The Rangers In The South is a roguelike pixel game set to release on January 9th. Each game can take as little as a couple of hours. Between the death-rebirth system, permeant increases, and the wide selection of skills and passives from leveling up. This is an easy one to play a few times over.

This game is quite a hack-and-slash. With the ability to get some special attacks as you level up. A couple of AoE attacks with short-timers and the right passives. I found myself getting quite far on my first character.

It was also rather fun just being a bit mindless about things. The only thing I did not like for the most part was not being able to have a health bar above my character’s head. It was all the way over to the left hand of the screen. So, I kept having to pull my attention away from what was going on in the middle of the screen to check on my health.

Between having some healing potions and food. Along with the game having quite high natural health regeneration. Combat ended up being rather quick with a very short amount of downtime if I took on a tough battle.

Everything will also respawn after a while. So, you can go back and re-clear the same area over and over again if you like. I did notice re-clearing or staying too long in any region and the experience gained would more or less have dried up. So, if you want levels the game kind of pushes you in needing to move forward into the different regions to be fighting higher level creatures for it.

While I would not call the map massive by any means. With the ability to get to the top mountain section in under two hours without speed running and exploring most of the map.

The map is broken into a few different regions. The game helps you out a little bit with a road for the first two regions. After that, it gets progressively harder to find a way forward. The mountain range is like a maze trying to find a way to the top.

Once you get into the higher-tier regions there starts to be environmental challenges as well. Early on you just got to make sure you don’t drown in any lakes or rivers while crossing. Later on, you end up facing sandstorms, earthquakes, and even crashing meteorites in the end region.

Thankfully each region has its teleport. All you have to do is find it to unlock it. So, getting back somewhere to farm is not a hassle.

You can also portal out any time to the town. With the portal staying open to return you where you left off. Making it rather easy to make a run to storage, selling off items, and crafting healing potions. In a rather quick manner.

Most times when I made a town trip. I was just looking to clear out inventory space. Along with crafting any flowers I had found in the wild into healing options. As I felt if I had healing potions my risk of getting killed was quite low.

The game has a perma-death family system. When you die you start over as a family member. That family member acquires 50% of your gold, map uncovered progression, anything you had in storage, and any permeant boosts you acquired along the way.

Certain situations can even make the game harder from you getting killed. So, if you thought starting over with some gold, massive amounts of health, and damage boost was going to be easy. Well, the early sections of the game will be. It’s the end game that will be a bit more challenging as the game slowly gets harder with each generation.

While it might not sound like much there is a way to gain 10 health-permeant boosts for yourself and any future family you take over after you perish from magic stones. There are thirty in total and I found 24 in my first playthrough.

On top of that, you also get a nice 5% damage boost for each dungeon you end up finishing for the first time. This to me ended up being quite a bigger reward as it scales rather nicely as you loot better weapons. If only I could find the two dungeons I'm missing for a total of 80% damage boost.

Between having some starting gold, items, damage boost, and life boosts. Starting over is not as painful as it could be. It still stings. At least you can rather quickly build yourself back and perhaps do so in a way that makes you better the next time around.

There are some special coins you can loot from killing harder creatures that are in the higher-level areas of the game. While these coins can be spent on end-game gear. They can also be used to re-roll the stat and skills that are offered to you as you level up.

This I felt was quite helpful around midgame. When you already have an overall theme of a build going. Along with a reduced pool in skills and passives, you want to take to further strengthen your build.

Without being able to afford to reroll till much later in the game on your first character. I found myself taking some skills and even some low-rolled stats. Even when they would not be that helpful for what I was going for.

This is also the kind of game of playing it a couple of times gives you a better idea of what ends up working great with what. You might notice in my screenshots the bar of passives buffs on me in the upper left gets quite massive at some point. A lot was going on making my character almost a god toward the end game.

I even found myself at one point in the lava section of the mountain just pulling large groups of enemies. I no longer feared any of them being able to kill me with all the passive skills and gear I had on me. As I had high armor and evasion.

This kind of helps ensuring some bad luck on your end is not holding you back. It also empowers you to leave a little stockpile of the re-coins for when you get killed. So, your next build has a chance of being better overall.

The game has sixteen dungeons scattered throughout the map. Each is filled with traps, two levers you need to pull to advance, and a boss. Along with a chest that always has a rare drop in it.

These dungeons were often on par or slightly earlier than the area you found them in. While they do offer some experience for clearing them. The biggest thing is getting that 5% damage boost for the first time clear on each one.

I found myself quickly being able to run around a dungeon and meet the objects to get to the end. With a goal of just chest farming. Along with getting a coin drop from the boss at the end. This ended up being a decent way of getting some gear mid-game when I was not having much luck elsewhere. The rarity of items however doesn’t match the end game when you get to that point.

Final Thoughts

If you are someone who just wants to play a single character and go through a game once. You will find this game to be rather short. As a single playthrough even if you go for end-game gear is only a couple of hours long.

If however, you are someone who wants to embrace the family rebirth system, play a few different kinds of builds. Along with performing a certain action that makes the game harder each run. You should be able to find quite a lot of replayability for those who enjoy hack-and-slash style games.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about The Rangers In The South.

Disclosure. A review copy of the game was received for free.