The Indie Informer

I always appreciate it when a game teaches me something about the real world. Hell Clock is set in the aftermath of the War of Canudos, a late 1800s conflict born from the abolition of slavery and the end of monarchy in Brazil that left more than 25,000 people dead. The roguelite is a revenge story that follows Pajeú’s descent into Hell in search of the soul of his murdered mentor. However, the path to The Counselor is blocked by the souls of the people who helped wage the war that killed thousands of innocent civilians.

The concept of searching Hell for a lost soul only to come face to face with the people who orchestrated the massacre that necessitated the soul searching in the first place is incredibly compelling. There’s a real sense of momentum to Hell Clock’s narrative that pushes Pajeú back into Hell with each failed run. Sometimes, roguelike games struggle to provide narrative reasons for why the protagonist is running their head into the wall over and over again, but Hell Clock is able to expertly marry that concept with its narrative, putting it in league with recent greats from the genre like Hades and Returnal.

Hell Clock is a relatively simple game: descend the floors of Hell, shooting your way through the overwhelming number of souls of the damned, before the timer runs out on the mystical clock Pajeú carries with him. When the time runs out or you die, you get sent back to the start to upgrade your gear and change your loadout.

It’s got the type of difficulty curve that you’d want out of a good roguelite. Hell Clock has you dying over and over again to the first boss when you encounter him in the early hours of the game, but after a few runs and some time spent upgrading my build, I know he hates to see me coming since I clear him in a matter of seconds now.

I found myself hitting a lot of brick walls in my time with Hell Clock, where an area or boss would stop me in my tracks for a few runs. I can understand how some people might find that frustrating, but it seemed like an intentional move on the part of developer Rogue Snail. Each time my progress started to slow, I could feel the guiding hand of the game trying to push me to change something up about my loadout and, when I did, I would usually see instant results. The times when I didn’t, pushed me to tinker with things even more until I was rolling with a build that had some real power behind it.

There’s a satisfying simplicity to Hell Clock. You create a build before you head out, and then most of the upgrades you grab off fallen enemies during your run are automatically applied to your kit. There’s no need to heavily weigh which trinkets you need to pick up and which you should pass on — the game lets you grab them all. That’s not to say that there’s no on-the-fly build creation. As you explore each floor of Hell, you find larger buffs that impact your stats in a much more significant way, but because you’re picking those up less frequently, the pace of each level feels quick since you’re rarely stopping for long.

Hell Clock is a great example of what strong, intentional style can do for a game. The setting is unique, the story compelling, and the visuals paint a vivid picture of a South American version of Hell that sets it apart from more conventional portrayals. Without those stylistic elements, Hell Clock is still a solid roguelite. Its style is what ties it all together to create a package that got its hooks deep into me almost immediately.

The only major gripe I have is that listening to the Brazilian Portuguese voice acting (there is an option for English VO) only works fine when talking with the people at your home base. However, when Pajeú starts trash-talking bosses mid-run, I miss some of the details for the characters he’s fighting since I can’t look away from the action to read the subtitles. That said, if the worst thing I have to say about a game is that I want to know more about its characters and story, then I feel like you already know all that you need to understand my recommendation for it.