TouchArcade Rating: A masterful blend of distinct gameplay styles! Ocean Keeper seamlessly integrates side-scrolling mining with top-down mech combat, creating a compelling and consistently rewarding experience. This roguelike from RetroStyle Games offers a unique loop of resource gathering, upgrade progression, and intense enemy encounters that keeps you engaged.

The core gameplay revolves around exploring underwater caves in your mech to mine resources. The side-scrolling mining segments involve excavating rocks to uncover valuable materials and artifacts, earning you in-game currency. However, time is limited; waves of enemies will soon attack, forcing you to return to your mech and defend your base. The perspective shifts to a top-down twin-stick shooter, incorporating light tower defense elements as you repel increasingly challenging aquatic creatures.

Resources fuel upgrades for both your mining equipment and your mech, with extensive branching skill trees for customization. The roguelike nature means death ends your run, resetting progress, but persistent upgrades between runs ensure continuous advancement. Procedurally generated overworld and cave layouts add replayability.

Initially, Ocean Keeper may feel slow, with challenging early runs. However, persistence pays off. As upgrades accumulate and skills improve, the game's addictive loop and satisfying weapon/upgrade synergies become apparent. The strategic depth in experimenting with different builds and tactics is a key highlight. While the slow start might deter some, the rewarding gameplay that unfolds makes Ocean Keeper a truly captivating experience.