I’ve always been a fan of simple match-3 puzzle games. While I never got addicted to the sugary-sweet online games, I have spent hours sorting precious stones in the PopCap classic, Bejewelled. Torment Hexus takes the basic premise of match-3 gameplay and then bolts it onto the side of a turn-based tactics game, and this interesting concoction just hit Early Access.
Torment Hexus has you playing as a warmage called Iggy, and you’re out to bring pain and misery on the billionaire CEO types who are making everything shit for the rest of us. Straight away you have access to a bunch of spells, and when in combat you charge them up by completing puzzles. Move some fire tiles together, and get some power to spend on fire-based spells. Simple.
At first I thought Torment Hexus might be a bit simplistic, but after an hour or so of play, it became abundantly clear that this is a power fantasy. This isn’t a game about edging through tight combat encounters; it’s a game about conjuring powerful spells and smashing your opponents into a pulp.
There are loads of items that you can stack together, and they reduce your damage taken, boost the payout from the match-3 puzzles, and give you extra actions. It takes a little while to warm up and get interesting, but there are a lot of powerful items. On the other hand, incremental upgrades are kept to a minimum, and even the spells can’t be upgraded too far. I really like the approach taken with theorycrafting.
You can unlock more spells as you play, as well as other useful cyberpunk items. The whole thing is really clever; the thematic elements are well thought out, and the writing is also pretty good. I won’t lie, it is a bit wordy for me, and my tired old eyes started skipping lots of the text after a while, but what I will say is that the vibes are impeccable.
Torment Hexus might only be in Early Access, but I’ve enjoyed my first couple of hours with the game. Not only that, but there’s plenty more to come before developer TMA Games is done with it. In fact, there’s an “incomplete list” of inbound content mentioned in the game’s roadmap on Steam, and the list includes more music, alternate boss fights for each biome, new enemies, spells and items, more developed Paranoia and Memories systems, and a story that extends across each run. Lots to look forward to, then.
Torment Hexus is out now on PC (Win), and I played the game via access kindly provided by the developer.
