Lots of fun

No explanations of anything. Got into a round, clicked random abilities and upgrades, took the red portal a bunch, run only ended when I was curious what the blue portal was... Hits the same 'hordes of enemies slayer' feels as Vampire Survivors and Halls of Torment... but really becomes more of a "struggle to see the red circles and move out of them" than actually interesting.
Other reviews have said it, player attacks need to be toned down in terms of color and flashiness so you can more easily see where not to stand.

I refunded the game when it first had come out because it was boring to me.

A lot has changed since then, lots of people now recommended it to me as a shining example that devs did put in the work and constantly made the game better. So I bought it again over the christmas days, free time, free mindless grind.

One thing that didn´t change is that I am so bored. What do people see in this game? I have no idea, here is a glimpse in my game experience with this "enhanced refined version":


GET ME OUT. PLEASE!!! PLEEEEEEEEAAAASEEEE!!!!!!!! I AM IN ENDLESS CIRCLE NUMBER...4? 5? 6? IDK. I HAVE BEEN RUNNING IN CIRCLES FOR OVER AN HOUR NOW. IT IS THE ONLY THING I HAVE DONE. THERE IS NOTHING TO DO. I AM PICKING SKILLUPGRADES BY THE COLOUR OF THE BUTTON. THE BOSSES ARE TAKING FOREVER TO DEFEAT AND EACH IS LESS INTERESTING THAN THE LAST. AND THERE IS ONLY 4 OF THEM. THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO DO. I AM RUNNING IN CIRCLES. GET ME OUT. THIS GAME IS HELL!!!!

and the thing is...this is non-negotiable game design? Like...to get the ressources needed to upgrade stuff, this is what you need to do. I think? Honestly, I don´t think I understand the game. So I went to twitch and youtube to watch some gameplay...AND THEY ARE DOING THE SAME ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ THING. AND THEY ARE LOOKING AS BORED AND TUNED OUT OF LIFE AS I AM.


ok, small breath - Positives:
I have not unlocked the full central skill tree yet and appearently there is more stuff afterwards. But I don´t see what those are. Neither do I see how to unlock runes. Neither do I actually know how to unlock some of the characters...or why I should bother doing so anyways if all of the characters are playing the same anyways????

ok wait, this was supposed to be the positives:

ähhh there is one skill that lets me select skills from a different skill tree than the one the characters naturally have and I do not have a profile for that so I need to change it on every single character and it also doesn´t let me actually pick different skills from different trees that actually would work together and there is also upgrades in the runs that actually incentivize the player to pick the basic skills and there is almost no actual upgrades that focus on synergies of skills anyways and !!!!!!!!!

POSITIVES!!!:

There is a dog you can pet.
You don´t see it in the game because visibility is still horrible even when lowering effect stuff.



ok, I hate so much to say this because it is the rudest thing that I can imagine myself ever saying about a game, and I am sorry for it, but:

I do not think the devs for this game know how to make this a fun game. I think they have no fun working on the game. I think they have no fun testing the game. I think nobody I saw playing this game had fun. I think the reviews are fake.
And if I go by the recommendations that people have given me for this game...I think I got bamboozled into spending money I could have bought a coffee or two with. I so much would want those instead. If I could refund the game again, I would.

I am not even gonna begin with the negatives of this game. They are too numerous. They are systemic. There is no point I can see to doing any of what I am doing. This game has no story, no explanations, no idea where it wants to go, no defining features. The one saving grace is, that I do infact not have all the games passive stuff unlocked. Maybe there is a fun system of upgrades and buildcrafting and synergies and unlockables behind all of this? I will allow comments on this one because maybe someone else knows how the actual complete game differs from someone who is like 90% done on the central skill tree, 4 runes and like 6 character unlocks in.

Is the only point of the game to unlock stuff for the sake of unlocking them? Or is there a reason to unlocking them? Because right now every build I have played is exactly doing the same thing:
Pick multicast
Pick skill frequency
Pick damage
Run in circles forever

Nothing ever stands out. Nothing cool happens. Nothing I ever think about. The only reason I play is because I hope something unlocks something cool and so far none of it has.
So are there such unlocks where someting interesting happens? Ever? Where do the positive reviews come from?


But all I can say is that this game right now is like getting you teeth pulled. But not the dentist. Just your trustworthy gang of thugs in a backalley jumping you after the promise of a great bullet hell game they are exciting to show you for just a few bucks. And then for the rest of the night you will get chased but luckily you have figured out the one best strategy for staying alive - running around in circles. Forever. Until the possibility of just standing still and letting fate happen feels like the lesser pain.