Roguelikes/Roguelites

[Departed]

Also Vampire Survivors is worth everyone's time. For a game where all you do is move the Left stick it's amazing. Not touched the Ode to Castlevania DLC yet, though.

I picked it up on a whim because everyone I know who played it loved it.  I've never gone from "...that's it?" to "how is it 2am already?  Oh well, one more run" so quickly.  It is so insanely addictive in the best possible way.  Garlic Man is my hero.

Last year, I was really into a game called Astral Ascent too.  It's heavily anime coated but has one of the most enjoyable core gameplay loops I've ever played with a roguelike.  It's just lightning fast combat and traversal with insanely hard bosses and it's got tons of new content coming out too.  At first, I didn't touch it for months because Kamran voices the bad guy and that would get way too distracting but they added Japanese voices so I embraced my inner weab and play it in Japanese only and am so glad I did.

This year, I started playing Dead Cells and while it took a while to click, and its bosses aren't nearly as good or as varied as Astral Ascent, its levels are way better where any direction you go feels like you're always headed in the right direction.  And the music is incredible too.