Zoeti

About

Zoeti is a single player role playing game. It was developed by Akupara Games and was released on April 20, 2023. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

"Zoeti is a turn-based roguelike where a deck of playing cards is used to create card combos and activate skills in battle. The game takes place in a once peaceful land now overrun by monsters, and you, a Star-Soul hero, must protect devout townsfolk by cracking open the enemy's defenses and bolstering your arsenal of skills and upgrades. Overcome the evil plaguing your land and restore peace in Zoeti."

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

60%

Audience ScoreBased on 222 reviews

story18 positive mentions

optimization2 negative mentions

The game features a unique card mechanic that blends poker hands with roguelike elements, providing a fresh take on deck-building.
The art style is charming and visually appealing, enhancing the overall experience of the game.
The gameplay offers a good balance of challenge and accessibility, making it engaging for both new and experienced players.

The game suffers from a lack of clarity in its UI, making it difficult to track buffs, debuffs, and other important information during combat.
The story and dialogue can be cringeworthy and poorly written, detracting from the overall enjoyment of the game.
There are significant difficulty spikes and reliance on RNG, which can lead to frustrating experiences and a feeling of being forced to restart runs.

story
142 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
77%
10%
The story aspect of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players finding it either forgettable or poorly executed, often opting to skip dialogue due to its lack of engagement. While some appreciate the light-hearted narrative and character interactions, others criticize it for being cringeworthy and overly simplistic, with a linear structure that detracts from the overall experience. Overall, the story serves as a backdrop to the gameplay, but its execution leaves much to be desired, making it a secondary concern for many players.
- “The game blends poker mechanics with roguelike deckbuilding and immersive storytelling reminiscent of a classic JRPG.”
- “This game is truly something special; it has many elements that are reminiscent of other deckbuilder roguelikes, but it's turned out to be so much more than that, with charming characters, interesting story and worldbuilding, really cool events, and a pretty deep combat system.”
- “The story plot is very solid and it will keep you going.”
- “The story itself is subpar, the gameplay loop isn't unique, and despite how many options they put in for replayability, I do not at all feel inclined to pursue them.”
- “Bad writing, annoying characters, and a laborious story mode put me off this otherwise okay deck builder.”
- “The forgettable story holds back the characters from being able to shine, and the cursed UI/UX problems hold back the player from effectively engaging with the game itself.”
gameplay
91 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
71%
7%
The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with some players appreciating the innovative poker mechanics and the engaging card combinations that create a dynamic experience, while others criticize the unintuitive UI, lack of depth, and repetitive nature of the gameplay. Many users noted that the game suffers from poor explanations of mechanics and frustrating bugs that disrupt progress, leading to a lack of enjoyment. Overall, while the game has potential with its unique mechanics and art style, it struggles with balance and clarity, making it a challenging experience for players.
- “The gameplay is incredibly intuitive, offering a perfect balance of challenge and accessibility.”
- “Each run feels fresh and exciting, thanks to the game’s clever mechanics and the variety of cards and strategies you can experiment with.”
- “The core gameplay of Zoeti is drawing from a deck of cards and using card combinations to activate abilities and fight your enemies.”
- “You're launched straight into the game with next to no explanation, and even for an experienced RPG gamer, the barrage of symbols and numbers, combined with an unintuitive UI and very basic combat mechanics, make this a very difficult game to enjoy, let alone recommend.”
- “The gameplay is decent but really basic; the story is kind of bad, and I skipped most of it after a while. The main reason I cannot recommend it is the crash/continue bug—sometimes it just crashes to the main menu after a fight, and the continue option doesn't work, forcing you to ignore all progress and start again. This happened four times in a few hours.”
- “The gameplay, however, is lacking because it isn't very rewarding in terms of skill/relic synergies.”
graphics
39 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
44%
48%
8%
The graphics of the game are characterized by a charming and vibrant art style that many players find appealing, often describing it as cute or beautiful, particularly with its anime-inspired visuals. However, some reviews note that the graphics can be simplistic and lack detail, with limited animations and a mobile game quality. Overall, while the art style is generally praised, opinions vary on its execution and depth, with some players feeling it enhances the gameplay experience while others find it lacking.
- “From the moment I started playing, I was drawn in by its charming art style and soothing soundtrack, which create a relaxing yet engaging atmosphere.”
- “A beautiful anime-inspired art style with vibrant visuals.”
- “The art style is easy on the eyes.”
- “While the graphics are mid, the gameplay stands out for its originality as you must create combinations like pairs, full houses, and so on.”
- “While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality.”
- “The graphics are mobile phone level drawings with basically no animations, the sound effects are almost non-existent, and other effects don't really exist, either.”
music
34 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
35%
56%
9%
The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with many praising its charm, composition, and ability to enhance the overall atmosphere, particularly in relation to the game's art style. However, some players find the soundtrack repetitive and lacking variety, noting that it can become monotonous over time. Overall, while the music is generally well-received for its quality and fit within the game, concerns about repetitiveness and mismatched intensity in certain moments are also highlighted.
