Dinghai: The Ocean Pillar Review

Dinghai: the Ocean pillar is a challenging action RPG roguelike inspired by ancient Eastern mythology. Its biggest strength is its dual-weapon combat system, which allows you to combine different weapons, abilities, and elemental affinities to create powerful builds during each run.

Dual-Weapon Combat and Gameplay

Each area feels fresh with a variety of enemies to fight and powerful bosses to overcome. What makes Dinghai stand out is its dual-weapon combat system. You can combine two weapons in your runs to create combos and synergies that will help you take down tougher opponents. Use two melee weapons or a melee and a ranged weapon combination for the best results and to defeat enemies faster.

Each weapon offers unique abilities that help define your play style and make every run feel different. Additionally, weapons deal elemental damage. Each weapon has an affinity to an element that further enhances the combat system. Use appropriate combinations of weapons and their elements to gain an advantage against specific enemies. The available elements counter each other, which adds strategic depth to combat and makes your choices matter.

The gameplay loop of Dinghai is quite straightforward. Pick your weapons and use the waypoint to port to an area. You can start a run on a new area or revisit an area you have already cleared. The map will show you details of the loot you can earn in each available area. When you pick an area, you can also choose a different route to reach the final boss.

Each area features different types of encounters, including relic selections, rest areas, elite challenges and the final boss. Elite encounters let you fight a mini-boss for better rewards, while rest areas give you an opportunity to prepare for the challenges ahead. Choose your route based on the rewards you want and how much risk you are willing to take.

Relics

Relics are special upgrades that offer offensive, defensive and support effects. When you defeat enemies, a special tree appears and you can choose a relic. Picking relics that enhance a specific play style will make you stronger and help you clear the level. For example, you can increase your frost or fire damage and make your weapons hit harder and be more efficient. While exploring you can also find Dugui and Goulong, two special NPCs that can appear during your runs and offer you additional relics and weapon upgrades.

Upgrades and Progression

Every run matters even if you fail to reach the final boss and complete the level. As you fight enemies you collect loot and other items that you can later sell for crystals which is the game’s main currency. Use your crystals to buy new items and unlock skills.

You can unlock several general skills but also skills for your weapons, celestial skills which work like an ultimate ability, as well as spirit skills that offer further assistance. Picking the right combination of skills enhances your chosen play style and makes you stronger.

In your rest area that you unlock after you complete the tutorial you can also craft and refine items. This is where you decide your loadout for your next run. Pick your weapons and appropriate items that will help you clear the next level. This choice is important because you cannot change your loadout while fighting through an area.

Combat and Difficulty

Combat is also fun and challenging because of the different types of enemies that exist in Dinghai. Melee and ranged enemies will appear together and try to take you down. Parry and dodging are important aspects of gameplay that you will have to learn well and utilize if you wish to progress. Bosses are also quite challenging, with unique abilities and playstyles that you need to learn how to counter. Learning what works against them might take some time, but is part of the fun in a roguelike.

Combat is solid but can be quite difficult early on because of the limited healing options. However, this is a problem that you can solve later by unlocking appropriate skills.

Verdict

Overall Dinghai is a challenging title set in a beautiful world that offers a fun dual-weapon combat system, elemental interactions, build variety and replayability. This makes it a great choice for fans of roguelike games as well as players who want to try the genre for the first time.