One Way Heroics (OWH) is a roguelike RPG released in 2014, during a time when the indie scene was rapidly growing. The base game is perfectly playable on its own, but you’ll want to move on to the PLUS expansion once you’re acquainted, as it delivers more of everything and streamlines the clunky bits. The core gameplay is mostly that of a traditional roguelike RPG – explore the world, slay monsters, get loot, and grow stronger.

After choosing a starting class, the game tosses you in front of King Victor, who explains that you have been summoned to stop a great Darkness from consuming the land by vanquishing the Demon Lord. As the screen starts scrolling, you’ll stumble out of the gates just before the Darkness consumes the castle and its inhabitants, eliciting cartoonish screams of fear. Within five minutes you’ll be dead. In proud roguelike tradition, One Way Heroics teaches the hard and important lessons through a fresh corpse.

The post-game gives you the chance to unlock content as you play, or upgrade the Dimensional Vault. Although OWH is a rogueLIKE, the Dimensional Vault allows you to store items across runs, turning it into a something of a rogueLITE until you wean yourself off the training wheels. The Vault doesn’t let you steamroll through the game though – victories are earned, even on the lowest difficulty. Eventually, you make it to the third day alive. Another couple runs and finally you’ll have the Demon Lord dead at your feet. At this point, you’ve mastered the basics and can now kill a Demon Lord in 30 minutes. That’s just the beginning. There are higher difficulties, and the game will gradually hint at how to achieve the other endings.

While most roguelikes will push you towards action using a hunger mechanic, hunger is typically like the timer in most Super Mario games – irrelevant until it gets very low. OWH also uses hunger, but the encroaching wall of Darkness doesn’t play by these rules. The Darkness is always within sight, ever ready to consume you if you’re careless. It adds a unique sense of immediacy and urgency to your actions, and really makes the game tick. OWH might be turn-based, but when you’re right up against the Darkness with a horde of monsters in front, you will feel the immense pressure of time.

The Darkness also brings a number of interesting consequences to the game’s inventory. Genre standards dictate a doubling down on complexity, but OWH dispenses with much of it, settling down around the complexity level of Shiren the Wanderer. As is convention for roguelikes, enemies play by the same rules as the player. Items that stun, blind, confuse, and entangle are effective even against bosses. Movement options are also invaluable for escaping the Darkness when mountains block the way forward. Your weapons and armor can be enchanted, but they also have limited durability; losing a good weapon really hurts. Carrying spare equipment is a delicate balancing act in tandem with items for healing, buffing, debuffing, and escaping – every item has its uses.

The various classes have very distinct playstyles. Whether you’re a front-line berserker Swordmaster, a hit-and-run Hunter, or a fireball tossing Force-User, there’s something for everyone. The importance of staying ahead of the Darkness also allows the Adventurer to exist, a class with weak combat skills but unparalleled movement options that wouldn’t work nearly as well in most roguelikes. A wide array of perks allows you to tweak your character’s abilities for the run. Besides stat boosts, perks also offer starting equipment, reduce food consumption, and a few more exotic options. There really is something here for every playstyle, and it is interesting to see how seemingly weak perks suddenly become very strong depending on which ending you are gunning for.

The visuals are very clean. It’s nothing special of course, but the graphics are extremely functional. You will never mistake terrain for enemies or objects, and enemies are easily distinguishable. The graphic effects are also quite expressive, letting you see easily what enemies are all doing, and the little icons marking the various buffs and debuffs are likewise fairly intuitive. The various menus and UI elements are also well organised, everything is in its place, and you always know exactly what’s what.

Sound - music in particular - is one of the few things in which an indie title can compete with AAA titles, and in this department OWH+ shines. The subdued brass of the prairies empowers with a sense of achievement. Snowfields hint at the tragedy about to befall the magical winter wonderland. Volcanoes fire up the bravado as if you’re ascending the fires of Mount Doom. I especially love the Desert theme’s melancholic reminder of how alone you are in your desperate quest to save the world as you plod on quietly, with the eternally sombre gaze of the stars as your only witness. Even as you explore the varied and wondrous soundscapes, the persistent threat of the Darkness and the relentless oppression of time are ever present in the score, hiding between the notes as if Hans Zimmer were scoring a Chris Nolan-directed RPG.

There are a few mild moral concerns with One Way Heroics beyond the standard fantasy RPG fare. You’ll be killing monsters and ancient evils by the hundreds, but dead enemy sprites simply disappear on death. Weapon swings are animated, and enemies perform a quick back-and-forth ramming sort of animation, but that’s about it. Innocent characters can be killed, causing guards to chase after you for a while. One of the buildings that can spawn is a non-specific church, and its single lone inhabitant will reduce your bounty for a fee, which of course is incorrect – salvation comes by faith and not by works. There are also Dark Brotherhood outposts that specifically allow murderers in. If one particular party member dies, you will take her severed hand to use as a magical key, per her dying request. One particular shopkeep sells alcohol. The Hero ability Zenura Weave strips you nude, and the crotch is covered in the post-game collages; it's done in a spirit of childlike comedy as you might find in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Language is fairly clean. NPCs are occasionally spawned with a “Naughty” modifier, but the raunchiest dialogue I’ve encountered is only mildly suggestive. For example, Naughty King Victor says he “swings both ways” and Naughty Dosey the werewolf wants to lick you all over, but these statements also make perfect sense in context without relying on any sexual innuendos. The Switch port removed what little objectionable material could be found, and has received an E rating from the ESRB; the only character that really pushes this is the companion Panty Shot, who leans heavily on the fourth wall. But with all that said, none of the text or dialogue in the PC version would push this game past an E10+ ESRB rating.

One Way Heroics PLUS is truly a diamond in the rough. It distills the core components of traditional roguelikes to the essentials, focuses it into a tight 30-minute session, and injects a unique Darkness mechanic that creates situations that wouldn’t normally be seen in this genre. There is massive replayability to be had, and it never gets old. If you’re a fan of roguelikes, massive discounts for OWH+ come regularly – less than $5 for both the game and expansion is an absolute steal.