It’s yo boi, back at it again with the roguelikes… Wait, this isn’t a bit again where I trick you and this is a completely different game? Nope! This time we got one that draws clear inspiration from Hades, with a heavy focus on fast runs, synergy points, and 2d topdown brawler goodness. This was a vertical slice of the game, so I’m not giving a full review, just my first impressions. The demo I played seems to be maybe a quarter of a full run, with two bosses as of now. There are three weapons available, with their own playstyle and some limited story beats. The artstyle is very striking with a inkbrush raw painting aesthetic reminiscent of Chinese watercolor panoramas. 

Similarly to the boons in Hades, Realm of Ink has different elemental Ink gems (fire, water, earth, lightning) that offer numerous passive effects/stats as a well as a special move with cooldown. In this demo, you could have up to two inks at a time, each with an upgraded version that offered higher stats and a unique additional passive. Additionally, your ink elements manifest into a cute familiar character that fights alongside you as a companion. In my runs, the familiar was mostly inconsequential, but it can help divide and conquer the mobs of enemies or set up status conditions, especially if you care about speedrunning. I think the highlights of this demo were the “perks”, which really helped tie together the various boons from the available ink gems. One build I focused heavily on “circle” AoE stacking damage/attack boosts, another Damage over Time with Burn or Poison. While at first it seemed like the two ink gem limit was really limiting, I was surprised how much depth is baked into these effects, and how much they help shape what “build” you strategize around. It’s arguable that maybe there’s TOO much frontloaded into these, leading to giant walls of text to parse, but it wasn’t personally a problem for me. In fact, I really appreciated how upfront the information I sought out was at a press of a button. 

The structure of the game is pretty cut and dry: level with various enemies to clear, offering of 3 choices to set up your reward for the next room, rinse and repeat until pre-boss room. It will offer a bazaar of upgrade and item assortments to purchase with the in-game currency you got from the rewards you accrued up to this point. It gave you some reason to choose immediate benefit over currency, since the pre-boss room seems to offer higher guaranteed rarities for shopping. Enemy variety so far is pretty above average for a demo – I imagine that future stages or areas will host many more. Enemies have lines or long boxy hitboxes that telegraph their attacks, and as the rooms fill with various baddies, it’s up to you to dodge the hellscape. Luckily, outside your basic movement, you sport 2 dashes (with brief ending cooldown with the potential to collect more) which will help you quickly reposition and continue your smackdown. I had a lot of fun as I learned the 3 weapons at hand, as well as the potential ink combinations how to weave in and out of attacks. Eeking out as much damage as possible while staying in the pockets of safety within the enemies’ kill range is the name of the game, and it’s a solid, if familiar, formula to success when it comes to action games. I do think that despite some complexity when it comes to mathing out some of the synergies and minmaxing your DPS (if that’s your thing – it certainly isn’t necessary), you mainly just worry about light attacks/ heavy attacks, and your 2 ink specials when evaluating your offensive. In this way, I think the design is pretty streamlined, although I am curious if once the game is more fleshed out what my thoughts in terms of the variety and customization between runs will be. I think even from this early preview build, there’s a lot of potential in build options available, and I imagine some out of game setup will help further mix things up. 

Hades 2 is coming down the horizon, but I think the unique aesthetic and snappy controls can make Realm of Ink an awesome appetizer to whet your appetite. It’s difficult to judge how it will ultimately stand amongst its competitors, but I know there are fans of the genre that itch to master as many of these titles as possible. I think despite the obvious comparisons to the juggernauts of gaming history, Realm of Ink can paint (heh) its own niche. I’m excited for future updates, and any future announcements. 

Demo available: Steam

No full review here, but if I would, I’d give it an honorary Seal of Approval.