When comparing Crypt of the NecroDancer vs Caves of Qud, the Slant community recommends Caves of Qud for most people. In the question“What are the best roguelikes/roguelites on PC?” Caves of Qud is ranked 11th while Crypt of the NecroDancer is ranked 23rd. The most important reason people chose Caves of Qud is:
Mutations are one of the biggest parts of Caves of Qud. Want to be a two-headed beguiling spider-thing? A four-armed flying plant-man? You can. There's also lots of armor, weapons, and equipment, which can be found enchanted, as well as a bunch of "spells" (mental mutations) and skills.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Unique gameplay
Crypt of the NecroDancer is a dungeon crawler that is also a rhythm game. Your character can move, attack, and use special abilities only to the beat of a level's music. This means you have to split your attention between listening to the music and watching enemy movements. If you miss a beat your character won't do anything, but your enemies still get to move and attack. While the enemies are bound by the same rules as you, they won't ever miss the beat. Fortunately enough, they're always bound to a rhythm, so learning an enemy's rhythm is the key to defeating them. As a result, the gameplay stands out in both the roguelike and rhythm game genre.
Pro Fantastic soundtrack
Crypt of the NecroDancer has one of the best soundtracks you'll hear in a video game, featuring EDM, synthwave, and even heavy metal music. Each song has a unique tempo, rhythm, and feel to it, so you'll never get tired of listening to them.
Pro Tons of customization
Mutations are one of the biggest parts of Caves of Qud. Want to be a two-headed beguiling spider-thing? A four-armed flying plant-man? You can. There's also lots of armor, weapons, and equipment, which can be found enchanted, as well as a bunch of "spells" (mental mutations) and skills.
Pro Fantastic User Interface
The UI in Qud is very well designed, which helps to make it easy to get into.
Pro Interesting and original setting
The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world that feels truly unique. Caves of Qud's world is like no other, and everything from the creatures/characters you'll encounter, to the items you'll find, and the locations you'll discover is different from what you would find in most rogue-likes.
Pro Over 60 factions
Befriend or become enemies with dozens of different factions—crabs, turtles, robots and even trees to name a few.
Pro Unique idea
Unique content and idea of "retro-future" make this "not another rogue-like", in a way.
Pro Unique and evocative prose, art and music
Extremely well written, with highly evocative prose which brings this unique world to life. The fantastic writing is supplemented by a unique art style and sublime otherworldly music.
Pro Huge, procedurally-generated world
Cons
Con Extremely hard
The combat in this game has an insanely fast tempo, requiring you to split your attention between the music and the on-screen enemies. Losing focus even for a split-second means you'll probably die, so you'll have to restart the level. At times this will feel really overwhelming, especially if there are many enemies around.
Con Co-op can make the game a lot harder
While Co-op in most games makes a game easier, Crypt of the Necrodancer is the opposite. This boils down to three main reasons.
First, you and your co-op partner have to share money and items. This can lead to two under-equipped characters that struggle with killing enemies and surviving their blows.
Second, there's no splitscreen, meaning your movements need to be in sync with your partners. If you happen to go in the opposite directions, you can get stuck or attract multiple groups of enemies, causing you to get overwhelmed.
Third, you share one beat counter with your co-op partner. So if one if you misses a beat, that's the end of a combo for the both of you. Not keeping up a combo means you'll have less gold and consequently less gear.
Con Can be difficult to get started
The beginning of the game explains little, depending on what attributes you put points into in character creation will have a high level of impact at the start of the game. This is not explained to the player, so if you do not put 18 points into "toughness" without having a very particular build in mind that will have some way of dodging or avoiding attacks, the result will just be plenty of death with little advancement.
Con Cooldown simulator
Con UI is in the way
UI is in the way, literally. Even with the overlay mod you'll have issues. The original overlay is too bulky and hard to read.