- “The bombastic adventurous music, the lore and character dialogue, including quirky insults like 'you stinky hornbutt' that have now become part of my active vocabulary, add charm and personality, making Zoeti yet another successful play on the genre.”
- “From the moment I started playing, I was drawn in by its charming art style and soothing soundtrack, which create a relaxing yet engaging atmosphere.”
- “The art and character designs are amazing, and the soundtrack fits perfectly with the overall bright atmosphere of the game.”
- “Can't believe how the soundtrack is the same for all the stages I've played.”
- “The dialog and music are not only generic and uninspired, but are completely mismatched with the art style and gameplay.”
- “I only heard 4-5 songs over the course of beating the story.”
character development
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
57%
43%
The character development in the game is highlighted by its impressive art style and character designs, which, while not overly detailed, contribute to a vibrant atmosphere. Players appreciate the unique and powerful character designs, as well as engaging dialogue that adds charm to the experience. Overall, the character elements enhance the gameplay without overshadowing the core mechanics.
- “It has beautiful art, character design, and demonstrates some novel ideas that the genre hasn't seen before.”
- “The art and character designs are amazing, and the soundtrack fits perfectly with the overall bright atmosphere of the game.”
- “Love the character designs, and the dialogue makes me smirk more times than I expected (cheeky, cheeky Rabelle).”
- “The character development feels shallow and lacks depth, making it hard to connect with the characters.”
- “While the character designs are visually appealing, the actual development and growth of the characters are disappointingly minimal.”
- “The dialogue is entertaining, but it doesn't compensate for the lack of meaningful character progression throughout the game.”
atmosphere
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
20%
40%
The game's atmosphere is characterized by its charming art style and soothing soundtrack, which together create a relaxing yet engaging environment. While some users feel that the sound effects do not enhance the atmosphere, the overall visual and auditory elements contribute to a light-hearted and pleasant experience, complemented by well-drawn characters and humorous storytelling.
- “From the moment I started playing, I was drawn in by its charming art style and soothing soundtrack, which create a relaxing yet engaging atmosphere.”
- “The art and character designs are amazing, and the soundtrack fits perfectly with the overall bright atmosphere of the game.”
- “The music and sound effects do not add to the atmosphere of the game.”
- “The story aspect is conveyed through visual novels with a light-hearted atmosphere, tongue-in-cheek humor, well-drawn characters, and pleasant backgrounds.”
replayability
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
60%
60%
Zoeti is noted for its depth and potential for replayability, but opinions vary significantly; while some appreciate its unique art style and progression, others find the story lacking and the gameplay loop unengaging, leading to a moderate overall replay value. Despite the inclusion of various options for replay, many players feel little motivation to explore them further.
- “What truly sets Zoeti apart is its depth and replayability.”
- “Content and replay value are impressive.”
- “The replay value is moderate.”
- “The story itself is subpar, the gameplay loop isn't unique, and despite how many options they put in for replayability, I do not at all feel inclined to pursue them.”
- “Zoeti has a different art style and progression mechanisms, and my impression so far (just 2.3 hours played) is it may also be easier and have less content/replayability than PQ.”
- “Replay value: moderate.”
optimization
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
25%
50%
The game's optimization has received mixed feedback, with users noting that it struggles to maintain the selected resolution and can excessively tax the GPU, even exceeding the monitor's capabilities. While there are no significant performance issues, the user interface requires refinement for a smoother experience. Overall, there is a consensus that better optimization is needed.
- “No major performance issues, but the UI needs polish for smoother navigation.”
- “Could have been optimized better.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Overall, the grinding aspect of the game is generally well-balanced, offering a rewarding progression system, though some players find it becomes overly grindy by chapter 3. Additionally, issues with the user interface and status effects can make combat feel tedious and detract from the overall experience.
- “Bit too grindy when you get up to chapter 3.”
- “Having to scroll through the status effects box to find out about status effects on a unit is definitely the most awkward aspect, as it makes the combat tedious and unappealing.”
- “These are minor issues on top of the combat being messy because of the previously mentioned issues with the UI and status effects, which are only exacerbated on controller and make playing the game an even more tedious affair.”
stability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's stability is notably problematic, with frequent freezes occurring after battles and glitches in the skills UI indicating a lack of polish. Additionally, typos and inconsistencies suggest rushed development, raising concerns about the overall quality of the game's programming.
- “At least in 3 runs, the game freezes completely when trying to receive the reward after finishing the battle.”
- “I found some glitches in the skills UI (seems like when selecting the skills, the UI state is not in sync with the skills state or something similar) and there are some typos currently in weird places (like the protagonist's name, 'Valetina', which reads 'Valentina' in the trailer) which shows some lack of polish/testing or probably rushing for release, which is probably bad news for a game released more than one year ago.”
- “I don't know if that's because the programming is buggy or because something is obfuscated.”
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the emotional aspect of games like Slay the Spire, Monster Train, and Astrea to be engaging, as they present challenges that motivate rather than frustrate, fostering a sense of perseverance rather than a desire to quit.
- “Slay the Spire, Monster Train, and Astrea presented challenges but never made me feel like quitting.”