Tunche

Tunche is a roguelite beat-em-up built around hand-drawn animation and a South American jungle setting that genuinely stands out visually. You pick from a small roster of characters, each leaning into a different combat style rooted in shaman magic and melee combos, then fight your way through procedurally arranged stages toward the mythical creature the game is named after. The art direction is the first thing anyone notices, and it earns that attention: the sprite work is fluid, the backgrounds are lush, and the whole thing moves with a handcrafted energy you rarely see in the genre. Combat is the core loop, and it holds up reasonably well in short sessions. Each character has a distinct move set, and learning to chain light attacks into special abilities feels satisfying once it clicks. There is a skill upgrade system that lets you customize your build across runs, which adds some light RPG texture to what is otherwise a pretty traditional brawler. The roguelite structure means death sends you back to the beginning with incremental permanent upgrades, a loop that works fine but never reaches the mechanical density of genre leaders. Enemy variety starts to thin out by the mid-game, and a few boss encounters overstay their welcome through sheer health-pool inflation rather than genuine design escalation. The 4-player local and online co-op is where Tunche finds its best version of itself. Coordinating combos with friends, trading resources, and not accidentally stealing each other's drops turns the repetition into something genuinely fun. Solo runs are serviceable but expose the limited depth more quickly. One of the characters is Hat Kid from A Hat in Time, a crossover that will delight fans and means nothing to everyone else, though her move set is legitimately distinct enough to justify the inclusion on mechanical grounds alone. The RPG bones here are light. Choices do not carry narrative weight, there are no branching story paths, and the lore is delivered in brief cutscene fragments rather than anything you would call worldbuilding with teeth. If you come in expecting a character-driven experience, you will leave a little hungry. What the game actually offers is a polished, visually distinctive arcade brawler with enough run-to-run variation to keep a co-op session moving. The 72 percent Steam rating reflects a game that delivers on its visual promise but leaves some mechanical promise unfulfilled. For an RPG-focused player, Tunche is a side dish rather than a main course. The build variety is present but shallow past the first few hours, and there is no writing here that rewards a second read. For a brawler fan with friends to drag into co-op, it is a genuinely pleasant way to spend a few evenings in a setting the genre almost never visits. Monika, Scout Team