Thank you Mad Mushroom for providing us with a review key!

Hell Clock is loosely based off of the 1896 War of Canudos in Brazil where the people defied the new Republic and over 25,000 lost their lives. In this game you play as the revolver-slinging Pajeú who willingly enters the depths of hell to look for and rescue his mentor.

Pajeú’s revolver doesn’t use bullets and is powered by mana. If Pajeú’s mana is depleted he won’t be able to fight back until it replenishes. It’s a good idea to equip gear that increases the mana replenishment rate. Pajeú can equip up to three potions that replenish health, but there is nothing but time that can refill his mana.

Hell Clock is broken down into three acts which contain twenty-one levels apiece. You can expect every seventh level to have a boss waiting for you, but everything else is randomly generated. The default game mode has you racing against the clock to see how far you can get. At first, the time limit is seven minutes, but you can permanently extend it by spending soul points. After repairing the broken church bell, a technology tree with abilities unlocked with soul points becomes available. Later in the Hell Clock you’ll unlock more skills with the blessing of a god and unleashing the power of various constellations. If you’re not a fan of racing against time, you can play in a relaxed mode that freezes the clock in place.

Whether you’re racing against time or not, it’s in your best interest to make Pajeú as fast and as powerful as possible. Ideally you want to be able to literally plow through hordes of enemies and quickly dispatch the bosses. If you find that you’re struggling with either of those, you probably need to end your run and re-spec Pajeú with more powerful relics, weapons, and gear.

Some of the Acts force you to go back and re-spec at least once. In town you can equip relics that have different shapes, and you can wear them if you can fit them into your inventory slots. It’s highly recommended that you expand your space, allowing you to equip more relics. Each relic can be leveled up five times if you can afford to do so.

As you defeat enemies they’ll often drop trinkets that will boost your stats for the entirety of your run. These trinkets can increase your damage, movement and attack speed. You’ll gain experience, and when you level up you’ll have the opportunity to upgrade your attack skills’ speed and damage. Many of the levels have shrines of blessing that will bolster your stats for a short amount of time. Later in the game you’ll encounter corrupted shrines that you’ll need to cleanse by surviving waves of enemies. You’ll earn a constellation point as a reward for cleansing a shrine.

Many of the enemies you’ll encountered are undead or in a spirit form. They’ll leave behind puddles of blood when defeated. There are many cutscenes and some of them are pretty gruesome. Other than the gory details, I really liked the art style in Hell Clock.

This game is voice acted in Spanish, but it has subtitles for the rest of us. If you’re paying attention you’ll get to learn curse words like d*mn and b*stard. The background music is fitting, but doesn’t stand out much on it’s own.

I found the dungeon crawling experience and ambient music reminiscent of the original Diablo game. There are thirty-three Steam achievements available. After completing the main storyline, you can continue on in an endgame mode, but it’s still considered in beta state. If you enjoy dungeon crawlers and rogue-like games, Hell Clock is worth looking into.