Review | Toroom

LifeisXbox’s Toroom review | Living in a cozy house with his brother, one unassuming night Moty, a rabbit with a tophat, and his brother Quicky, surprisingly not a rabbit, got a visit from a mysterious entity. This whisked Moty away to an unknown icy place filled with monsters. Now Moty has to get back to his room fighting all the monsters in his way or die trying at least. Toroom is developed by Gagonfe, Ulon, Rhowsl, the first of which also published it.

ℹ️ | We played Toroom for 4.5 hours on PC. This game is only available on Steam.

What we liked!

• Gameplay | Have you ever played another roguelike? Begin a run, kill as many baddies and maybe a boss before meeting your untimely demise, do it all over again. On the way you’ll pick up some items and weapons, adding spice and variety to your run. This can range from smalltime stat boosts to game-changing boons or banes which are reset upon death. It’s a tried and true formula that Toroom applies to decent effect. As you move room “To-Room” pilfering the local pottery for potions and coins is the second order of business, right after dispatching any enemies who may have the misfortune of being present. Items can be gained from slain foes or bought at shops dotted around the randomly generated map, often giving you that additional bit of firepower you need to take on one of the bosses or harder rooms later in the game.
• Graphics | Visually, Toroom has a very friendly vibe going on. The style is positively pixelated and cartoony. It’s simple, and that makes it work. The world and the enemies come in three distinct styles. You go from barren icy ruins with golems and skeletons to verdant green forests filled with wasps and plants, only to end up in sweltering deserts. The special effects like magic bolts or melee thrusts and prods are all rather simply animated, yet still in keeping with the style. One thing is for sure when you look at the developers’ other works, they know their pixel art.
• Audio | I keep finding audio a hard one to describe for most games, and Toroom is no different from the norm here. Its soundtrack is in a relaxing light electro style with 16bit tones sprinkled on top. It remains largely similar throughout the entire game and across runs. Obviously switching things up depending on the biome, but seeing as I’ve only encountered 3 of those the difference wasn’t all that noticeable. It doesn’t get stale, however as Toroom itself is short enough that you will have beaten it before that happens.
• Good boy | Toroom has followed the cardinal rule of dogs in video games. If there is a dog present in the game, it legally has to enable you to pet it. (not actual legal advice) Luckily, there’s not one, but two instances of this. One is where you can pet a dog shopkeeper. The second, and this is where it gets good, is when you can play as that shopkeeper, and hovering your mouse over his head will turn it into a little hand and he’ll smile extra hard.

Somewhere between

• Bosses | I get that Toroom is a short game, with present yet limited replayability. That to offer a challenge and draw the game out a bit there need to be definite obstacles in your way. But the difficulty spike of Canta Saus largely kept me locked in the ice biome for most of my time with Toroom. I’m not too good at bullet hells where the effects of dodging vary greatly if you have one specific item and bullets come from way off screen most of the time. The second boss I found a lot easier than the first, mostly beating it on my first try and with little damage. It’s a lot more straightforward fight too, yet it retains a good sense of challenge.

What we disliked

• Dodging | I’ve spent a good run or 4 just trying to figure out how the damned dodge works. I’m probably spoilt by games like Dark Souls, Code Vein and Monster Hunter, but if the game gives you a dodge feature that doesn’t actually help you dodge stuff all the time it infuriates me. After looking it up online I found out the dodge doesn’t actually give you any invincibility frames, but just catapults you in a direction.

How long to beat the story | A single run can be done in under 30 minutes.
How long to get all achievements | 6 to 8 hours
Similar with | The binding of Isaac, Torchlight

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