Before I get on to why exactly I like 13Z by Mixed Realms, I’m obligated to share some important context:
Character action fans are a hungry lot. What Hideaki Itsuno doesn’t know is that thanks to the success of Devil May Cry, a much larger audience of high-execution freaks have spawned, with words like “canceling” meaning more than digging up the old tweets of a mediocre pop star.
The problem is it stands on the polar opposite of what makes a game popular- or so conventional wisdom says. Making your game have its fun locked behind practice makes an increasingly algorithm-fed audience less likely to want to pick up something they’re not automatically good at.
13Z Is Gunning For My Heart With This Movement
All this to say, I think 13Z is great because it stands in defiance to this. The upcoming character action rogue-like has a pretty unique premise- you are a character competing to be the 13th zodiac, and to do so you’ll need to clear a rogue-like challenge.
Where it shines, though, is the application of this. Playing the public beta build, the UI resembles a lot of mobile games, looking to be something like Zenless Zone Zero- flashy, but ultimately without a lot of the juiciness that turn a Devil May Cry 2 to Devil May Cry 3.
Imagine my surprise when I start playing 13Z and going through the tutorial- it walks me through basic attacks, secondary attacks, dash attacks and skills. But something’s amiss- the secondary attack is an upswing. And you can jump after it. Once your soul is untethered from gravity, you can even do basic attacks if you don’t want to spike them back to the ground. Suddenly, a voice calls out.
“Jump after the second hit, my child”
And so I jump. And so I am allowed another loop instead of doing the combo finisher.
That’s when I knew I was on to something special.
Turns out it works on more than just aerial raves too- the Air Secondary, a plunging attack, a helm splitter, if you will, can also be jump cancelled, creating the kind of double-dip you’d see in a round of Guilty Gear.
Not Full On Character Action Just Yet
Suffice to say, I like the combat in 13Z. It’s still a little to the simple side, but far outpaces others in its space. It’s biggest downsides come from its rogue-like elements- shielded enemies eventually show up, taking away a layer of fun simply because you couldn’t break a bar soon enough.
But even then, the game has a beautiful elegance with its combat- you can dash as soon as your feet hit the ground, so you never have to feel like you need to slow down as long as you’ve got enemies to keep comboing into.
It’s the kind of thing that’s fun even without needing to have any of the game’s Hades-style buffs on- launcher into aerial rave is one of the primal forms of enjoyment, like cooked meat or having a roof over your head when it rains.
That being said, it’s hard to not wish said buffs did do something to the combo end of things. Even something as simple as the hovering flame orbs from the Fire scroll extending a juggle would be nice, but unfortunately their palette is fairly limited to just additional ways to do damage.
Still, if you like your rogue-likes a little zesty in the action department, 13Z is one you should definitely keep an eye on. It looks like the game will have multiple playable characters in future, so I’m not going to harp too much about movelists seems there’s always a chance for one more my speed down the line.
I do hope we get some more upgrades for the genuine combo fiends out there- even something as simple as a delay combo Anvil upgrade would go a long way towards opening up possibilities. Heck, even a third jump would mean another loop of jump cancel madness.
But even then, what we have is already an incredibly strong showing for an action-heavy rogue-like. Because creating a lightning pilled fox girl is wacky enough as-is- throw in some air loops? Now we’re cooking.
