A Hellishly Good Strategy Game That's Absolutely Worth Your Time - Enyo Review

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I firmly believe that the best strategy games are the hardest to crack. It’s not easy to conceptualize and craft complex scenarios, so I always admire the effort put into a great strategy game. The challenge of solving these problems always feels fulfilling and invigorating, and that’s why I’m always seeking out games like Enyo.

Enyo is a tactical roguelike that focuses on using a shield and hook as weapons to defeat various monsters through tile and turn-based combat. It’s also free-to-play for its normal mode, though three other modes (expert, daily, and “odyssee”) are only accessible after paying a one-time fee of $4.99.

Image credited to Enyo | Arnold Rauers

The game places players into the role of the Greek goddess of war, the titular Enyo, who has found herself seemingly trapped in some form of hell. To escape, she must battle monsters through twisting and randomized mazes that test the player’s brainpower. See, this goddess is more about cunning than brute strength. She cannot kill enemies by facing them in head-to-head combat, but rather must strategically move and use her weapons at opportune moments.

To pass through one maze to another, you must use one of four skills to flee the depths of hell: stun leap, shield dash, hook, and throw. The stun leap and shield dash may sound like more movement-focused skills, but they also provide opportunities for repositioning monsters, which can be key to escaping and defeating these foes.

Where the mechanics get really interesting, however, is in the hook and throw abilities. Hooking an enemy pulls them toward you and sometimes flings them elsewhere depending on the angle; throwing chucks your shield at any desired place, pushing an enemy if hit. These two abilities can be combined in a medley of ways, allowing you to hook monsters into death traps, or combine your dashes and leaps with the shield throw to stun enemies and buy time to reposition. The rhythm of combat that developed through this handful of moves was enough to constantly keep Enyo’s gameplay refreshing.

These skills make up most of the game’s strategic depth, but you’ll have to carefully consider how to use them at all times. Moving or acting in Enyo without thoughtful consideration usually means death, and dying was common throughout my time playing Enyo. Importantly, though, those deaths were never the game’s fault. When I found myself raging, it was not at the game but at my own actions and my negligence in thinking ahead.

As a roguelike, each death in Enyo means beginning again from the start. And because the mazes are randomized, each run feels like a new experience. The better I was at learning and remembering the complex patterns and move combos that led me to victory, the further I was able to make it. When those important lessons slipped from my mind, my journey through hell felt quite short-lived.

Enyo’s combat is enacted through tiled floors that will look familiar to fans of other turn-based tactical games. You aren’t necessarily limited to moving one tile per turn, but you are only allowed one move before the enemy acts. Some actions allow you to reach the edge of a maze with one tap, which helped to make the limitations of the tile-based layout feel more forgiving than constraining. When I say forgiving, don’t mistake it as me calling the game easy, though; it’s not like I could act without thinking. But Enyo provides an intriguing versatility in the potential solutions to its challenges, and that kept the game fresh each time I played.

Image credited to Enyo | Arnold Rauers

Enyo’s monsters vary from charging minotaurs to centaurs with bows and arrows. These monsters add to the intricacy of Enyo’s strategic combat, as each monster features different attacks and movement patterns. Dodging those attacks is just as important as choosing the opportune moment for your own attacks.

Monsters are not the only danger to worry over, though. While the lava pits and spike traps scattered around each floor can be cleverly utilized to take out enemies, they can also hurt you, or worse, end your game altogether. Being attacked by a monster doesn’t kill the goddess instantly, but she can only take three hits worth of damage before dying. I found simply surviving to be Enyo’s biggest challenge by far. Killing enemies was straightforward, but doing so without taking out myself in the process? Well, that felt impossible at times. However, that difficulty and sense of futility made the moments when I overcame the odds all the more rewarding.

Image credited to Enyo | Arnold Rauers

Enyo is built on a foundation of simple mechanics, but it’s in the assembly of all these uncomplicated concepts that this marvelous game discovers a surprising degree of complexity. The game has a way of enmeshing players’ choices with the fundamentals of its strategic gameplay to provide an ever-shifting experience. Though the adventure of killing monsters to get to another floor stayed the same, the path I took on my journey always looked different.

SCORE: 4 OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• Strategy games. If you adore strategy games or any title that really gets you scratching your head, you might just fall in love with Enyo. It’s an amazing game that continues to puzzle my mind.

• Undergrave. If you enjoy Undergrave’s mechanics of leaping and dashing from one side to another, and even throwing your weapon, you may enjoy Enyo for the same reason. Feel free also to read my review of Undergrave.

💬 Have you played Enyo? If you were a Greek god or goddess, who would you be and why?

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