Image credit: Finley Collins for Kyusai Media / Numskull Games
Reptilian Rising is a rough but incredibly enjoyable turn-based strategy game developed by Gregarious Games with additional credits from Robot Circus and Hyper Luminal Games. Published by Numskull Games, Reptilian Rising is clearly inspired by tabletop turn-based games. All with unique aesthetics, clearly drawn from retro-futurist styles.
The game itself is exceedingly fun, especially for a TTRPG fan. I found myself sinking hours into the game, long past the point of completion. That is not to say, though, that this game is flawless. Is it story-rich with captivating dialogues? No. Is it particularly graphically or technically impressive? Not really. Is it entertaining? Definitely, but is that worth the price of admission? Find out with Kyusai’s full Reptilian Rising review.
Turn-based cold-blooded action
The tutorial for Reptilian Rising does not actually educate the player at first, as it starts with an overly long wall of text. This is a shame, as the actual gameplay is some of the best turn-based strategy I have experienced in recent memory, and very intuitive. My advice would actually be to mostly ignore the tutorials and “trial by fire” your way to success.
You control a collection of units, each with its own abilities and characteristics that make every one useful in certain situations. You summon these characters through “time-gates”. To complete a level, you must capture 3 of these gates and then clear the rest of the enemies. Each character has a set amount of movement and actions, as well as character-specific special abilities.
These characters are mostly references to famous fictional sci-fi franchises or historical figures. Each fits within a certain time period, with characters having bonuses and weaknesses depending on teammates of a similar category or enemies of an opposing one.
This means that team composition is essential for success in Reptilian Rising… for the most part. While strategy and tactics are required for success early on, as you progress through the game, there are clearly some characters and playstyles that far outperform others. This could be counteracted by the game’s difficulty settings; however, they don’t really make any given match more difficult, just longer. And when an average game of Repitilian Rising takes between 20 and 40 minutes, added time can sometimes feel more like an annoyance than anything else.
This becomes even more drastic later in the game, when level-ups become more frequent, and a few upgrades are purchased. You quickly realize that many of the enemies in the game are melee-based, meaning any ranged heroes quickly become killing machines. If they can also attack multiple enemies at once, matches become an exercise in speed, not strategy. To this point, in my entire playthrough from start to finish, I failed a match only twice, playing on either medium or hard difficulty in every stage.
While I’d love to say this is because of my immense strategic prowess, I quickly picked up on the strength of ranged characters with AOE attacks, and fully focused on those. The only time this failed me was when fighting the collection of bosses or “overlords”, the game’s level-up system is generous enough to level all characters at once. This meant that any high-damage melee/tank characters I did have did not suffer from being unused.
This all may sound rather negative, but as I said at the beginning, this game is very fun, and watching your characters struggle to take down individual enemies, only to clear droves of them, is amazingly satisfying. Personally, I feel the game could’ve been more difficult. The game theory concept of “if you give a player a clearly superior strategy, they’ll use it” is prevalent here, and it would’ve been nice to have a reason to use more of this game’s eclectic collection of characters.
This all may be due to the game’s rogue-lite style. At the beginning of every “era,” you can spend some in-game resources to purchase permanent upgrades. Upgrades can also be purchased if you fail a level at any point, which sends you back to the start of the “era” you are in. While some seem far less useful than others (gates that allow you to travel long distances become pointless at later levels, which is when they’re unlocked), these upgrades are what will allow you to reach the highest levels of damage and defense.
Fight for the future and all of time
The game as a whole is not particularly impressive visually. However, I believe this is intended, as overly defined visuals would only detract from the enjoyable gameplay loop. Furthermore, arenas and attacks have enough visual flair that the game never looks bland.
Music and sound design are actually shockingly great. Each character has unique voice lines and sound effects, each play into the game’s more comedic themes with exaggerated accents and in-character quips. The backing music is appropriate for the gameplay and never feels repetitive or overused.
While I mentioned a lack of depth in the writing, this game is clearly not meant to be literary gold. But even with that in mind, the storyline is somewhat nonsensical. While that’s clearly the point, it wasn’t helped by the bloated, long walls of text that all amount to very little in the grand scheme of the game.
But again, all of this is to say that while this game is flawed, I can’t stop playing it. Whether or not that’s because of my love of classic tabletop games, or the frankly ludicrous amount of customisation, the level of enjoyment to be had in Reptilian Rising is immense. While there are issues with information overload and repetition (reptile-ition?), It’s still a whole lot of fun.
FAQs
Reptilian Rising’s release date is April 23, 2026 for Steam and Nintendo Switch.
A lot of the characters are individually good, however any character with ranged attacks will find the most use. Ankha specifically is great due to being able to attack multiple enemies from range.
The game is developed by Gregarious Games (which is also apparently the company from Ready Player One), and it has credits from Robot Circus and Hyper Luminal Games.
Reptilian Rising is a turn-based strategy game based on classic TTRPGs. Many games match this formula from the recent Mewgenics, and to match the comedy angle the game goes for, it reminded me of 2017’s South Park: The Fractured but Whole.
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