There Is a Lot of Fighting in This “Mining” Game
UnderMine is a game I saw on Steam. I liked how the game looked enough to buy it.
I don’t remember how or why I saw the game. It is a somewhat common occurrence for me. Often, I see games while looking at other games, and I decide to wishlist them to buy later. I am very happy I bought the game, as I enjoy playing the game a lot. I am going to review UnderMine and explain what I think about the game.
Game Name Review Information
Why Did I Review This Game?
I have beaten the game, and I have played it for quite some time. I really enjoy this game, so I think this is a good enough reason to write and share a review of it.
How Long Have I Been Playing Game Name?
At the time I stopped to write this review, my Steam play time was at 82 hours. I have owned the game since 2021.
How Did I Review the Game?
I was already playing the game often recently, as I wanted to go back and beat the final boss. I decided to just start over, as I enjoy the game. I beat the final boss and unlocked most of the upgrades.
Gameplay Review
How Does This Game Work?
UnderMine is a rogue-lite game. The main goal is to play the game and explore and unlock enough things that you can beat the game.
You start in a hub area. As you play the game and unlock things, more stuff shows up here. Each run or session has you playing as a random person. However, these characters don’t have different stats or anything like that. They might as well be the same person.
The goal is to beat all the bosses in the game. You don’t have to do this all in the same run.
The Game Feels Very Good to Play
If games have a skill-based dodge, I am going to almost always like it. This is something I noticed, and I like when games have mechanics like this.
In UnderMine, you jump over things. No fancy dodge-rolling, blocking, or parrying here. A well-timed jump means no damage is taken. As far as I know, every single attack can be dodged with the power of jumping. Just mash and jump a lot, and hopefully you dodge something. Or you can be tactical about it and jump over attacks. If you want to be a good player or something.
The controls overall feel nice. They feel a bit slow and floaty. But you are jumping around everywhere most of the time. So, I suppose that is expected.
Your character can attack in any direction. You can swing a pickaxe into someone’s face or throw it at them.
You can also make your character hold still when throwing your pickaxe, and you can make yourself stay facing a certain direction when moving. I don’t use these actions often, but it is nice the developers considered this.
As apparently is tradition in good rogue-lite games, you can place and drop bombs. In case you are wondering, yes, there are secret rooms you can find. The game also has keys and chests to find. If the developers added hearts as health drops, I would wonder how much they were inspired by the Binding of Isaac.
Overall, the game feels very fair. I rarely get angry if I get hit with a lot of damage. It can almost always be avoided. Even the unfair stuff can be mitigated with good play. This does not mean the game is easy. But I don’t get too mad at the game when I lose.
With the way you can upgrade yourself, none of the bosses really felt much of a threat. The standard game became somewhat easy. But, like I mentioned before, there are harder things you can do.
Losing in This Game Does Not Mean Much
If you are like me and not particularly good, your first few characters will be dead pretty fast. Especially if you don’t look ahead to see what is coming. But losing is not much of a setback or even a defeat. The game gives you a new character, and back in you go. Remember that line of people you saw at the start of the game?
If you have played Rogue Legacy or Rogue Legacy 2, this game has a similar setup. If you have not, I highly recommend playing both games. Even the first game is still fun.
It is okay to be bad and lose all the time. Just keep pushing and upgrading things, and eventually you will be strong enough to overcome the bad gamer skills. Or learn to be good enough to win. You also learn what items and things let you make everything easy. For me, it was a mixture of all these tactics.
You can beat the entire game with the first character. Nothing is stopping you from doing this. Just play almost perfectly and be patient, and it can happen. I like this approach to games. It lets the super-good players just win, and people like me can spend time grinding gold for upgrades.
I suppose one trade-off is that you focus so much on just upgrading stuff that you might not bother to want to finish the game. Something that happens to me for a while. But I did go back and beat the final boss.
The Game Has Challenge Modes and Other Options
So, if you are like me, you beat the main story and unlock all or most upgrades. Now what? The game still has multiple things for you to do.
First, you can increase the difficulty of the game by beating all the bosses in one run. There is no real point to doing this. It is an option for the more motivated gamers, I suppose. There is a Steam achievement for doing this 30 times.
I like this in games. You can loop or play new game plus as long as you want. The previously mentioned Rogue Legacy games also have a similar option.
There is also an Othermine game mode. In this mode, the game plays like any other standard rogue-lite game. There are no carried upgrades, and you really start from the bottom. I like the change of pace. I have been having more fun with this mode, as it is quite challenging. You cannot grind your way to upgrades to win here.
That still not enough challenges? The game has a daily challenge mode after beating the end-game boss.
Still want more? The game has hexes. There are options you can turn on to make the game more difficult. Some are pretty scary, and I don’t think I can manage. Oh, yeah, Othermine also has a specific challenge thing you can do that is extremely hard.
There is plenty to do after beating the main story.
My Overall Thoughts on UnderMine Gameplay
I enjoy playing this game a lot. I like pretty much everything about it. I wish there were more rogue-lite games just like this one. I am going to mention this later, at the end of the review. But I am extremely excited to see what Thorium does with UnderMine 2.
Presentation Review
How the Game Looks
I am not the best judge of graphics. If a game looks even slightly good, then I just call it nice and move on. I like the cartoon-like and colorful art style in UnderMine. All the enemies moving around doing their thing look nice enough.
How the Game Sounds
The game has decent music. I even listen to some tracks outside the game. But I would not say this game’s soundtrack is a favorite of mine. Not bad either, though.
The other sounds are good enough. Nothing stands out too much. There is nothing bad to remember or focus on.
My Thoughts on the Value of the Game
Is UnderMine Worth Buying?
Yes!
The game costs $20 (USD). That is a good price for this game, I think. Sure, there are other cheaper rogue-lite games. But I feel this game has enough content to justify its price, and the game is very fun to play.UnderMine does not have any gameplay DLC content.
The game does get good discounts in sales, so you can always wait until then if you want. I personally bought the game full-price and I do not regret my decision.
My Overall Thoughts on Game Name
UnderMine is one of my favorite Rogue-lite games of all time. I put it up there with The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and the Rogue Legacy games. I just love this game, and I have nothing bad to say about it.
I hope UnderMine 2 delivers an even better experience, and I look forward to playing it.
Do I Recommend People Play Game Name?
Yes! If you like playing rogue-lite games, then this is a game for you to play!
Will I Keep Playing Game Name?
I plan on playing the game for the foreseeable future. At least until the second game is released.