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 4×4 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.
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.
