Elona is a Japanese-developed Rogue-like with a nice tileset and considerable depth for a one-man project. As you might expect, it has graphics reminiscent of 8-bit JRPGs; there's a fair bit of NPC dialog, some of which is moderately humorous, although you do run into the occasional Japlish.
The UI is a bit confusing -- it's entirely key-driven, but with pop-up menus and odd key choices for selection and navigation. However, Rogue-like "hot-keys" give you access to the most common options, and while the tutorial doesn't tell you about them, as with most Rogue-likes the "?" key is your friend.
There are both wilderness and dungeon areas; dungeons tell you what level is appropriate before you enter, but noobs can expect to die quite a lot before they get a handle on the game. There is a fan-created Wiki (linked above) which will help, since the readme is notably unhelpful.
There's quite a variety of races and character classes, as well as "feats" for additional customization, and all skills can be trained regardless of classes. There's also a crafting system I haven't begun to explore. In addition to the dungeon and wilderness areas, which are randomly generated Rogue-style, there are a series of quests and an ovearching story.
In short, this is a nice addition to the genre, and shows quite a lot of thought and effort on the developer's part.
I love this game. I'm a
I love this game. I'm a hardcore roguelike player, but nowadays I prefer this over a hardcore *band any day.
I actually recommend this
I actually recommend this for people who want to break into rogue-likes but are scared off by permanent death, ASCII interfaces and lack of story to drive you onwards. The controls ARE a little complicated and don't support the mouse, but are streamlined compared to most others of its kind.
The difficulty is still crushing and grinding takes a lot time investment, but I think it's worth checking out.