Sol Cesto is a fun new roguelite that reinterprets dungeon crawlers into a streamlined, odds-based affair. Consumable items are key to success, but being a roguelite, your precious coins can occasionally be preserved to unlock assorted bonuses in between runs. Fortunately, there's a way to get a free item during each run: You just have to be a jerk. And discovering that detail thanks to a character's nose is what I've enjoyed most about my first six hours with Sol Cesto.
In Sol Cesto, you'll make your way through a series of 4x4 grids, each square of which is populated by strawberries that heal you, enemies, treasure chests, and traps. Each turn, you pick one row and randomly land in one of its four squares. Initially, the odds of arriving at each one are evenly distributed, but you'll soon make choices that influence how likely you are to end up on any of these tile types. Enemies can deal either strength or magic damage, with the difference between their power and your strength or magic determining whether you suffer any damage or slay them without harm. Complete enough turns on each grid, and you can move onto the next.
A typical stage in Sol Cesto
It's a simple formula that soon gives away to a surprising amount of depth, as you weigh decisions around whether to empower your strength or magic damage, as well as how you can best mix that power with the numbers governing your likelihood of landing on a particular tile. Is it worth it to be more likely to land on treasure chests at the expense of extending the cooldown on your character's special ability? Is it okay to increase your odds of landing on a strength enemy if you've leaned into buffing your strength enough? RNG will ultimately rule the day, but with these choices only lasting a single run, you're free to experiment with different strategies to see what works.
I've found this all extremely enjoyable so far, and with the simple, turn-based gameplay lending itself to playing on Steam Deck, I suspect Sol Cesto will be my companion throughout the upcoming NBA playoffs. (Deck support involves relying on the right touchpad rather than gamepad controls, but it works quite well.)
That said, it's the game's general vibe and air of mystery that I've appreciated most. As with games like Inscryption and CloverPit, there is a creepiness at play here without leaning into outright horror that keeps it from feeling too oppressive for my liking. More importantly, it's clear there is a world of secrets to find and discover as you play. There are the more overt progression-based rooms that you know you'll need to unlock across subsequent runs, but there are smaller moments that evoke Spelunky that I'm loving, too.
The shopkeeper's nose doing its best Mario 64 title-screen impression
Take, for instance, the shopkeeper. He initially doesn't offer much, but you can eventually unlock more. Trips to him are usually quick, given your limited inventory space. You'll encounter him numerous times, and on my umpteenth run-in with him, I noticed that his eyes follow your cursor around the screen, which drew my attention to his large, bulbous nose. Curious, I clicked on the nose and saw you could pull on it. That led me to yank on it, stretching it to a comical degree, only for it to spring back in his face and stun him. I was so taken aback that, the first time I did this, I missed the opportunity to take advantage--in the brief moment he's stunned with a red nose, you can grab an item from the store for free.
His nose reddened, the shopkeeper will have bandages on it during subsequent trips on that run, apparently with enough padding to prevent you from pulling off the same trick. If you're like me, the bandage also serves to make you feel bad about your actions.
On a later run, in an attempt to sell an item to free up space, I accidentally stunned the shopkeeper by using the item on him. Selling items apparently isn't a thing in this universe.
Despite feeling bad about these incidents, I later felt compelled to try out an arrow, which normally kills a single enemy. Aim it at the shopkeeper, and he quakes in his boots, looking nervous about what's to come. Rather than defend himself, he simply stands there and the arrow will indeed kill him, unlocking an Achievement and letting you take the current set of items in his shop for free. This turned out to be a poor decision in my case, because I didn't have the free inventory space to take the items, and a longer-than-expected run saw me return to the shop time and again, only to find his skeleton and no available items, the remainder apparently having been apparently ransacked by some evildoer. (I'm a hero, you see; I did what I had to.)
Sorry again about that, man
It was only after coming back to the shop with its proprietor dead that I noticed bugs are always crawling around its table. The occasional gold bug will net you a couple coins by squishing it, but otherwise dealing with the bugs does nothing--at least as far as I can tell right now. I'll keep on squishing as I revisit the shop in the future, in the hopes of it being tied to some as-yet undiscovered mystery.
Just what awaits beyond these smaller moments remains to be seen--maybe there's nothing, though a curious character you can pay for a cryptic message suggests there's more to uncover in Sol Cesto. Even if that ultimately leads nowhere, I'm enjoying slowly peeling this onion and then dealing with the ramifications of my actions--had I not grown desperate during that run without a shopkeeper, I might not have thought to test out whether the key item, which normally lets you exit a room early, could be used to slay a boss. (It does.)
