Juicy Realm | PS5

Juicy Realm enters the scene as an out of this world roguelike experience featuring a cast of quirky characters, and fruits gone bad. The plot is simple. A spacefaring seedling crash lands on a planet turning it's fruity inhabitants into malicious monsters hellbent on killing off the resident population. As one of 10 protagonists you join the battle alone or in co-op with a special weapon in hand, a passive ability, and a summon. It is with these tools that you'll take on the fruit hordes, and harvest their seeds for improving upon your base stats as well as your arsenal. Recruiting, as you do so, others willing to enter the fray.

Like many other dungeon crawling roguelikes before it 'Juicy Realm' takes on a 3D isometric look. A familiar formula that features gated rooms in mazelike areas that each end in a final boss fight with hidden secrets and vendors scattered about elsewhere. It is in these areas of interest that you'll earn coin for buying equipment, equipment skills, pets, and other useful item as you progress your way through the gauntlet of malicious fruits. Either that or you'll be looting your add-ons the hard way through chests dropped after clearing the scene. 

As one of 10 unlockable characters you'll put to use your tools of the trade in these room based arenas, or die trying in a rinse and repeat fashion where remaining health, and the ability to dodge and deal damage is the only way to survive ... 

Weapons by character vary in 'Juicy Realm' as do their abilities, and summons. Some characters harness projectile weapons while others prefer a melee assortment. Depending upon the character chosen you'll also get abilities like dual wielding, turret summons, fruit charming, and other things that will aid in clearing the multiple rooms in multiple areas. The end game being a clearing of both minions, sub-bosses, and bosses as you loot rooms for coin, seeds, and weapons as well as stackable skills. 

Each playthrough in the game roughly lasts 40 minutes, and is a randomly generated affair with a hodge-podge of rooms that offer both mobs, and looting or shopping opportunities. You'll clear the mobs to earn chests that contain everything from coins, to weapons, and even tag along pets with benefits. Occasionally running into more lucrative sub-boss, and boss encounters that will lead to the end of the area, and the beginning of the next. 

Locales in "Juicy Realm" vary by design with environmentally themed terrain filled with hazards and destructible objects littering the arena. As you enter an area, and the rooms therein you'll be tasked with clearing the room, and unlocking access to the next room or rooms in line. Rooms vary from mob scenes to gambling machine inclusive nooks, and various vendor stationed selling points that sell wares for coin. You'll even find rooms with hidden equipment skills that can alter the functionally of your base weapon loadout.

Equipment skills, which are a crucial part of the given mechanics, are limited by the amount of skill slots you have unlocked. These can be unlocked by buying the right item for the right price. After purchasing an equipment skill you can purchase additional skills of the same type to increase their effectiveness. Some equipment skills change range, crit damage, reload speed, and even add damage modifiers to the mix. There's a lot to experiment with, and each addition will greatly alter the effectiveness of your arsenal.

After either dying or completing a run in 'Juicy Realm' you'll be taken back to your base hub of operations where all your friendly fruit fighters hideout waiting for their turn on the battlefield. It is here you can spend collected seeds earned from boss battles to upgrade characters base stats and abilities as well as further unlock character specific complimentary skills that will further vary how each character plays. 

For bonus measures there's also two compendiums or books filled with the weapons you've used, and the enemies you've encountered. Completing these compendiums simply takes battle repetition, and will display a prompt when a weapon or enemy is catalogued. For those looking for extra challenges there is a trial mode that can be played through with it's own rules for completion after you have defeated all the bosses in a completed run. To make things even easier your next go around you can buy premium weapons at a vendor within the hub. This along with the workout machine will help make completing a full playthrough easier.

The Verdict ...

Having listened to the conflicting reviews of others before doing my own has allowed me to see who was being honest, and who was shilling, if they were. After hearing the length of 40 minutes being problematic from one reviewer I have to disagree. 40 minutes is more than enough time for a playthrough in Juicy Realm. It is a game that would wear on you if it were any longer. On top of that the lack of variety in bosses also seems to be false as I've seen enough of a variety to make things interesting. The fact that encounters are randomized, and roguelike only serves to make this variety more pleasing. 

Gameplay mechanics themselves are a well thought, and applied system that works without overly complicating the various builds you can create. Having each character play in a unique way also adds to the base mechanics. The fact that you can upgrade character's stats and abilities further improves upon character longevity in regards to replay value as well. 

All in all Juicy Realm is a game that definitely has replay value. It gives you multiple goals to strive for initially, and replay value thereafter through the roguelike nature of the game. For what it's worth I'll gladly throw my opinion into the hat. Juicy Realm earns it's $15 price tag, easily. It's a budget priced Binding of Isaac with a fun loving fruity theme!