In order to have any chance of surviving MidBoss you’ll need the bodies of your enemies. Each enemy has different attribute values and abilities that they can learn.
Stats in MidBoss are divided into meta attributes and regular attributes. Your meta attributes are based in four categories; with each one boosting two attributes. Each monster in the game has a multiplier for each of the attributes.
Taking over enemies will change your stats and give you new abilities
Enemies who are stronger with physical damage will have a higher multiplier compared to magic inclined enemies. When you are in another monster’s body, you are able to use any skills that you have unlocked for them, along with one other monster of your choice.
As you kill enemies in a monster’s body, you’ll gain form points which unlock new skills for that specific monster. Once you’ve unlocked all the skills for a monster, you will master the form. Mastering a monster form will allow you to use only the best multipliers from the monsters you mastered while in your regular form.
If you are killed in a monster’s body, you will revert back to your normal form, but with barely any health left. Die in your normal form and it’s game over. The ability to mix and match form combos is a great touch for MidBoss, and helps to make it stand out from other rogue-likes.
My main problem with the game is the difficulty, and that you always seem to be winning…until you lose.
Demotion:
MidBoss can be a hard game, with the odds stacked against the player. The floors themselves will always pull from the same pool of monsters to inhabit it. Gear in the game is set and categorized by different rarities. What this means from a gameplay perspective is that you have a good idea of what kind of enemies you’ll be facing on any given floor.
The problem is that it’s very hard to tell whether or not you actually stand a chance to beat them, or are you setting yourself up to die. I think the game could make it a little easier to explain how defense works and the minimum/maximum values of your attacks. This also makes it a bit confusing in terms of what passive bonuses are important for your character. The rarer gear can also boost meta attributes on top of regular ones.
Because you can’t see the enemy’s health total until you have possessed at least one copy of it, that first fight can be tough to know when to retreat. Due to the game being turn-based, it’s very difficult to escape from a bad situation. In many cases, if you are forced back into your normal form due to your body dying, you are most likely going to lose due to the low health.
There are a lot of stats and systems under the hood that will determine whether you’ll win
There are only a few ways to actually recover health: Possess a body, de-possess a body, find health potions, or use monster-specific skills that can steal or recover health.
During my plays of the game, I had runs where I blazed through the first couple of floors to then immediately get destroyed by one enemy on a latter floor.
Another point is that I found the UI to be a bit cumbersome. Besides health, you have stamina and mana that are consumed to use skills. Stamina recovers while you’re walking, but mana requires you to actively stand still or rest in order to recover.
It felt like an unneeded second step in my opinion, because both rely on you not doing an action in order to recover. I also think the game could use an item bar for quickly using potions or spellbooks, as you will be doing a lot of going back and forth to the inventory.
A Tough Climb to the Top:
MidBoss is a challenging rogue-like with a great original premise. There are a lot of ways for the game to be grown hopefully following a successful launch. For more on the game, you can watch my plays of it over on the Game-Wisdom YouTube channel.
