Rising Hell is a rogue-like 2D action platformer with vertical levels. You are constantly ascending, avoiding dangerous traps, and defeating enemies. On some levels there are ever-rising obstacles, so you have to escape toxic gas or spiked traps.
The combat seems partially automatic because landing on an enemy from above or below triggers an attack, although you can also perform basic slashes on the ground or aerially yourself. There is a dash move that makes you invulnerable, then you can combine with general movement or wall jumps to avoid danger. You mainly perform basic attacks but there are some temporary power-ups for stronger attacks with more visual flair.
As you defeat enemies, you collect Souls which are used to purchase upgrades at certain points of the level. There's all kinds of effects like acquiring bonus souls, extra defence/attack etc. These upgrades are lost when you die though. You can unlock a few characters or different starting perks (artefacts) with the purple gems known as Blight. These artefacts tweak an aspect of gameplay, one positive and one negative.
The graphics are very pixelated, and the colour scheme is pretty limited; very red, black or purple. Sometimes I found certain hostile creatures to blend into the background which is a particular problem when you are playing through a different level theme for the first time and don't know what to look out for.
I thought the starting level seemed too easy so it gets off to a very boring start. When it's a rogue-like game which is designed to play repeatedly you end up playing this boring bit many times over. Then you probably end up dying on the bosses due to a difficulty spike. There is a mode which gives you 3 lives which was much appreciated and that allowed me to gain more practice on the bosses and get further into the game. However, the latter bosses are then multi-stage which is sometimes a large ask to learn all their attack patterns.
Personally, I felt the game was a bit boring and got old fast.