Annihilated Review

Annihilated is a story-driven roguelite RPG about dragging a broken hero out of a cursed dungeon and confronting what broke them. Across four routes, you learn why the party fell and what each survivor has to answer for. The game's biggest strength is its emotional storytelling and the way it ties character growth to combat choices; its biggest problem is that the roguelite structure sometimes fights the story it's trying to tell. With a 96% positive rating from over 500 reviews, it's clearly connecting, but the cracks show when the dice turn against you.

The Core Loop: Steal, Break, Repeat

Combat revolves around stealing weapons from enemies, using them until they break, and sometimes shattering them on purpose for a powerful effect. Players describe this as a fresh twist on turn-based battles that rewards planning and punishes waste. One reviewer notes that breaking equipment for burst damage while pilfering new gear feels more satisfying than a traditional durability system. But the loop can sour: several players report that enemies scale faster than your resources, and a few bad rooms can leave you with nothing but a healing item and a prayer. When it clicks, it's tense and tactical; when it doesn't, it's a grind.

The moment-to-moment feel is deliberately tight. Each run plays like a compact dungeon chapter, with battles, events, and dialogue pushing you forward. Players mention finishing a route in around ten hours, with some bingeing for twelve straight. The pacing is driven by story beats, not endless repetition, which makes it more of a narrative roguelite than a build-optimization sandbox. That's great if you're here for the characters, less so if you crave deep meta-progression.

Choices That Matter—Until They Don't

The game's four routes offer different perspectives on the same events, and players praise how choices ripple through each chapter, leading to multiple endings per character. One reviewer was impressed that the Mage's route alone had several endings based on decisions. However, the inability to save before key choices is a recurring complaint. As one player puts it, locking saves before major decisions kills the desire to explore alternate branches. For a story-rich game, that's a real misstep—it discourages experimentation and can make you feel trapped in your first pick.

Art, Music, and the Price of Admission

The art style is consistently gorgeous, with expressive sprites and CGs that players call charming and moody. Music is another highlight, with tracks that match the intensity of battle and the calm of planning. At $15.29, most players feel the content—four routes and multiple endings—is well worth it. The presentation is polished enough that it's easy to forgive some rough edges, but those edges are there.

Technical issues and missing quality-of-life features drag down the experience. Players report translation problems that make some dialogue confusing, and a cluttered battle interface that obscures information. More seriously, a few encountered a save bug that wiped progress, and many lament the lack of a gallery, compendium, or new game plus. The true ending requirements are especially punishing: they demand specific conditions, like not dying, that are barely hinted at, forcing players to delete saves or edit files. For completionists, that's a slap in the face.

Onboarding is gentle enough—the game eases you into its systems—but the difficulty spikes hard. Some players find the early game manageable, only to hit a wall when enemy stats balloon. The option to switch between manual and probability-based attack systems is welcome, but it doesn't fix the underlying resource starvation. If you're here for the story, you might need to brace for some frustration.