I have a terrible habit in roguelites of always prioritizing some meta goal, testing something new, or making unwise choices just for the fun of it, even when these things come at the expense of wrecking my current run. In a game all about the odds, Sol Cesto encourages me to keep taking chances.
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In Sol Cesto, you'll make your way through a series of 4x4 grids, each square of which is populated by strawberries that heal you, enemies, treasure chests, and traps. Each turn, you pick one row and randomly land in one of its four squares. Initially, the odds of arriving at each one are evenly distributed, but you'll soon make choices that influence how likely you are to end up on any of these tile types. Enemies can deal either strength or magic damage, with the difference between their power and your strength or magic determining whether you suffer any damage or slay them without harm. Complete enough turns on each grid, and you can move onto the next.
A typical stage in Sol Cesto
It's a simple formula that soon gives away to a surprising amount of depth, as you weigh decisions around whether to empower your strength or magic damage, as well as how you can best mix that power with the numbers governing your likelihood of landing on a particular tile. Is it worth it to be more likely to land on treasure chests at the expense of extending the cooldown on your character's special ability? Is it okay to increase your odds of landing on a strength enemy if you've leaned into buffing your strength enough? RNG will ultimately rule the day, but with these choices only lasting a single run, you're free to experiment with different strategies to see what works.
I've found this all extremely enjoyable so far, and with the simple, turn-based gameplay lending itself to playing on Steam Deck, I suspect Sol Cesto will be my companion throughout the upcoming NBA playoffs. (Deck support involves relying on the right touchpad rather than gamepad controls, but it works quite well.)
That said, it's the game's general vibe and air of mystery that I've appreciated most. As with games like Inscryption and CloverPit, there is a creepiness at play here without leaning into outright horror that keeps it from feeling too oppressive for my liking. More importantly, it's clear there is a world of secrets to find and discover as you play. There are the more overt progression-based rooms that you know you'll need to unlock across subsequent runs, but there are smaller moments that evoke Spelunky that I'm loving, too.
The shopkeeper's nose doing its best Mario 64 title-screen impression
Take, for instance, the shopkeeper. He initially doesn't offer much, but you can eventually unlock more. Trips to him are usually quick, given your limited inventory space. You'll encounter him numerous times, and on my umpteenth run-in with him, I noticed that his eyes follow your cursor around the screen, which drew my attention to his large, bulbous nose. Curious, I clicked on the nose and saw you could pull on it. That led me to yank on it, stretching it to a comical degree, only for it to spring back in his face and stun him. I was so taken aback that, the first time I did this, I missed the opportunity to take advantage--in the brief moment he's stunned with a red nose, you can grab an item from the store for free.
His nose reddened, the shopkeeper will have bandages on it during subsequent trips on that run, apparently with enough padding to prevent you from pulling off the same trick. If you're like me, the bandage also serves to make you feel bad about your actions.
On a later run, in an attempt to sell an item to free up space, I accidentally stunned the shopkeeper by using the item on him. Selling items apparently isn't a thing in this universe.
Despite feeling bad about these incidents, I later felt compelled to try out an arrow, which normally kills a single enemy. Aim it at the shopkeeper, and he quakes in his boots, looking nervous about what's to come. Rather than defend himself, he simply stands there and the arrow will indeed kill him, unlocking an Achievement and letting you take the current set of items in his shop for free. This turned out to be a poor decision in my case, because I didn't have the free inventory space to take the items, and a longer-than-expected run saw me return to the shop time and again, only to find his skeleton and no available items, the remainder apparently having been apparently ransacked by some evildoer. (I'm a hero, you see; I did what I had to.)
Sorry again about that, man
It was only after coming back to the shop with its proprietor dead that I noticed bugs are always crawling around its table. The occasional gold bug will net you a couple coins by squishing it, but otherwise dealing with the bugs does nothing--at least as far as I can tell right now. I'll keep on squishing as I revisit the shop in the future, in the hopes of it being tied to some as-yet undiscovered mystery.
Just what awaits beyond these smaller moments remains to be seen--maybe there's nothing, though a curious character you can pay for a cryptic message suggests there's more to uncover in Sol Cesto. Even if that ultimately leads nowhere, I'm enjoying slowly peeling this onion and then dealing with the ramifications of my actions--had I not grown desperate during that run without a shopkeeper, I might not have thought to test out whether the key item, which normally lets you exit a room early, could be used to slay a boss. (It does.)
I have a terrible habit in roguelites of always prioritizing some meta goal, testing something new, or making unwise choices just for the fun of it, even when these things come at the expense of wrecking my current run. In a game all about the odds, Sol Cesto encourages me to keep taking chances.
See at Fanatical
Fanatical and GameSpot are both owned by Fandom.
Source