Top tier bullet hell roguelike with nice, short runs. There are many different ships and weapons that all feel very different, and each level you pick an upgrade that either increases stats, or does something cool on hit/fire/kill/etc (e.g. summon a construct that fires corrosive bullets, or inflicts a status effect, or heals, etc). To facilitate your build crafting (which for many, myself included, is the real meat and potatoes of these games), you have a number of banishes, alters, duel picks, rerolls, etc. Also there's 2 meta progression trees, one for adding more features and another for the usual stat upgrades. Additionally, if you win a run you get a token you can use to buy a super powerful "artifact" that is added as a possible leveling upgrade. Eventually you can even banish a whole category of upgrades for a run (e.g. if your build has no use for them), and pick a category you want to see MORE of. All these features really help wrangle with the RNG so you can build the build you want!

All in all, great stuff and really a must-have IMHO for true action roguelike fans!

The best way to describe Shapeshifter: Formations is as Nova Drift's cheery, amicable cousin. There are an astounding number of similarities between the titles, though most notable to me would be the rogue-lite progression that serves more as gradually "opening up" the game than true progression. Shapeshifter:Formations gates a majority of its content behind achievements which unlock new ships, new weapons, run pathways/permutations, and other such developmental growth. While a relatively simple premise, the game has a surprising level of build depth and interactions that allow for many different promising build brainstorms which -- like Nova Drift -- provides a hook to keep you engaged with a fast-paced, skill-driven bullet hell arena mosh pit.

On one hand, Shapeshifter:Formations has aspects that play out as a brutally challenging, unforgiving action shooter where every movement counts -- aspects that show well enough as you're starting to play and learning, but become potently more impactful as you ramp up the threat level slider to 50 and beyond. Get hit? Yikes, there's 20% of your health gone. Can you heal it? Slowly, yes, unless you pick up the right healing skills. Too many of these, though, and you lack the mobility and firepower to dodge bullets. Not enough damage and you'll find yourself overwhelmed by bosses, and a lack of area clear equally will drown you. In this manner, build-balancing is crucial, and the interesting implementation of 4 elemental statuses puts twists on how you can manage durability, damage, and mobility with your builds. Tossed inside this is an interesting orb system which offers you some additional tools, and for the most part most build combinations are rewarding and challenging to play.

Where Shapeshifter:Formations falls short is that there is essentially no scoring system to compare your runs against one another. Unlike Nova Drift's endless mode where you will, with almost impossible exception, find yourself inevitably outscaled and outgunned, there are several build permutations that are completely unkillable and have infinity damage with the right selection of upgrades and skill trees. The end result is that successful builds simply give you the satisfaction of "these are amazing, zoom zoom numbers go brrr" but don't really compare against one another. I don't know how some of these number scaling games are solved, but it would be nice to see the number systems ramped up to give crazy builds a scaling challenge that pushes competition into the feel of each run. Things like primes with armor that limits hits and damage to a maximum amount of hp loss per second, primes that restrict all pierce, and increasing heal penalties would all be examples of things that force you to play consistently well and would add some sort of tangible scaling to the scoring system. Add in some bonus to completing the true final arena, and runs would suddenly have more tactical decisions to make in terms of how and when to push vs when to "close out" a run with a build that has seemingly reached its limits.

All this is to say that Shapeshifter:Formations is a fantastic game with a lot of depth that definitely will appeal to genre bugs and potentially those beyond. My hours played should reflect how enjoyable all the different build permutations are to figure out, and the achievements climb is very satisfying with its staggered unlocks. There are a few rather annoying design decisions currently imposed, such as the very end game promoting brutal and difficult runs being the norm but making artifacts cost a whopping 10 cores per run no matter what, but hopefully these will be worked out. Either way, definitely recommended -- great title!

This games tons of fun; with lots of ships, weapons, and skill trees! Tons of items and such! So much fun!

Couch co-op, too, which is a blast with friends! :3