When comparing One More Dungeon vs Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic, the Slant community recommends One More Dungeon for most people. In the question“What are the best roguelikes/roguelites on PC?” One More Dungeon is ranked 42nd while Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic is ranked 47th. The most important reason people chose One More Dungeon is:
Staves act as the ranged weapon to shoot projectiles at your foes, as well have some magical attributes like freezing, poisoning, and burning. Staff use is limited as ammo comes in the form of various crystals (fire, ice, and acid) which can be found scattered around the maps. Some staves, such as the Ice Beam Staff, only consume ice crystals. However others, like the Mirror Staff which causes your shots to bounce off walls, requires 1 crystal of each type to use. Some enemies are also weak to certain damage types like fire or acid, so you'll have to plan and manage your crystals appropriately if you want to do max damage with staves. Between the sheer variety of staffs and micromanaging your crystals to use each staff to it's full potential, everything comes together into a ranged weapon system that's both interesting and functional.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Interesting ranged weapon play
Staves act as the ranged weapon to shoot projectiles at your foes, as well have some magical attributes like freezing, poisoning, and burning.
Staff use is limited as ammo comes in the form of various crystals (fire, ice, and acid) which can be found scattered around the maps. Some staves, such as the Ice Beam Staff, only consume ice crystals. However others, like the Mirror Staff which causes your shots to bounce off walls, requires 1 crystal of each type to use.
Some enemies are also weak to certain damage types like fire or acid, so you'll have to plan and manage your crystals appropriately if you want to do max damage with staves.
Between the sheer variety of staffs and micromanaging your crystals to use each staff to it's full potential, everything comes together into a ranged weapon system that's both interesting and functional.
Pro It gives you a fresh experience every run
The dungeons, items, and enemies are procedurally generated. This ensures the levels are truly random each and every time, with items, bosses, traps, and secret rooms scattered about in new places every run. You'll never play the same map twice.
Pro Retro art style
The simple pixel art is full of charm for those that enjoy the bloated 8 bit style, and it takes a lot of it's inspiration from games such as the original Doom and Minecraft. The blocky textures, chunky pixels, and 2D enemies are a definite nod to old school gaming. It's a visual feast for retro lovers.
Pro You can customize the gameplay with Mutators for an added challenge
Every time you kill an enemy, you earn points which can be used to purchase Mutators. These Mutators are game options that change your experience a bit, and are a great way to try something new or add an extra layer of difficulty. Some examples of Mutators include starting the game with 1 hit point, reduced view distance, extra power ups, and extra enemies. There are quite a few to choose from, and you can activate 2 at a time which means you can mix and match them to find your perfect challenge.
Pro Barebones gameplay but still quite fun for a few hours
One More Dungeon is a fairly basic first person dungeon crawler. Roaming around dungeons, picking up power ups, killing enemies, avoiding traps, and using a variety of different weapons. There's no looking up or down, so combat is pretty straightforward. Run up and hit a monster, or line up your ranged attack. Bosses have a few simple mechanics but nothing fancy. Dungeons are randomly generated so you'll never play the same one twice.
Pro Pixel perfect
Graphics and fonts are pixel perfect.
Pro Retro look, sound & feel
Authentic 8bit visuals, sound & music. Also with authentic low screen resolution.
Pro Quick save
A feature that should be necessary for all mobile games, quick save allows the user to set the game down at any time by saving quickly, making for a game that can be played in plenty of short bursts without loosing any progression.
Pro Humorous with nerd culture references
The game has a good sense of humor with many inside jokes referencing things such as Tolkien, Lovecraft as well as modern day dev. culture.
Pro Tons of loot
Cons
Con Repetitive gameplay
The randomly generated maps are very similar to one another. In most cases, they require a bunch of backtracking due to bad layouts, meaning a lot of play time is spent walking instead of fighting. Enemies either blindly charge at you or sit at the same predetermined distance to shoot at you, without any kind of noticeable strategy behind their actions. Overall, the similar maps and predictable enemies just don't change things up enough from level to level to retain your interest for long.
Con Melee weapons feel imbalanced to play with
The melee weapons seem to hit a little off center and to the right of where you're actually aiming. You can adjust for this with a little practice, but it just doesn't feel good to control. Also, the range on most melee weapons is so low that they're almost effectively useless since you have to be practically right on top of enemies. During the early game, you'll be too weak to be up close and personal with enemies, so the sheer difficulty discourages any kind of melee play.
Con You can't look up or down
There's no Y-axis which means you can't look up and down. This greatly reduces the immersion in the environment and your only perspective is limited to a straight on, first person view.
Con There's no story
The only goal is to escape the various dungeons, and there's no kind of story to keep your attention. While this may be okay for some, those who prefer at least a basic story with their games might be disappointed.
Con Limited starting characters
Starting characters are limited and random, which can be frustrating, especially when the game is centered around restarting many, many times.
Con No roguelite features
Pixel Heroes subscribes to Roguelike rules where there is zero carry over from previous playthroughs. When compared to the small amount of progression seen in Roguelites this may be a turn off for some users.
Con Status effects overpowered
Status effects have too much of an advantage over the player, which means a focus has to be on countering them, leaving other elements to not be focused on due to being under-powered in comparison.