Dice Gambit is one of those games where how much you get out of it comes down to how you feel about different gameplay elements. Are you okay with luck perhaps not being on your side and giving you the dice rolls you need for quick battles? Do you like quickly cycling through characters to develop the best builds for a party? Are you okay with a little repetition? If the answer to even one of those is yes, then at the very least it is worth trying out the demo of Chromatic Ink’s stylish game.
As Dice Gambit begins, we first use the character creator to develop our initial avatar and Inquisitor. The character design and artistic direction is incredibly unique and stylized, with options to go serious or silly. Upon picking their identity, we are summoned home to the city of Neo-Talis. The city is plagued by individuals who transform into enemies called Chromatics. While our family is a well respected one made up of Inquisitors who face these opponents, they also must curry favor with the members of the Adicia, Medos, and Nova to maintain power and respect. Working with Stecchi Grefiore, studying at the academy, going on expeditions to fight battles, getting married to expand the family with new kids, and repeating that to end the Chromatic scourge quickly becomes our primary focus.
Dice Gambit, though it has some roguelike elements when it comes to getting additional Inquisitors in your family, is a strategy game in which dice roles determine your actions. When a turn starts, you roll the dice in your hand. The Haste icons that come up will allow you to move around the grid on a map or perform actions. A shield is a Defense icon for defending and abilities. The Signature is your family’s signature abilities, and so on. Also helpful, but hazardous, are Chroma symbols that make the Chromatic enemies stronger, but act as a wild card to help you get enough symbols for certain actions and movements. So to move up to three spaces, you need to burn one Haste die. If I wanted my Berserker to use the Flurry attack that would let it both move and attack, while also healing if I defeat an enemy, I’d need either two Attack icons, an Attack and a Chroma, or two Chroma. The problem is, while it is possible to reroll, this does mean a lot of things are left up to range. We go through battles, but must rest and take into account stamina loss to ensure we don’t send our units into a fight at low health or with debuffs due to exhaustion.
Stamina management is one of the light life-sim elements in there. We will send our characters to an Academy to develop their abilities, movesets, and classes. This is also tied to marriage, since who you are tied to determines abilities. Not to mention classes open up as our reputation increases and we unlock them and build up our family. By the second act of the game, we’re able to bring in Inquisitors who can fill certain roles in a party to really help you grow your force. These folks can act as attackers (Berserker, Knife Juggler, and Sniper), ones that are designed to debuff enemies (Alchemist, Scorcher, and Shutterbug), and supporters who help units move around (Director, Gunblade, and Translocationist). Like with a game like Disgaea, getting new children following marriage means a new unit at level 1 with higher starting stats.
It’s when you get into the second act that Dice Gambit opens up and simultaneously starts to feel a little limiting. This is because we still see the same sorts of maps and situations, but difficulty feels like it ends up being based more on how many enemies appear each time at once. There are more enemies, who summon more allies, and that sometimes feels like the whole “challenge.” But we can’t even experiment as much with builds, since we are limited in how many class and unique skills each of our units can have, and there are certain ones that feel most important.
As a result, the game begins to push a player into builds that emphasize pairing up a Berserker with other passive skills or getting that class’ Spur of the Moment or Onslaught skills to help others. After a point, it became about ensuring my Berserkers, Snipers, and Directors worked well together to inflict as much pain on as many enemies as quickly as possible. However, Dice Gambit is one of the shorter games with roguelike elements out there. The time limits mean someone going through on a more casual basis might not notice the more repetitive elements. At the same time, that does mean you can’t spend forever customizing your family and characters. But as long as you realize you should be quickly building up new generations and investing gold into swiftly leveling the new ones, you’ll be fine. Especially since the whole marriage and relationship system doesn’t feel involved.
While some of the Dice Gambit issues that might come up could come down to personal preferences determining how they affect you, I did experience a quirk that hampered the handheld gaming experience. The Steam product page notes it is “playable” on a Steam Deck and there should be a default controller configuration. On a Lenovo Legion Go, it would not kick in. I ended up having to play on a laptop instead. This isn’t a dealbreaker at all, but those who only play on handhelds of some sort should keep that in mind before picking it up and test The First Act demo to ensure it runs properly.
Dice Gambit can be a creative strategy game, though it is one that relies heavily on luck and repetition. It looks unique and can encourage some unusual builds as you work out which active and passive skills help most when facing hordes of enemies. I just recommend testing out the demo first to ensure its gameplay loop is one you’d enjoy.
Dice Gambit is available on PCs.
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