This game is one of the best roguelikes I have ever played It is an absolute gem among other roguelikes and the sheer replayability of the game is great and probably one of the first games im willing to 100%, there are so many items to choose from that make your gameplay completely different and unpredictable every playthrough and the lore actually made me feel emotional which is rare for me, this game deserves a 10/10 rating for every part about it, its one of the best games i have ever played and my taste of games is very picky so finding a game like this that Im willing to play means its probably a good game, I got this game from a friend for my birthday and Im actually spending time with it and am willing to play it unlike some other games that I played for easy achievements or just for jokes, The diversity of every run makes this game special to me as unlocking one usable item to another makes the replayability of this game much higher than others unlike some games that refuse to add new content after you've beaten it, after I beat the final boss of the game with exactly 100 deaths, I am willing to continue playing with the difficulty scaling and new mechanics after beating each difficulty. This game is actually really good for its price and has a DLC. The DLC also adds new content to play with and lets you have even more diversity in between runs if the original game wasn't enough for you, Providing maybe 40 hours of gameplay for someone like me, not too experienced at roguelike games, for 20$ and the substantial replayability that really helps you get your moneys worth, Its worth every penny. I believe giving this game a shot is a really good idea and I highly recommend it for people who like this type of genre of gaming, Indie games are my favorite and AAA games really aren't that good so finding something that fits both those categories also is really good for me as my taste in games revolves around that type of genre, Its inspiration from games like Dungreed is obvious (which is also a game I highly recommend) I managed to 100% the game with around 70 hours and I feel like this game is pretty similar to that as getting all the skulls is pretty easy but some achievements like the ones where you have to not take damage during fights definitely is more time consuming and will take more practice to master, such as remembering attack patterns and timing attacks correctly to not make a mistake when fighting the final bosses which are very difficult to avoid in my opinion, I just started the harder difficulties a couple of hours ago and I dedicate time out of my day just to play this game, its just unmatched to other games and has the most gameplay and lore I've seen out of all them. This game is definitely a high 10/10 and deserves to win awards for the sheer amount of content it has to offer for the low price of 20$, I highly recommend this game to anybody who can play these types of games enjoyably and is looking for a fun experience with lots of content to offer it's a masterpiece that deserves recognition and it gets my rating for one of the best games I've ever played and probably one of the best roguelikes on the market. It standouts out from other games and has lots of gaming references as well such as Overwatch, Dead Cells, God of War, and Terraria. This game is a complete masterpiece and I give it all my respect for one of the best games I've ever played, If you're looking for a game that you want to get your moneys worth and have some fun, Then Skul is the game you're looking for, I wasn't expecting much when I first saw it thinking of something like Hollow Knight to be the main insporation, but playing the game for the first few hours completely changed my mind, I feel like this game is underated and really doesn't have much content on it (At least that I haven't seen) The community is definitely thriving though with places like r/skul and some youtubers making tierlists and update showcases.

The core idea of the game is good, but aspects of Skul feel at odds with itself being a quick, dodge oriented action game.

I'll normally know the enemy telegraphs of the first level by 6 hours into an action roguelike. Trying to figure out why I'm having trouble avoiding damage caused the game to fall apart for me. You fight large crowds in Skul, but enemies do not collide with eachother. Once stacked up, reading their telegraphs becomes much harder, and thus avoiding damage often feels impossible.

Telegraphs themselves are insufficient on all but the big projectile and big body enemies. Pink trees in the first zone shrug for 5 frames and then the attack comes out. Telegraphs aren't long enough to respond to them and aren't obvious enough to spot them in a game trying to be about fighting hordes. You can't manage the horde, thus you never feel in control. When I don't get hit in an encounter, I don't really know why. When I do, I often don't feel like I was given time to avoid it. The pink trees in the first zone are a perfect example, since they shrug for a fraction of a second before the damage comes out. A way to improve this might be making enemies flash when they start a telegraph, or show a red damage indicator where the damage is going to be.

This leads to range being far better than melee. Power skulls with full builds can compete, but otherwise if you can't nuke down the whole crowd then it's simply too much of a liability to be in melee range with enemies that throw out attacks without warning. It's unfortunate, because the melee skulls are the most enjoyable ones for me.

There are also some odd balance and design choices, like having minibosses that float despite the fact that most skulls are incredibly awkward at fighting airborne targets, or lots of short platforms over spike pits when most skulls can yeet themselves over platform edges just by attacking. There's a ton of friction and this many years after release I'd expect these things to have been revised by now.

Ultimately, I think whether you like Skul depends on whether or not those moment to moment problems bother you. If you're fine with the occasional cheap ♥♥♥♥ being thrown at you and combat feeling sloppy at times, you'll probably get a solid 20-30 hours from Skul. If you're like me and really highly value QoL, you might wanna pay close attention during that review period as problems you encounter on level one will be worse later on and you might be past the deadline by then.

