When comparing Random Adventure Roguelike vs Nethack, the Slant community recommends Random Adventure Roguelike for most people. In the question“What are the best roguelikes on Android?” Random Adventure Roguelike is ranked 13th while Nethack is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose Random Adventure Roguelike is:
The game sets you in an open world with random quests. You can go wherever you want, kill monsters, help people by taking quests, craft items, improve your equipment, or even sail to another island. This makes for a game that can be played as the player wants, exploring and adventuring as they please.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Fun mix of sandbox and roguelike gameplay, where you decide where you want to go and what you want to do
The game sets you in an open world with random quests. You can go wherever you want, kill monsters, help people by taking quests, craft items, improve your equipment, or even sail to another island. This makes for a game that can be played as the player wants, exploring and adventuring as they please.
Pro Retro but modern look and feel makes for a game that gives some nostalgia while also keeping up with its contemporaries
The game has no graphics (apart from the icons for the items and menus) but has a nice layout design and colorful text. It just feels like an old-school game made today.
Pro Enormous amount of content that allows for tons of customization, allowing each game to feel unique
There is a huge number of skills and ways you can improve your character, with a cool leveling system. The sheer amount of customizations included in this content makes for a way to have unique playthroughs, when making different choices.
Pro The turn based gameplay lends itself well to those that enjoy taking their time with thought out moves
Like an true roguelike the game is turn-based, meaning every turn the player takes, the rest of the board takes on turn. This way you can easily labor over what you would like to do next, as nothing happens in the game until you move.
Pro Completely free, meaning anyone can try the game
The game is currently completely free, with an option for donations so the developer feels more motivated to continue developing the game. There are no ads, and there's no bonus if you donate. It's just an altruistic option.
Pro Intuitive interface where it is pretty easy to figure out how to navigate the game
Being based on text graphics the game controls are pretty intuitive being that what there is to do is displayed in text on the screen.
Pro Depth
The gameplay is very deep due to the amount of skills and systems present in the game.
Pro Potential for enormous skill growth
Nethack is a game that you can play for hundreds of hours and still not master. But you'll have tons of fun attempting to master it.
Pro Over two decades of constant development
Nethack was first released in 1987. The latest version, 3.6.0, came out in December 2015.
Pro ASCII and tiles available
Nethack is able to run on simple ASCII graphics or use graphic tiles instead.
Cons
Con Very small overland screen/map
While there is a huge amount of customization and crafting, the dungeon and overland map/screen seems added as an afterthought. The result is that it's easy to lose track of where you are, and it often feels like you aren't "going" anywhere.
Con Buggy
Crafting weapons seems to not allow any weapon higher than a 1/1. The game may crash when trying to save and exit or just crash while playing. Making for a frustrating experience.
Con Low quality graphics
Con Burden of knowledge
There's simply too much information that the game expects you to know before you can properly take advantage of the systems in the game.
Con Feature creep
NetHack has an overwhelming amount of features mostly because the development team found them cool at the time, but with little thought of their greater impact. For example, a Nethack staple is Sokoban as a built-in minigame, which feels out of place in a dungeon crawler.
The extremely large amount of items and abilities break the game's balance and coherence.
Con Outdated controls
You need to study a wiki just to learn the most basic controls. The game is broken in this regard.
Con ASCII Art
Con Run of the mill story
The story of the game is pretty generic fantasy fare. It features orcs, elves, and trolls in an effort for the hero to save the world. While it does not detract from the gameplay, it does seem very familiar to those interested in the genre.