Below

The audiovisual design is as unique as it is special, but the mechanics are unnerving, frustrating and suffer from repitition.

Below is a solid and well-designed game that will challenge every level of gamer. Steeped in mystery, fans of Roguelike dungeon exploring will feel right at home in this subterranean adventure.

It’s loaded with intrigue but resistant to modern methods of approach, creating a Rorschach test where losing patience with its internal contradiction is as credible of a reaction as relishing its idiosyncratic isolation and adversity. Ultimately, Below is a curiosity in which gratification is dependent on personal resolve.

Below can be a satisfying roguelike experience for anyone who is willing to persevere through its steep learning curve and difficulty. For others, the journey might come to a close after only a few failed attempts.

Below is a very mysterious and appealing roguelite, but it’s missing something more unique or deep to truly shine.

A frustrating mix of survival game and roguelike, that has absolutely no respect for your time and yet still hides an enthralling and rewarding action adventure within its murky depths.

Below is beautiful and endlessly intriguing, but also rigid and immensely frustrating.

Below has a precise idea but transmits it reluctantly. Finally, not everyone who understands it might want to indulge it.

Below simply leans too hard on roguelike and crafting elements, which create an urgent pace and conflict with its more admirable design ideas.

After waiting for Below for over five years, I’m left conflicted. On one hand, it’s a beautiful and deeply engrossing roguelike with fantastic art direction and stunning music from Jim Guthrie. But it also doesn’t quite jive with some of its gameplay systems and, at times, feels like a confusing mixture of ideas. Despite this, however, I still don’t regret my time with Below. Even though it doesn’t always feel cohesive, it’s certainly worth playing, especially if you’re a fan of roguelikes —just know that your mileage may vary in the enjoyment department.

Below’s strongest element is its gripping visual and sound design.

BELOW evokes a fantastically ominous air of foreboding with its soundtrack, and its visual style is unquestionably superb, but as an example of the roguelike, Capy's game does nothing new. Perhaps it's intentionally pared-down, but the resulting game is enjoyable for an hour or two, and a relentless chore thereafter.

Below's extreme demands for patience and tolerance remain right through to the game's mysterious ending. But despite its assured aesthetic and the initial pleasures of discovery, Below will eventually turn into a slog for all but the most committed of players.

Its art style is unique but darkly opaque and as action/survival/roguelikes go, it doesn’t add much new to the genre. With wildly erratic difficulty spikes, the necessity for uninspired grinding and the inevitable and frequent loss of progress, Below is a niche game for a specific target audience that has enormous patience and determination.