This is one of the more complex Bullet Heavens out there.

It combines some of the common Auto-Battler Mechanics (reroll for Heros, combine them) etc. with the genre. Since you have no idea when you start playing what combos you can get (or which one are good) its kind of difficult.
If you are looking for something to "pick up , and be successfull", this is probably not for you, expect the first 2-3 hours to me more of a trial and error "tutorial". There is MetaProgression, and as far as i can tell after 3 hours, it take quite a lot of game time to unlock new stuff

If i had to pick something i do not like, its how the item upgrade system works. Basicly you have 6 Slots on your partyleader, the items itself are quite basic in terms of what they do (just stat boni , eg. + HP, + damage etc, no real "run defining items). Thats fine, but upgrading them is a gamble. You combine 2 "similar" items, and get a higher Tier . This Item seems to have random new stats, so you could end up "destroying" your + physical damage swords for a strong, but in this run useless Caster Item... You can reroll Items, but this is also a gamble... Its not the end of the world, but in general i dislike "gamble" upgrade Systems.

Still :
All in all i like it, its something "fresh" in the bullet Heaven Genre.

I'd give it a neutral if it existed. The changes it makes to the genre are rather interesting, but each game leaves me more frustrated than wanting to play more.

6 heros each with their own levels/upgrades. 1 of these upgrades is the hero's primary method of gaining strength. It entails getting highest tier (purple) of upgrades (they call them stands) of really specific types. Trapping players into picking the same things every time is a bad idea for fun/replayability and causes a lot of issues with the other parts of this game's system.

So as for how a typical game may go
You pick your hero and you need Stands A B C and you need a LOT of A to get high dps.
Level up rewards currency to buy stands, but are as usual what you can buy is completely random so you may not even get any A
The mid game boss shows up with a 4 minute timer, you failed to get lucky and obtain enough A,B,C stands so you fail the dps check and lose.

How to do better is unfortunately just get lucky. There is a large tech tree with offense/defense/support abilities, but the offense isn't enough to carry you if you are unlucky, defense doesn't win a dps check, and support's effects are effected by the same random nature so they may net you nothing.

Outside of those hero upgrades we get equipment which can be crafted and also upgraded using the same type of item. Sadly everything is purely random. The base item you craft could be completely unless and even if it is good when you upgrade the item it may turn into something useless instead. You can spend gold to reforge an item, but there is still a ~50% chance of it being useless since you are either doing a magic build or physical build based on what your hero's required synergy is. The gold also has other more critical uses so you are handicapping yourself elsewhere gambling on gear.

Another point that occurs with pretty much every game in this genre is the upgrade (stand) balancing. Due to the bosses being a hard DPS check it becomes critical to make sure you have good single target dps. But as mentioned earlier you are required to pick certain stands because of your hero. Suddenly you are left with the feeling of impending doom when you know you are forced to pick upgrades that will cause you to lose a DPS check later.

Almost 20 hours in.

Here's my opinion.

Pros :
Good art style, love me some 8 bit graphics and this is done properly. Beautiful game. The mechanics are fine, not much innovation except for the merging up of gear and minions which was a great idea.

That's it.

Cons :
It's got a timer and a short one at that too. The fact that you have a set amount of time to kill the boss sucks. Too much randomness. Good luck finding the exact minions for your recipe. I can refresh the list 10 times and not see one minion I need and nevermind if you have physical gear and the only minions you get are casters, meaning this is just based on luck. Once every 10+ games, you'll get what you need and you can merge 2 epic minions before the first boss arrives but most of the time, you get destroyed because you're unable to get what you need and since the amount of souls you need are hard to come by, this means you have to play a lot to get just one good game. This is not fun. The timer is the worst part. You never get to play long enough to get to play a good build. You know when you play Rogue Genesia (check it out, it's pretty good) and you get that awesome build where you can just stand there and monsters can't even get to you before they die because without a timer, you have time to get there? Yeah, this game falls short in this department and because the games are short, you never get to see godlike build and when you do, you can't play more than 1-2 minutes with it before you kill the boss and the game ends... Then you just start fresh and starting fresh is tedious.

I rate this game a solid 4 our of 10. Very beautiful but the timer ruins it. It's fun to have lots of choice but coupled with a limited amount of time and currency to refresh 10s of pages before you find what you need means you hardly ever get a fun game.