Dandy Ace Review (It's not slander if it's written)
I'm going to try my best to say this without coming across as an asshole. Bear with me.
Dandy Ace is a game that looked at several other roguelites and dared to ask the question: what if that, but it's about goofy stage-magician-wizards?
It is that, and nothing more. Dandy Ace does not bring anything new to the genre whatsoever. The aesthetic is fun, the writing amusing, but after 7 hours I can only conclude it's just not for me. The sad reality is that Dandy Ace is a game on the same store as Hades and Enter the Gungeon and Dead Cells and all three of those games are just better than it at everything it's doing.
Dandy Ace is not a bad game. It might even be worth the time if you can get it for cheap! But ultimately it's a game that struggles to reach beyond the pile of its contemporaries that far outshine it.
I look forward to Mad Mimic's future projects to see what they do with their talents, because I think the thing the game is lacking is polish and personality outside its fun aesthetic. Movement feels a little too stiff, animation quality varies. But mixing and matching abilities to complement each other is still there from other roguelites, and still feels good. The depth is good, but not exceptional. The music is okay, but not amazing. The voice acting suffers from a case of 'there desperately needed to be more recorded lines', but thankfully the options menu includes the ability to turn off the narration.
Unfortunately the very existence of that toggle tells you that it's just not going to live up to the standard set by something like Hades, but not everyone can hire Logan Cunningham and I don't faul Mad Mimic for that.
I believe the point of a 10-point scale is that a 5 is dead-middle average, and on that scale this game is very much a 6/10. It doesn't stand out as especially good or especially bad, and I don't ever think I'm going to go back to it, but I can't say I actively don't recommend the game.