Bossfight Tactics is an upcoming 8-bit roguelike in which players have to constantly outdo themselves (quite literally) in turn-based battles. Featuring quick runs, snappy gameplay, and surprisingly unique upgrade mechanics, Bossfight Tactics solidifies itself as a bite-sized title to pull out when you have half an hour to kill. The game’s nostalgia-infused monochromatic aesthetic, banging chiptune tracks, and complex combat encounters make it a certified modern retro classic, despite being an upcoming title.
You Are Your Biggest Enemy
Bossfight Tactics’ demo gives us access to the game’s first three acts, each one featuring four enemy encounters with shop visits in between them, capped off by a boss fight at the end. If you were wondering why the game asks you to constantly outdo yourself, that’s because the final bosses of each act are none other than your previous party members, all items and upgrades included.
Finishing an act retires your current party as bosses, giving the three characters crowns and substantial health increases, which creates a very challenging dynamic where you need to be powerful enough to move through the game’s combat encounters, but not so powerful that your party is unbeatable. There’s a great feeling that comes with finding synergies and items that stack endlessly in a roguelike, but Bossfight Tactics flips that satisfaction onto its head, as you’ll constantly dread getting stronger because that also means creating a future challenge for yourself.
Positioning is Key
Every item in the game respects a universal grid system when it comes to movement and attacks. It’s extremely important to be aware of where you currently are, as well as where you’ll end up when the turn ends, since weapons have hard rules pertaining to who they’ll hit, including friendly targets. This element of strategy goes both ways, as enemies will also adjust their actions depending on the position of your characters. All enemies in the game use items that are also accessible to the player, randomly dropping one of them upon death. Those familiar with games like Darkest Dungeon will be immediately at home with this combat system, since Bossfight Tactics mirrors the positioning mechanics found in Red Hook Studios’ gothic masterpiece, although more casual players can rest easy, since this game is not nearly as brutal.
Dirty Tricks
Sabotaging your own party before finishing an act is possible; however, the jury’s still out on whether that’s a valid strategy or not. Fallen comrades come back as skeletons in those boss fights, which make those encounters more manageable as they become slightly weaker, but it also eats into your rewards.
The global item system, accessible at the end of every act, serves as the biggest deterrent to sabotaging your group. After the player beats a boss, the number of items being currently held, as well as how many living party members remain, gets tallied up and converted into gold coins. This extra gold is used to purchase items which become available to all of your party members without taking up an inventory slot. Each character has a limited amount of items they can carry, and trading items mid-fight costs a precious action point, so these global items are worth their weight in gold and then some. Finishing an act with heavy casualties or an empty inventory will net you less extra gold, meaning fewer opportunities to purchase these useful items.
Endless Synergy
Bossfight Tactics features an incredibly creative upgrade system, where buffs and debuffs (called tokens,) give items extra properties. Multiple temporary status effects rain down during fights, giving you the option to either collect the ones you deem desirable or move enemies into the negative ones to prevent them from taking certain actions. Any character who enters the shop while afflicted by one of these status effects is able to infuse items with one of these properties, like giving a weapon a bleed effect or double damage when striking an enemy from behind.
Sometimes, purposely getting hit by a bleed or vulnerability effect near the end of an encounter benefits your party thanks to this system, although you have to take into account the health cost that comes with upgrading your items.
Certain items also inflict these status effects on demand, allowing players to use their three action points inside of a shop to inflict some of these properties onto their allies, adding another layer of risk and reward to the game.
Demo content and final verdict
The demo currently available for Bossfight Tactics gives us access to three out of the game’s five chapters, even hinting at a mirror match at the end of our run, which we unfortunately don’t have access to at the moment. The final game promises achievements and over 100 items in total, some of which we can see in the item collection tab available from the main menu.
Bossfight Tactics is a very fun time waster, as runs don’t take too long and the turn-based nature of its gameplay isn’t too demanding, only asking that players do their best with the three actions available per turn. This is a game that would do great on mobile or other handheld devices, as I can totally imagine myself trying to beat a run or two when bored at work. The lack of modifiers unfortunately limits the game as a roguelike, as runs will eventually start blending together because of the somewhat small item pool. Still, Bossfight Tactics is an easy title to recommend, featuring a satisfying gameplay loop and, overall, a lot of charm.
Bossfight Tactics will release on August 20, 2025, for PC. Download the demo on Steam and give it a shot.
