Ranking of Roguelikes #5: Caveblazers

A few years ago I had a crazy idea: to rank all the modern roguelikes that I can. I got exactly four entries in before real life got in the way. I started dating the person who would eventually become my wife. I got more responsibilities at work. I didn't have the time to devote to this project. Now it's 2025 and I'm making some changes. I'm trying to spend less time on social media and more time on things that matter to me. I'm resurrecting this project mostly for myself, but I hope it helps other people too.

I originally had four criteria that I evaluated everything on, but that formula is a little to prescriptive and restrictive. Going forward, I'm going to give my impressions on what works for me, what's weird or different, and where I feel it fits into the genre.

Caveblazers

Platform: Switch

Time played: around 12 hours

Caveblazers is one of many side-scrolling roguelikes that have proliferated over the last few console generations. It's clearly inspired by Rogue: items are unidentified until you use them, and they could be useful or harmful to you. Shrines offer you boons or curses (or both!). You scavenge weapons and armor and make the best of what you get. They've done a fantastic job of translating Rogue into a completely different genre while still honoring what made it special.

It's also brutally difficult, and I have no way of knowing if I will ever complete it. You have very little health and enemies are ruthless once they see you. They'll pursue you relentlessly, and it just takes one or two mistakes to end your run early. The bosses that show up every three levels can be simply unfair, with massive health bars and attack patterns that leave very few safe zones. Getting past them is a significant challenge. There are one or two that I still haven't been able to figure out consistently.

I don't think the game's too unfair. You have a ranged and melee attack, and it's possible to rain death on your enemies from afar without exposing yourself too much. Movement is quick and responsive, and you have a few traversal options like a wall jump to get you out of trouble. There's even an option (and an achievement!) to bounce on enemies heads with your sword in an homage to The Adventure of Link. It's great fun. The tools are there to overcome all challenges if you're quick and careful enough.

That said, I've rage quit more often in this game than a LOT of others. I wish I was better at it because when it's fun, it's extremely fun!

There's a steady drip feed of rewards to unlock even if you fail. These range from the purely cosmetic to the profoundly useful. There are even alternate characters to play as that change up the experience significantly. There are a ton of ways to challenge the dungeon that keep it fresh for a long time.

It has a fantastic low-fi pixel art style, and manages to pack quite a bit of personality into surprisingly small sprites. I'm extremely biased towards this kind of art, and that certainly affects my opinion of the game as a whole.

Where does it rank?

While I do enjoy the game, it's never going to be higher than a mid-tier roguelike. It's a wonderful homage to many other games that clearly inspired it, but it doesn't elevate itself too far above any of them. It's better than Dicey Dungeons but not better than Has-Been Heroes. It's our new #3!

The previous entry can be found here

The whole list is here

ETA: corrected an embarrassing mistake on which Zelda game had the downward thrust. I'd sack my editor if I had one.