I love rogue-like games, and "difficult" games and this game came recommended... but it doesn't live up to the hype. I really want to like this game, but I can't. At this point I would be mad if I had paid more than the $3 sale price.

- Terrible controls... and it's a bullet hell... you can't have a bullet hell when the controls are this bad. Jumping feels completely unresponsive. Short hop? Long hop? Distances and heights seem random and disconnected from input. Various core abilities are added as multi-button series of inputs instead of... using any of the other unmapped buttons? I don't understand how that was a good idea. Tried with a keyboard, XB1 controller and PS4 controller... no difference.

- Poor pacing. If there is any sort of difficulty curve, it seems non-existant or there is zero room filtering. One run you'll get 3 rooms in a row with a single melee enemy, next run the same rooms give you a 6+ enemy bullet hell with no chance of coming out unscathed. There are exceptionally difficult sections of platforming with zero build up. No chance to understand mechanics before they are thrown at you. Hallmark platformers introduce elements/mechanics slowly, one at at time over the course of a level. Not in this game, three rooms in you are forced to masterfully pull off rapid series of moves with lethal consequences. The calling card of this genre is the procedural generation but there needs to be a level of filtering that clearly isn't in this game. You can't just claim "PGC" and skip the "game design". It is just lazy.

- Gameplay loop is a grind. It is Not engaging to see your health go up by 1/4 of a single hit when you dump all your money into it. The cost of upgrades immediately rockets up and seems to do so randomly. The same upgrade you looked at one round and try to save up for will be higher the next loop with zero explanation. If the cost is somehow tied to you upgrading other options, you know, trying to see more of the available game, then it feels like you are inherently punished for upgrading... which is the core loop of the game. Also, your ability to get upgrades is lost between rounds so it requires a sucessful run to even come close to unlocking another, mildly worthless upgrade.

- Poor enemy design. There is no counterplay or predicitivity to walking into a room to immediately get hit by a spawned enemy... Oh and that's 1/3 of your unrefillable health pool. Some enemy projectiles pass through walls, others don't. Some projectiles are shown coming from off-screen, others aren't. Sometimes specific enemy types are agressive and charge the moment you walk into a room, sometimes the same enemy is passive and hangs back, other times they try to move and get stuck on/in a wall right where you need to jump to. The hit boxes for the main character and enemies are flawed and deceptively larger than the player sprite.

- Aesthetic. Some people will enjoy the half childish, half over the top humor(?) in the game. I found it annoying and mocking. Your character runs across the screen, sword raised into the air in a charge... but the character has literally done nothing so far. Just acting like a hot shot when they will, in all likelyhood, die in the next minute or so. The family "traits" are gimmicky. Like great, this round everything is black and white, or NPC text is straight up illegible, or the whole screen is upsidedown... why? Maybe some think the gimmicks are fun but when you get over the humor in the first 45minues of playtme you just want to be able to have a decent run... not waste your time because you randomly got a terrible roll on characters. There is no attachment. May as well just suicide till you roll decent characters.



TLDR: Seriously, just go play Dead Cells, this is an utter waste of time comparatively.

I love rogue-like games, and "difficult" games and this game came recommended... but it doesn't live up to the hype. I really want to like this game, but I can't. At this point I would be mad if I had paid more than the $3 sale price. - Terrible controls... and it's a bullet hell... you can't have a bullet hell when the controls are this bad. Jumping feels completely unresponsive. Short hop? Long hop? Distances and heights seem random and disconnected from input. Various core abilities are added as multi-button series of inputs instead of... using any of the other unmapped buttons? I don't understand how that was a good idea. Tried with a keyboard, XB1 controller and PS4 controller... no difference. - Poor pacing. If there is any sort of difficulty curve, it seems non-existant or there is zero room filtering. One run you'll get 3 rooms in a row with a single melee enemy, next run the same rooms give you a 6+ enemy bullet hell with no chance of coming out unscathed. There are exceptionally difficult sections of platforming with zero build up. No chance to understand mechanics before they are thrown at you. Hallmark platformers introduce elements/mechanics slowly, one at at time over the course of a level. Not in this game, three rooms in you are forced to masterfully pull off rapid series of moves with lethal consequences. The calling card of this genre is the procedural generation but there needs to be a level of filtering that clearly isn't in this game. You can't just claim "PGC" and skip the "game design". It is just lazy. - Gameplay loop is a grind. It is Not engaging to see your health go up by 1/4 of a single hit when you dump all your money into it. The cost of upgrades immediately rockets up and seems to do so randomly. The same upgrade you looked at one round and try to save up for will be higher the next loop with zero explanation. If the cost is somehow tied to you upgrading other options, you know, trying to see more of the available game, then it feels like you are inherently punished for upgrading... which is the core loop of the game. Also, your ability to get upgrades is lost between rounds so it requires a sucessful run to even come close to unlocking another, mildly worthless upgrade. - Poor enemy design. There is no counterplay or predicitivity to walking into a room to immediately get hit by a spawned enemy... Oh and that's 1/3 of your unrefillable health pool. Some enemy projectiles pass through walls, others don't. Some projectiles are shown coming from off-screen, others aren't. Sometimes specific enemy types are agressive and charge the moment you walk into a room, sometimes the same enemy is passive and hangs back, other times they try to move and get stuck on/in a wall right where you need to jump to. The hit boxes for the main character and enemies are flawed and deceptively larger than the player sprite. - Aesthetic. Some people will enjoy the half childish, half over the top humor(?) in the game. I found it annoying and mocking. Your character runs across the screen, sword raised into the air in a charge... but the character has literally done nothing so far. Just acting like a hot shot when they will, in all likelyhood, die in the next minute or so. The family "traits" are gimmicky. Like great, this round everything is black and white, or NPC text is straight up illegible, or the whole screen is upsidedown... why? Maybe some think the gimmicks are fun but when you get over the humor in the first 45minues of playtme you just want to be able to have a decent run... not waste your time because you randomly got a terrible roll on characters. There is no attachment. May as well just suicide till you roll decent characters. TLDR: Seriously, just go play Dead Cells, this is an utter waste of time comparatively.