Spiritfall is a fast-paced Action Roguelite with combat inspired by Platform Fighters. Slash, smash, launch, and wall-splat a multitude of enemies using an ever-changing arsenal of divine powers.
Spiritfall is a 2D action roguelike with a Hades-style boon structure that plays like a platform fighter. He played it in Early Access and was excited for the full release. As a former competitive Smash player, he found the combat a natural fit and considers the gameplay outstanding. He calls it an easy S tier but says he would still put Hades above it, and admits some Smash bias.
Liked
Combat plays like a platform fighter: aerials, smash attacks, down attacks and even spiking enemies
Every weapon feels like a different character with its own moveset
Hades-style boons from gods, with fusions and combo boons, change how each weapon plays
Strong roguelike layer on top of excellent core gameplay, which is rare for combat-focused games
High replayability from different weapons, blessings and approaches each run
Good sense of progression, with visually distinct worlds and awesome bosses
Plenty to unlock and secrets, including a very hard secret true boss
Disliked
Wants even more content and secrets
Bosses repeat in every world; he wants variations of each boss (like a Pact of Punishment style upgrade)
Synergy blessings are not very impactful and feel underwhelming compared to Hades
Boon choices are sometimes situational, and sometimes all three offers are bad
Top 10 of 2024 (#4)
Spiritfall is a 2D action roguelike heavily inspired by Hades, with the twist of being one of the few true fighting-game roguelikes. He recommends it to Smash Brothers fans, calling the combat crisp, deep and very satisfying. Runs vary a lot thanks to weapon and aspect choices plus blessing-driven builds. He ranks it fourth of the year and calls it one of his favorite games played that year, hoping for ongoing updates with more content.
Liked
Crisp, extensive, very satisfying fighting-game-style combat with combos and a wide range of abilities
Surprising run-to-run variety; different ways to approach each encounter depending on enemy, boss and build
Weapons and aspects each feel like a brand new character, with strong move sets from the start of a run
Items and boons transform the core gameplay into unique builds with many synergies
Divine spirits offer three blessings each that enhance core mechanics with good variety and synergy
Fantastic audiovisuals; each biome feels unique and immersive, with great bosses and an amazing final encounter
Disliked
Wants more content: secrets, different encounters and additional bosses
Hopes the developers keep updating the game, implying current content is limited
A 2D action roguelite by Gentle Giant (published by Team17) whose combat borrows from platform fighters like Smash Bros and Brawlhalla, wrapped in a Hades-style blessings-and-hub structure.
Players like it a lot: Steam sits at Very Positive (about 93% of roughly 2,000 reviews, 92% of the most recent 30 days' small sample). Metacritic user score is 7.5 on only 15 ratings, and there are just 3 critic reviews, so no Metascore and no meaningful critic consensus exists. The dominant take is 'Hades meets Smash Bros', with praise for combat feel, weapons and the difficulty options. The recurring complaint is limited content: same bosses every run, few blessings, a solved feeling after several runs, and a 5-clear structure to see the real ending. It left Early Access (started Apr 2023) and launched 1.0 on Feb 28, 2024; there is no sign of abandonment, since reviews continue into late 2026, though the player base is small (steamspy est. 50k-100k owners, ~16 CCU).
Players love
Combat feels like a platform fighter: launching, wall-splatting and comboing enemies is described as satisfying, with very polished animation and hit feedback
Weapons are distinct from each other and have alternate forms (e.g. Sisterhood Gauntlets, scythe) that change playstyle
150+ blessings, elemental upgrades and assist/bolt abilities that synergise; reviewers say few feel unimpactful
Adjustable difficulty and accessibility options are praised, letting weaker players finish the story
Hand-drawn, Miyazaki-flavoured art and a strong soundtrack (though one critic found the music forgettable)
Permanent upgrades between runs feel meaningful without being mandatory; hidden rifts and secrets reward exploration
Scope is reasonable and what is there is polished; $19.99 price viewed as fair, especially on sale
Common complaints
Low content: the same bosses on the same levels every run and every clear, so it feels repetitive after roughly 6-10 hours
Finishing requires about 5 full clears, and the final payoff is reported as just one extra boss phase, which many call anticlimactic
Only a limited number of blessings/relics and repeated active abilities and status effects; some feel they have solved the game after a couple of runs
Much of the combat is 'ragdolling' enemies in hitstun; true platform-fighter play (knockoffs, edge-guarding) mostly appears only in rifts or the last area
Crowds of overlapping 2D enemies are hard to read, leading to cheap hits and spam-the-dash/projectile play
Enemy telegraphs reported as mismatched with real attack timing; some mobs ignore hitstun to add artificial difficulty
Weak plot and sparse lore; story is minimal and sprinkled in
Reported bugs: credits freeze/loop on completion, brief freezes, enemies attacking before level entry, a boss path glitch, new saves granting achievements; Steam Deck black-screen at launch per ImpulseGamer
Weapon quality is uneven per several negative reviews: outside the fists many weapons are called slow and clunky, with combos that do not mesh with most blessings; the top negative review says knockoff play only appears in the final area or bonus fights
Some players report launch/graphics problems (black screen on Steam Deck, graphics glitching on launch, one refund over it), so performance is not universally smooth
Can feel tedious
Repeating the same boss lineup five times to reach the ending
Grinding skill points and permanent upgrades after the first clear; unlock gating of core moves
Long stretches of low-threat filler rooms before a boss, since shared HP makes small rooms unchallenging
Shielded bosses that do not flinch, which negates the combo-heavy combat exactly where challenge lives
High-tier modifier runs needing a precise build, making 10-skull clears feel unreachable for some
Visual clutter and cheap damage when many enemies and effects are on screen
What's unique
Combat built on platform-fighter ideas (knockback, launching, wall-splat, sweet spots) rather than standard hack-and-slash
Hades-like structure with Slay-the-Spire-style node map for choosing rooms and shared HP across a run
Weapons with alternate forms that change inputs and moveset
Hidden rift rooms that turn into one-on-one knockback duels for extra loot
Hard versions of bosses and Pact-like challenge modifiers after the first clear, plus a boss-rush room
Runs on Mac (no Linux build) and offers granular difficulty adjustment
Players want
More bosses, more rooms/biome variety and procedural variation so runs differ more
More blessings, weapon movesets and build synergies to avoid the feeling of solving the game
Make movement/tech (e.g. wavedash and other advanced platform-fighter mechanics) available earlier instead of behind skill unlocks
Better enemy readability and clearer, consistent telegraphs in crowded fights
Smarter difficulty curve: late-tier modifiers are said to spike damage; first two bosses can be harder than the last
A more rewarding ending and stronger narrative for the multi-clear structure; ability to reset permanent upgrades; clearer info on secrets
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
Action Roguelike2D Fighter2D PlatformerRogue-liteHack and SlashDifficultPlatformerRogue-likeRPG2D
Tier list Part 2 (2024)
Spiritfall is a 2D action roguelike with a Hades-style boon structure that plays like a platform fighter. He played it in Early Access and was excited for the full release. As a former competitive Smash player, he found the combat a natural fit and considers the gameplay outstanding. He calls it an easy S tier but says he would still put Hades above it, and admits some Smash bias.
Liked
Disliked