“Warm Snow” is a spectacular adventure both in its visuals and its gameplay

Chinese indie games started appearing to Western audiences a few years ago, and thanks to their English translation, they are gaining space in our library. As one of these games, “Warm Snow” is striking because of its beauty, but does it go beyond that?

And the answer is a big YES! Its gameplay is simple to learn, difficult to master, but it makes you want to keep playing and improving with each run, and this is an element of a good roguelike or roguelite in my eyes.

The story of “Warm Snow” is simple, like most games of this genre. The game has very nice animated scenes that tell some parts of the game’s story, but these take place at the beginning and end of the adventure.

During the opening, we are introduced to our world, a feudal China with fantasy elements, where a strange phenomenon occurs and unseasonable snow falls from the sky. But instead of being cold, the snow is warm and does not melt, and the people who have breathed the snow go mad and become monsters.

This phenomenon brings about the title of the game: Warm Snow. We are introduced to our hero Bi-an, who is in search of the truth about the situation and wants to put an end to it.

Bi-an is a silent hero, but in return we have several NPCs that are very striking in their appearance. Our character has the ability to use several swords floating on his back as projectiles by pressing the upper right button on the controller and pulling them back with the right trigger. This gives us a very unique gameplay in which we can attack both at close range and from a distance.

“Warm Snow” has well crafted Roguelite elements that give us a great replay factor

The Roguelite part of the game is well done and gives the player a lot of freedom. Each piece of equipment you pick up can be equipped in one of the four available slots, changing its effect. For example: a relic equipped on your sword will cause explosions when attacking, but if equipped on your boot, your run will cause explosions when running past enemies. We can carry four items in total and this brings us an almost infinite number of combinations.

We also have passive skills that transform the gameplay, which can increase your attack speed, strengthen your elements, or increase attributes, allowing countless synergies and varieties during each match.

The game has a total of six areas to finish, with matches lasting anywhere from fifty minutes to an hour. This is an excellent length for the genre, not tiring and also not overly frustrating if you die and have to start over. Each area has a good variety both in the interiors and in its enemies and bosses, and you can have two to three different bosses each playthrough.

Because it is a roguelite game, when you die you have to go back to the beginning, but all is not lost, you use some points you get by defeating specific enemies and bosses to permanently strengthen your hero, which makes the game easier with each attempt. There are six variations of Bi-an to play, each with a different appearance and elements, further varying the gameplay.

In a broadcast, it appeals to the audience for its beauty and combination possibilities.

A streamer who wants to bring this game to his live stream will be happy to know that the game runs very well and above all, draws attention with its visual artwork, and different combinations to each run, allowing the live to be very pleasant for the audience cheering for your victory. The game also has difficulty levels with modifiers and better rewards.

To make it even better, the developer recently released free DLC that includes new stages, new bosses, 6 new endings and new combinations, thus bringing more content to explore.

I think the biggest downside of the game would be its difficulty for the more casual player. “Warm Snow” is still easier than other roguelite games, but it takes a while to learn more of the game and this may frustrate some people.

Also, I didn’t find the soundtrack memorable or the sound effects very flashy: they work, but that’s it. I feel that it lacked a more powerful soundtrack to enhance all the beauty that the game brings.

And despite having multiple combinations, if there was a streamer mode with Twitch interaction or extra characters besides Bi-an, it would definitely have more engagement for a visual variation.

Also, the game is unfortunately not translated into other languages, only in Chinese, Japanese and English and with its audio only in Chinese, which may turn some people away.

Fezudu