Baroque

Baroque is Sting Entertainment's PS2 remake of their 1998 Sega Saturn title, that wed the classic tension of roguelike action-RPGs with sci-fi horror. This version employs full directional movement (replacing the old tank controls) as well as a third-person camera, but surprisingly retains certain parts of the original, such as its now-optional first-person view and a somewhat abstruse progression (tower completions, deaths or NPC-related quests unlock new floors and advance the storyline, while bits of the protagonist's past are revealed during most runs). Equipped with a new artstyle, its gloomy atmosphere, post-apocalyptic setting, bizarre mobs and moments of levity suddenly evokes modern SMT, and - despite (or precisely because of) its rigid combat, this could be mistaken for a long lost collab between Atlus & Mystery Dungeon-era Chunsoft. Although it suffers from the genre's usual problems - mainly an overdependence on RNG and repetition, they definitely stand out from the crowd with their obscure cutscenes and manic characters.