Monolith: The fun of losing at light speed
Many people were introduced to the rogue-like (or rogue-lite, depending on who you ask) genre via Binding of Isaac. The concept of a short, randomized action dungeon crawl appealed to a lot of people, despite the permadeath element. You had one shot at completing every individual run, but losing and restarting was so quick that the negative emotional impact of losing was minimal. Isaac also let you unlock new items to find in the dungeon, so while you were first learning the game you still felt like you were making progress. So far so good!
Isaac has its share of problems though. Room design went from mediocre to dismal. Avoiding damage would sometimes be literally impossible unless you had enough damage output at a certain point. Damage output in general became a problem as expansions added a larger pool of items and larger, deeper dungeons. Runs where you just didn’t get enough damage turned into a painful slog, where even the basic rooms could take over a minute to clear out.
Other games refined or even redefined the genre. Enter the Gungeon borrowed complex attack patterns and screen-clearing bombs from the Shmup genre and the invincible dodge roll from character action games. Nuclear Throne increased randomness and reduced complexity in level design while throwing out any system that would slow the player down for more than a second, resulting in a faster and more consistent experience.
Monolith feels like the next step in refinement.

Made by a team of Shmup enthusiasts, Monolith has you controlling a traditional-looking shmup-ship through a recognizably-structured set of dungeon floors, buying health, damage, bombs and weapons to help you eventually clear the way to the final boss.
Unlike many games in the genre, your only variable power-ups are weapons. Your movement speed is high but static, meaning once you get comfortable with it you can pull off some tight, impressive dodges. And impressive is exactly what you’ll need. The enemies and bosses in Monolith are true to the genre they were borrowed from. Enemies are relentless and boss bullet patterns comes straight from Bullet Hell. You’ll lose, a lot.
But you won’t care! The base gameplay in Monolith is so speedy and smooth, and the weapons you find are so powerful and consistent that you’ll never feel like you’ve fallen too far behind or you’ve gotten inexorably screwed by bad RNG. Even your standard weapon is powerful enough to last you all the way to the end if necessary! There’s also a system that uses all the money you find in a run a second time, in the starting area, to unlock new weapons and weapon keywords for future runs. And if you find you don’t like one? Hey, you can just temporarily turn it off and it won’t drop!

The greatest accomplishment of the game however, is the room design. Never, regardless of if you have a super-powered weapon or just your starting pea-shooter, are you forced to take damage to get through a fight. You probably will, but the room design is so clever that there’s always a way to escape the rough spot you start in or land a quick kill on the enemy that might otherwise corner you. Valves turn room hazards on and off, bomb blocks can be detonated to make more room to move (or to destroy nearby enemies), teleporters can be used to trick the enemy AI. These alternate solutions mean you are never out of it as long as you stay focused.
The bosses too share this element. They are straight up Bullet Hell-bosses. There isn’t a single boss you couldn’t theoretically beat without getting hit, but the game doesn’t force that on you at any point. Even if you’re new to the Bullet Hell-genre you can eventually prevail through a combination of health, bombs and a cool head.

Monolith is one of my favorite games of the year so far, and any enthusiast of the genre owe it to themselves to check it out.
