If you are diving into Doinksoft's chaotic new roguelite platformer, you will immediately face a crucial choice: which of the three initial characters will actually get you past the first punishing set of levels? While the game’s retro charm might tempt you to pick the fastest or flashiest character, the best starting hero Dark Scrolls players can choose is undoubtedly Grizz. The burly barbarian’s slow movement speed, wide axe attacks, and devastating ground-pound ability make him the ultimate anchor for beginners learning the ropes. Here is exactly why Grizz dominates the early game and how he compares to the rest of the roster.
Doinksoft and Devolver Digital have crafted a game that fuses classic 16-bit platforming with the unrelenting projectile chaos of a shoot-’em-up. Because Dark Scrolls refuses to hold your hand, your initial character selection acts as the game’s only real difficulty slider.
Why Grizz is the Best Starting Hero Dark Scrolls Offers
When you first boot up the game, you are presented with three options: Grizz the warrior, Pigeon the thief, and Emerys the wizard. Grizz immediately stands out as the optimal choice for survival.
As a large, bearded barbarian, Grizz relies on sheer brute strength. His primary attack involves hurling heavy axes in a wide, sweeping arc. In the geometry of 2D platformers—a lesson learned decades ago by Castlevania veterans—an arced projectile is mathematically superior to a straight shot. It allows you to clear out aerial threats before they enter your immediate hitbox, keeping you safe from the game's relentless flying enemies.
But Grizz’s true value lies in his special ability: a devastating ground-pound attack from the air. Dark Scrolls is infested with erratic, jumping frog enemies whose leap heights wildly vary, making them incredibly difficult to predict and dodge. Grizz’s ground-pound instantly KOs these enemies from above, completely negating their unpredictable RNG movement.
Furthermore, Grizz’s slower movement speed is a massive, hidden buff. In a game littered with environmental hazards, spike traps, and bullet-hell projectile waves, moving slowly prevents you from outrunning your own reaction times. It forces a methodical, deliberate playstyle that is absolutely necessary for learning the procedurally generated rooms without bleeding out your health pool on easily avoidable traps.
Pigeon and Emerys: The Trap of Speed and Floaty Magic
If Grizz is the sturdy anchor, Pigeon and Emerys are the flashy, fragile alternatives that will quickly end your early runs.
Pigeon, the nimble thief who bears a striking resemblance to Link, is a trap for new players. He throws lightning-fast bursts of knives at close range and executes a double jump where he hurls daggers straight downward. The problem? His movement speed is simply too high for a beginner. When you are still learning the visual language of the game's traps, Pigeon’s rapid pace guarantees you will bump into hazards and enemies, draining your health before you can even reach a boss room. He is a character built for speedrunners who have already memorized the game’s spatial logic, not for players just trying to survive.
Emerys, the wizard, operates in a frustrating middle ground. He attacks by casting balls of energy that bounce across the screen, and he features a floaty jump mechanic. Unfortunately, his bouncing orbs lack the immediate, targeted burst damage required to clear out swarms of enemies quickly. When the screen fills with shmup-style bullet chaos, you do not have the luxury of waiting for an orb to bounce into the correct target. You need the threat dead immediately, and Emerys simply cannot deliver that kind of reliable burst damage.
Strategies for the Best Starting Hero Dark Scrolls Progression
Picking Grizz is only the first step; you also need to understand how to pilot him through the game's unforgiving economy and progression loop.
The core loop of Dark Scrolls requires you to navigate procedurally generated levels, heal at a Bonfire, and hoard coins to spend at Bruce & Goose's Shoppe. Because Grizz has a naturally high survivability rate, you will reach the Bonfire with more of your health intact, allowing you to play aggressively in the subsequent rooms.
Gold management is critical. You will routinely encounter an optional map path that is gated by a steep 1200 gold toll. Opening this path is essential for deep runs, which means you cannot afford to waste money on frivolous upgrades early on. You must save your coins for Bruce & Goose's Shoppe to purchase devastating attacks and summoned allies that will carry you through the late game.
This economy becomes even more punishing in multiplayer. Dark Scrolls features local and online co-op, but it makes a brutal design choice: gold is not shared between players. If you are playing with a friend, you have to actively coordinate who picks up the coins to ensure someone can afford the 1200 gold map gate. Grizz’s slow, deliberate pace makes it much easier to carefully maneuver around coins, leaving them for your co-op partner to collect.
When you finally reach the UFO Moon boss, Grizz’s heavy axe arc shines once again, allowing you to deal consistent damage to the hovering boss while remaining safely grounded to dodge its sweeping laser attacks.
Lack of Accessibility Makes Your Starter Crucial
It is vital to understand why optimizing your start matters so much in this specific game. As noted by early reviews, Dark Scrolls feels like an uncompromising, old-school arcade cabinet. There is no adjustable challenge mode. Basic audio settings cannot be accessed mid-run, and there is no way to adjust controller inputs on the fly. There are no online leaderboards to track your incremental progress, and no list of previous runs to review what killed you.
Because the game refuses to offer modern safety nets or accessibility options to slow down the action, your choice of character is your only lifeline. While Pigeon dashes recklessly into spike traps and Emerys struggles to hit a basic spider with his bouncing orbs, Grizz’s slow pace ensures safety. Playing Grizz is the closest thing the game has to a "Normal Mode," making him the definitive choice for preserving your sanity during the brutal learning curve.
Expanding the Roster: Unlocking the Rest of the Cast
Once you have mastered the fundamentals with Grizz and started clearing runs consistently, the game opens up significantly. Dark Scrolls features a hefty cast of ten unlockable characters that inject bizarre, delightful variety into the gameplay.
You will eventually unlock Nezumi the bard, who blasts flaming musical notes at enemies, completely changing the spatial dynamics of combat. Further down the line, the roster gets genuinely weird, offering a cute dog, an alien, Confit, and a rat playing a saxophone.
These characters are incredibly fun to pilot and offer entirely new ways to interact with the game's physics. However, it is worth noting that there is no special narrative reward or alternate ending for completing the game with any specific character. The unlockable roster exists purely for mechanical variety and arcade replayability. When you inevitably hit a wall with the saxophone rat, you will find yourself swapping back to Grizz to secure a reliable, deep run.
FAQ: Best Starting Hero Dark Scrolls
Is there a secret best starting hero Dark Scrolls hides in the late game? No. While you eventually unlock ten characters—including Nezumi the bard and a saxophone-playing rat—Grizz remains the most mathematically sound choice for consistent clears. The unlockable roster provides immense mechanical variety, but no hidden character outright eclipses Grizz's base survivability, health pool, and reliable area-of-effect damage.
Can I beat the game with Pigeon? Absolutely. Pigeon is the ceiling to Grizz’s floor. Speedrunners and veteran players who have memorized hazard placements favor the thief for his rapid dagger bursts and double jumps. However, his steep learning curve and fragile health pool make him a frustrating liability during your first dozen hours with the game.
Does co-op change the best starting hero Dark Scrolls tier list? Not significantly. Because gold isn't shared and boss HP scales aggressively to match the player count, bringing Grizz into local or online co-op is still highly recommended. His ability to survive without monopolizing the shared gold pool allows you to funnel essential resources to a squishier partner, ensuring your team can still afford the 1200 gold map gates.
Sources
- Doinksoft & Devolver Digital Official Release Notes (June 2026)
- Nintendo Life: Dark Scrolls Review
- ScreenRant: Dark Scrolls Mechanics Breakdown