14 DAY TRIAL // 
In the past few months there's been a true resurrection of the roguelite genre, with more and more independent games launching on the PC and on other platforms, bringing random levels, constant death, and different other mechanics.
One of the most recent is Bionic Dues from developer Arcen Games, putting the players in the shoes of a mech pilot tasked with defending a large city from a robot uprising. With the promise of many different missions, customization options worthy of a full-fledged role-playing game, and complex gameplay, the title is looking set to bring a great strategy-oriented take on the roguelite genre.
Does it succeed or is humanity doomed in front of the bots? Let's find out.
Bionic Dues, despite its rather generic name, has a pretty good premise. You have 50 days until the robots attack your home city, starting with your headquarters. Throughout these 50 days, you can complete various missions with all sorts of goals, from finding equipment that augments your weapons, shields, or propulsion, to weakening the enemy forces.
You play as a pilot that leads a team of "Exo" units (aka mechs) through different missions until the 50th one. You can choose from several characters, each with different bonus abilities, like improved stats for gear you salvage, and each with different exos in their group.
Exos are quite varied, ranging from regular assault and siege ones, to highly specialized units geared towards stealth or hacking. As you can imagine, the enemies are also extremely varied, from the standard DumBot, to quite lethal specimens that will definitely test your skills and patience.
Thankfully, most of the bots have different downsides for their own team, as some will cause their allies to miss shots, others will fire in random directions, while the EMP units can easily get their friends stuck when they blow up.
Your exos have quite a varied arsenal of abilities, based on their specializations, and these can be further augmented through the very solid customization system. This sees players insert the gear they loot during missions into pre-determined slots for the weapons, shields, propulsion, reactor, or main computer.
Like many RPGs, the pieces of gear are categorized by rarity and have random properties that get better and better as you get closer to the 50th day. In order to keep players from stacking all the best gear, the exos have a limited amount of power they can use to operate, although that can also be expanded through extra rare items that go into the reactor.
As you get closer to the 50th day, the robot forces also increase in strength and power, but you can go on special mission types that allow you to trim down the enemy's legions. In order to see how you stack up, a special sidebar to the left of the screen in between missions shows the different units in the robot army.
The game has five difficulty options, ranging from Casual to Misery and, for those really hardcore players, a special Ironman setting can also be enabled when starting a new campaign. Even on Normal the game is quite difficult, so you should definitely be cautious and save before venturing into large rooms filled with foes.
In terms of levels, Bionic Dues stays true to the roguelite recipe and features completely random design. In terms of visuals in the actual maps, however, it's quite bland and forgettable. Graphics as a whole try to be reminiscent of sprite-based games from the 1990s but the visuals end up being a bit disappointing.
The soundtrack is also a bit polarizing, as right from the first menu tune you're greeted with a sort of sci-fi ballad taken from TV or anime shows from the 1990s. The actual in-game music is relatively decent albeit repetitive, as are the taunts emitted by enemies when they die. While these are quite amusing at first, you'll soon grow tired of hearing them time and time again.
Conclusion
Bionic Dues is a surprisingly complex and entertaining roguelite title that will certainly keep players coming back for more thanks to its random levels and quite challenging gameplay. While the soundtrack and visuals don't exactly distinguish it among other indie titles, it's more than worth its low asking price based on its great gameplay, variety, and complexity.
