There is a reasonable difference between a game that offers a fun challenge and a game that just wants to hurt you. Vagante, sadly, has crossed this threshold. I bought the game Early Access on the premise of dungeon crawling with friends in a challenging environment, but as updates rolled in the game became less and less about skill and more about random chance. No matter how skilled you are, if your luck runs out for only a second, it's over. A mis-step on a spike in the pitch-black dungeon, quaffing an unidentified potion that plummets your maximum health, or simply just a wandering enemy's attack that caused the shopkeeper to become aggressive. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Although the sprite animation quality has become sublime with the game's full release, that is a paltry and shallow compensation. With the Mage's enchanting skill tree now damaging you with lighting when going into water with no way of countering it, it's clear to me that the game is not interested in letting me enjoy myself. It's quite a shame the the game doesn't have any difficulty setting, restricting all but the most hardcore of players with the cheesiest of tactics to fully appreciate the experience.

At any other time vefore now I would have recommended the game. But as of right now...

Ever since the "Summer" updates, a frustrating oddity has been appearing more and more: I land an attack or hit an enemy with a thrown item, the hit sound & visual effects appear, but the afflicted character then acts as if the attack never landed, sometimes resulting in me getting hit whilst I'm in mid-attack. Either a very accessible hack is being used, or a split-second lag issue has sprouted.

There's also the problem of playing normal Onlinr matches. The general experience level of players is pretty high, so if you're looking to have a casual fight, instead prepare to be combo-locked or spammed by an Ember with the wolf attack or poorly balanced new characters such as Kor & Wu Shang. Most games and with such a player with 14 points, while the second has 3. All in all, the game lost its charm.