Withering Rooms Review


Withering Rooms review hero

Player(s): 1
Extra Features: N/A

Withering Rooms is a 2D side-scrolling rougelike horror RPG developed by Moonless Formless and published by Perp Games. The game is sort of like playing a horror-themed Metroidvania with Dark Souls style 2D combat. The entire game takes place in a Victorian Mansion (Mostyne House) where the rooms change each night. This is one of the most unique roguelike games that I’ve played in a while and its overall design is really good!

Just when starting out, this game’s presentation is nothing short of fantastic. It truly nails a horror atmosphere, which is amazing for a 2D game. The lighting is superb as well. Enemy designs are so very creepy. The game does not try to scare you, but the feeling of dread is definitely there. Some enemies are so eerie that I dread getting their attention to see what they can do.


The Mansion

The game puts somewhat of an emphasis on sneaking and hiding. You can hide behind certain objects in order to get away from an enemy. You have to be quiet in some areas to avoid alerting enemies. Enemies can come through doors after you and even follow you into other areas. The game has doors along its sidewalls and background walls. You can peak into rooms before entering them to get a hint as to what awaits behind a door.

You gain a good variety of melee weapons that all have their own unique stats. There are also spells that you can cast and items that you can use to help you out during a fight. You can set traps for enemies such as explosive doors by using spells. This game can get very hard. When you die, you lose everything. Some items can be held over from past deaths by setting them to memory at a certain point. You can gain more memory spaces by using certain items later on. Key items will be kept upon death also. Once you die, all enemies that you have killed respawn and all items that you collected will go back to where you found them.

You’ll run into many NPC’s that will give you hints and objectives to complete. Along with a few puzzles here and there, you’ll be finding keys to open doors and finding certain objects in order to progress. The mansion that you are in is quite interesting. Rooms change location upon death and some rooms change up what is inside them to a certain degree. Much like a Castlevania and a survival horror, you’ll have to find certain items in order to enter some areas, such as keys or some other type of item. The basement requires a lamp in order to see inside.


The Circus

My only real problem with this game is its combat. It has sort of a Dark Souls type of combat. You can press in a direction and press a button to roll and press the same button without hitting a direction to do a quick dash backwards (sort of like Alucard in CV: Symphony of the Night). Wait for enemies to attack then dodge and attack them as they recover. The problem with this is that enemies can sometimes hit you immediately after you dodge (or while you dodge). The game gives you PLENTY of items, so all of this isn’t as bad as it could be. You do get one item that gives you invincibility (for a few seconds) as you dodge, but then each dodge curses you to where you’ll get the rot status effect. Thankfully rot is easily curable. There are also other status effect such as bleed, where you constantly lose health while the status effect is active up to a certain point.

Overall, I do truly enjoy Withering Rooms, mainly for its presentation. The combat feels lackluster, but you do get plenty of help in the form of items and other collectibles that you find that help out during combat. The game seems like it is a constant learning experience, which is great! Even with the combat flaw, I still really like this game however. It’s not completely perfect, but it sure is one very unique horror game. This game should be tried by all horror fans at least once. Just because you’re a horror fan doesn’t mean you’re going to instantly like it, but I’m sure you’ll be able to enjoy it for its atmosphere and overall look once you get adjusted to it.

The Good:
+ Lovely horror atmosphere
+ Loads of content and a new game+ with extras
+ Fantastic enemy designs

+ Fitting overall sound

The Bad:
- The combat feels unfair at times

Final Rating: 80% - Withering Rooms is definitely worth a try for all horror fans.

 

Note: A review code for Withering Rooms was provided by the publisher. It was reviewed on PlayStation 5.