Otherworld Legends by Chillyroom (the makers of Soul Knight) has just been released. So, I've been playing a bit of it.
To put it in a nutshell, it's kind of like a mixture between Soul Knight, Binding of Isaac, and River City Ransom. But slightly anime'y/Dragon Crown'y (sound-wise, proper pixel-art though, with just a tiny bit of jiggle).
In essence, it's an action roguelite, with a fairly heavy melee focus. Except when it isn't.
And it's pretty good.
Chillyroom tends to release stuff when there's a game there, and it's not bad, and then add a heap of stuff to it later, so it's a tiny bit barebones for now. At least, compared to Soul Knight, but they've had that out for ages. So, I'm almost certain that this will end up with heaps more stuff in it, as they create it. They're pretty good like that.
I've used the initial Monk-chick punchy character and the Archer-girl shooty one. Both are pretty satisfying to use, play very differently compared to each other, and can be tooled for various playstyles pretty easily.
You get two skills, and then collect BoI style modifiers for your basic attacks and skills. And some of them are awesome. You can have four mods equipped, carry as many as you want to swap in and out in your backpack, and potentially up to four on your weapon. All characters also get a dodge roll, and while it feels a tiny bit clunky at first (in fact, all the controls do), the moment you get used to it, you feel like a friggen ninja.
Want a continuous dps setup? Go twin shadow striker with the monk, to triple your basic attack dps and proc item mods. Want a room cleaner? Go for twin shoulder barge, because it hits pretty hard and gives tonnes of i-frames, but can be difficult to line up on bosses. Or go for a mix with super-ki-punch and a shoulder barge, for a bit of generally-good-at-everything stuff. It's actually pretty nice having these sorts of options from the get-go on each run, and how they variously change your playstyle and mod setup to a pretty high degree.
The archer might be a tiny bit too good (I've gotten to world 3-3 within a few hours, and I'm hopeless at this sort of game. It took me ~15 months to finish Soul Knight, playing occasionally). Twinning your basic arrow-barrage skill can proc some silly stuff. Pre-charge your bow, walk into room, fire, press skill 1+ skill 2, and start moving/charging your next shot or roll like hell until your skills are off cool down.
You do get some amazing mods too. I had a "poison cloud around me + poison damage" bow, every enemy you kill might get raised as an ally in that room, every enemy killed creates an AoE lightning strike on it, and every enemy killed makes a magic missile swarm. For general rooms, the kill-chains were hilarious. It also turned the desert boss's adds against it, and put the halberd-knight boss's 1st-phase horse on my side. Very funny stuff.
(just had a +attack speed (subbed out for -cooldown for extra shoulder barges later), possible freeze fairy, possible lightning arc fairy, get a tutorial enemy knight ally always, and "all armour is health plus you now have health Regen" mod on my weapon run on a shoulder-charge main + shadow-boxer secondary skill setup Monk run. Felt amazing. Could hit and proc stuff, but could damage and dodge as well)
Anyway, give it a go. There's a tiny bit of learning curve with the controls, especially considering how fluid Soul Knight's felt, but then you all of a sudden feel really comfortable with them, and they feel great. Yes, there are paid$ characters, but the Monk and the Samurai can probably do pretty well anyway, and they're free. Though, as soon as I started using the Archer was the moment I learnt how to play properly, and those skills transfer back onto other characters pretty well too.
So, yeah. If action roguelites are a thing you like, this is one of them. And it's quite good, even very early in the development cycle of it.
(played a bit more. Have the Knight and the Samurai as well now. The Knight hits very hard, has a long-range part in their combo, and has a charge-up attack, but instead of a dodge they have a shield block. Very, very strong, but pretty slow. The Samurai is pretty nice, with good burst damage and an i-frame execution special, but haven't used him heaps yet. Have the option of unlocking the Engineer and the Shopkeeper (yes, you can kill the shopkeeper, then unlock him to use), but haven't gotten around to buying them yet. Apparently there's going to be an update soon, where things are buyable for non-cash collectables, so I might hold off for a bit. Still, I'm happy to throw $5-6 at a game from a developer I like, to get the ball rolling for them. It's like the cost of a drink at a bar, so no biggie)
((played a bit more, after the "don't have to pay cash for stuff" update. Archer-chick with twin rapid-shot (penetrating on main skill) is So OP. It's fun as, even for someone bad at games like this. It's like Enter the Gungeon, but you're the only one with a machine gun and a dodge-roll. It's pretty fun))