The Rangers in the South is a roguelike ARPG in which multiple generations of adventurers try to defeat a demon lord causing chaos in the world.
The game features permadeath, meaning that once you die everything on your character is lost, but their stashed items and world progress are transferred to the next generation of heroes.
So, how does it compare to other ARPGs? Are the permadeath mechanics too unforgiving? Is the gameplay any fun? Find out the answer to these questions and more in our full review for The Rangers in the South.
The Rangers in the South
Developer: DPA Studios
Publisher: DPA Studios
Platforms: Microsoft Windows (Reviewed)
Release Date: January 9, 2024
Players: 1
Price: $3.99
The Rangers in the South is a gameplay-first sort of title, dropping players into the world without much explanation after the introduction cutscene. Players get to choose their starting loadout and then set off to explore the world without much setup.
The world features five different areas, which are linearly connected and scale in difficulty as you progress through them. Later areas in the game also feature environmental hazards, which are used to keep the player on their toes.
The world map is revealed slowly as you progress through each biome, and that progress is fixed and permanent between all of your characters. Each part of the world also features a handful of dungeons and magic stones, which are part of the game’s meta progression.
Every time you defeat a dungeon boss, your current character and the next generations receive a permanent increase in damage dealt, while activating magic stones in the overworld does the same but for your maximum health.
The only other main element of meta progression comes from the item stash, which is used to save items for your future characters. Everything your character has currently equipped is lost once they die, but the stashed items persist and can be equipped by the next generation of heroes.
The game hurts itself with these meta progression elements, as there isn’t much of an incentive to explore the world after you find the dungeons and activate the magic stones, since the map is fixed between each generation.
The game feels similar to Realm of the Mad God in the way that it approaches its combat and permadeath mechanics, although it fails to replicate the arcade feel that the latter has, featuring slower-paced combat and uninteresting enemies.
The combat is unfortunately the weakest part of the game, which is a shame because it makes up about 90% of the experience. ARPGs are already known for not requiring much brain power to play, but The Rangers in the South goes a step beyond by having barely anything going on.
Combat mostly boils down to mashing attack, which feels like hell on your fingers after a while, especially since there is no hold-to-attack option. Characters with faster attack speeds require you to spam mouse clicks, which takes a toll on the old wrist. The lack of controller support also hurts the game a lot, as this is the type of game that Steam Deck users would like to have on the go.
The generational system is pretty uninteresting, as you have no real classes, only different flavors of starting gear. There aren’t many skills in the game, and each build archetype only has a handful of useful spells to pick from, so build variety is nonexistent across generations.
Rogue Legacy has been out for over a decade now, so it’s unbelievable to see an indie developer that somehow can’t come up with an interesting system to make each generation interesting to play.
The dungeons are meant to be the most replayable part of the game, but they all feature the same tileset and copy-pasted layouts, so going through them feels like a chore rather than an exciting part of gameplay. All of the game’s bosses, including the final one, are also just bigger enemies that don’t do anything special, making their fights unremarkable.
One of my playthroughs was cut short by the demon lord on a fourth-generation level 11 character, where I got hit for about 80% of my health on every strike. This was possibly the game’s way of telling me that I was underleveled, but running away stops being an option this late in the game.
Needless to say, I died, and leveling up another character started feeling like a chore. As far as I am aware, there is no meta progression that increases experience gain, and it takes a long time to level up. I could already one-shot the enemies in the last area but would probably need to grind ten to twenty extra levels to defeat the last boss, which felt miserable.
The Rangers in the South does not respect the player’s time, as its only way of escalating the difficulty is by making enemies move way too fast and deal way too much damage. The entire game is a stat check that requires you to grind levels to beat, even though it doesn’t have nearly enough content to justify the time it requires from players.
Overall, The Rangers in the South is an uninteresting ARPG that doesn’t give back what you put into it. There are no fun builds to try out, every weapon feels exactly the same, every dungeon is built the same way, and all bosses are just scaled-up sprites of enemies that do basic attacks and nothing else.
Pretty much every other ARPG out there is a better time investment than this, as your reward for beating the game is doing it again with the enemies getting 10% stronger each time. I honestly don’t see how anyone would enjoy such repetitive and grindy gameplay, and that’s coming from someone whose main pastime is playing MMORPGs.
The Rangers in the South does the bare minimum to be considered an ARPG and thoroughly fails at being a roguelike. This is a game that would have benefitted a lot from player input and more development time, as it feels rushed and lacking in content.