I give this game a rank B+ (80-85%)
Cool game - definitely worth a try!
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Well that's it: I have to review this game without finishing it! Damn it.
I will be totally honest here, before reviewing a game I always finish it if I like it a lot, or not if I don't particularly like it. Here is one of the exceptions: I did not finish Skul... but really like Skul! I would not have spent more than 50 hours on this nice, surprisingly rich and cool rogue like, if I did not like it a lot, right?

Sadly, 2 major flaws in this game, and take this critic with a grain of salt as I know I am probably not very good at this game (many players will tell you they finished it in 30 hours and that I just have to get good). First, the difficulty curve in this game is, in my opinion, exponential. You see that typical curve on a graph, starting almost flat, but finishing almost vertical? That's a bit Skul. The first level is EASY, I killed the first boss in my first run. But the further you go, and the more violent and unforgiving it becomes. It's one of these cases where you need a couple of tries to finish the first level, 50 tries to beat the 2nd, a thousand to finish the 3rd... you get the idea: exponential. Second flaw that comes in parallel with that: the game is very, very repetitive. The masterpiece that was Hades taught a new way to design rogue like games in a much, much less repetitive and boring way even after 50 tries. Here, you get rewarded by a big chunk of (albeit cute and interesting) story bit between levels. Beside that? A few dialogues here and there, but they are quite uninteresting. Nothing else. Many, many runs become painfully similar.

But beside that? If you like roguelikes, you should definitely try this one! If you loved Dead Cells, it is VERY similar: lots of action, not much platforming, a few choice of ways to go, lots of variations in your items/upgrades. The game can be quite nerdy if you start analyzing what each item provides, how they fit with one another and all (I had an achievement for spending more than 5 minutes in a shop... yeah, it gets that nerdy!).

Also, HUGE bonus point for the devs as they are the first one giving me an inch of nostalgia with Kid Chameleon after so many years without anybody to carry the flame: you get to find masks (skull heads, to be precise) that transform you into a whole new character with new powers, new game play etc. That is SUPER cool, exactly like Kid Chameleon (although I still prefer KC and platformers).
Sadly, and I think I read someone complaining about that here in the reviews or in the discussions, the game still kind of forces you towards one gameplay style (the dodging) while giving you the illusion you could play differently (with range characters, tank characters etc). But... nah, not really. And so I feel a bit sad, because while I loved the gameplay in Dead Cells which felt extremely addictive, here it ends up being somewhat tedious. In awesome rogue likes, you often think "this is the one, this is the run!", while here, many runs, I KNEW I would not win just because all the skulls I had or the items I got were not ideal. 9 runs out of 10, I knew I would die after a 30 minutes run... so, it gets quite annoying.

So yeah, I still give around 82% to Skul, a very good rating for a really cool game... that I never finished! and so with some reserves to this rating.

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Absolute banger of a game

Main game is great, lots of variety in skull types which made finding new ones and upgrading the ones I already had the most fun part of the game, to see what else they had to offer, bosses are pretty fun to fight, and even when they killed me, I felt determined to go back and learn from it. Also, the story is pretty good.

Difficulty-wise, it's usually pretty fair and has a learning curve, although almost every time I would die it was due to the adventurer mini-bosses and their insane health pools (I've genuinely seen some of the bosses die faster than these guys, and there are usually multiple attacking at once) that make fighting them a chore, and the final boss in the dark mirror is REALLY BAD.

Speaking of the dark mirror, it's fun the first time up until you reach the final boss of it, which is just the usual "anime character flying all over the screen with barely enough time to react to their ridiculous high-damage combos" stuff a lot of games end up resorting to. It was satisfying to eventually beat him, but I still think he was a really unreasonable fight. Also, once you go up to the higher levels of dark mirror, it starts to get more difficult and less fun, which kinda killed my desire to keep going further in it. Funnily enough, there is a "Rookie Mode" that makes the game easier, but it's disabled for the dark mirror and can only be used in the main game where it's totally unnecessary due to the main game being fair. I've heard there are upgrades you get from completing the higher levels of the mirror that make you so powerful you can trivialize the earlier levels, but I don't have the energy to get to those high levels in the first place, so oh well.

If you want a good time with the game, stick with the main game and ignore the dark mirror or just do the lowest level of it, because there is more than enough fun to go around in the main game that makes it worth playing through.

The game continues to challenge you even after you beat normal mode with the different DM options and being able to choose your starting load out. The biggest problem I have is when all the different effects from the items go off at once you can't see where you are or what the enemies doing. Please add a visibility option to make the item effects more transparant!

Amazing game feel, amazing art style, amazing soundtrack, amazing story, amazing game. Would buy a thousand times over. Easily on of my favorite games of all time.

tried to get into it and while novel it just kinda feels flat and very uninteresting. a unique concept and setup (the good guys r evil!!!) but otherwise just something perhaps boringly inspired by Hollow Knight

Engaging for over 60+ hours. The increasing challenges as the difficulty goes up keeps the pressure and entertainment.

its a good game. buy it