OVIS LOOP is a fast-paced roguelike brilliantly executed by a small development team. Heavy with style and unapologetically steeped in action, OVIS LOOP isn’t afraid to throw players into hacking and slashing through hordes of cybernetically enhanced canine predators, nor does it shy away from the occasional cup of hot chocolate. Incredibly well-polished, I was surprised to learn that the game was only in Early Access, and the future for this title as it finishes its development cycle looks promising.
“Ovis” is a Latin word referring to the genus of animals that makes up sheep, and OVIS LOOP fittingly puts players in control of Omega, a robotic sheep and the last of their kind, built to avenge the fallen race by defeating Dr. Wolf, the enigmatic leader of a group of cybernetically enhanced wolves seeking to strip the world of its few remaining resources. To do so, Omega leads a brutal crusade against the wolves, dying, rebooting, and dying again until they finally get it right, collecting upgrades, new weapons, and skills along the way.
As you’ve probably guessed, OVIS LOOP is a roguelike and stays true to the genre’s popular gameplay loop. If you’re unfamiliar, this involves fighting through a series of levels with procedurally selected enemies, collecting procedurally generated rewards at the end, and doing so with a persistent health bar. You collect more power-ups as you continue your run, but if you die, you’re sent back to the start without them. A series of currencies can be earned to permanently upgrade your character, and new skills and collectible power-ups are unlocked as you play.
The big, unique twist on the genre’s mechanics in OVIS LOOP is a “combo-crafting” system. As you unlock powers during your run, you aren’t simply given choices of “Relics” or small passive stat boosts like in other roguelikes. Instead, many of the rewards you collect change your selected skills, giving them passive or active components that greatly affect their effectiveness in battle. This allows you to essentially build your own skills in a way you won’t find in other titles.
What’s more, these power-ups aren’t simply handed to you. They’re stolen from the enemies you defeat and then added to your own abilities. This approach makes you feel like an adaptive android, absorbing the strength of your foes to grow stronger yourself.
The game contains a varied cast of enemies, each with unique designs and attack patterns, ensuring you never grow bored of encountering them in their increasingly large hordes… or at least I didn’t. A particularly interesting design choice is that every level has a boss fight. This is achieved by giving one of the basic enemies an “elite” variant with increased health and a series of power-ups, creating an engaging end-level battle that must be defeated before you can move on to your reward. This can make conserving health throughout your run challenging.
Thankfully, it’s not incredibly hard to master dodging in OVIS LOOP or the combat in general. The combat plays like it would in a Metroidvania-style game. Aside from your two combo abilities unlocked during the run, you’re given a basic light attack and a dodge button, which dashes you to the side of your choice while giving you invincibility frames. Far from Dark Souls-level complexity, OVIS LOOP is simple enough to master with some effort, but complex enough to remain challenging and interesting once you do, without becoming overbearing.
Something that certainly stands out in OVIS LOOP is its art style. There’s a pulp fiction feel to its pixel art, which uses strong contrasts of dark and bright-but-grim colors to give everything a comic book look. You get the impression that Omega is fighting for a ruined world, as black terrain and washed-out orange skies give everything a look of being dead or dying. The black, gray, orange, and blue hues of the cyborg wolves give them an intimidating yet distinct appearance, highlighting their cyborg features and helping them stand out on the screen.
Omega themselves is a very interesting case for a sci-fi protagonist design. Their massive sword and glowing blue robotic accents clash with the soft, fluffy look of a sheep, all wrapped in an edgy leather trench coat to create a contradiction that somehow works.
If I had to say any aspect of the game lives up to the Early Access nature, it would simply be that it can feel a little lacking in some areas. I could do with more power-ups for the player, more side content to explore between battles, and above all else, more story. The story as it exists in OVIS LOOP, feels short and is digested by the player too quickly in brief cutscenes. These cutscenes and the comic-panel-like still frames used to display the story, however, are still excellently done; I just wish there was a bit more pulp in the writing and in the pacing aspects of the story.
Overall, OVIS LOOP is a shockingly stable and well-put-together Early Access roguelike that’s sure to win over fans of the genre quickly. Its unique mechanics, story, and artistic direction help it to stand out in a genre of games that often wins me over in all three aspects.
Pros
- Unique “combo-crafting” system for custom skill creation
- Strong visual style with striking color contrasts
- Smooth, easy-to-learn but challenging combat mechanics
Cons
- Limited story content with quick pacing
- Could use more power-ups and side activities
TryHardGuides was provided a Steam code for this PC Early Access Review of OVIS LOOP. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page!
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