Esse jogo é simplesmente muito viciante.

É algo meio bobo no começo, enquanto tu não entende bem as mecânicas e a complexidade do jogo em si, e não sabe traçar estratégias, etc. Porém, conforme tu vai pegando mais ritmo e experimentando outros personagens, armas, pensando em abordagens para cada nível... o negócio me fisgou demais.

É dificil definir um objetivo para considerar ele "finalizado", mas eu ja consigo superar o loop final com alguns personagens e a diversão meio que fica por conta da diversidade de táticas. Mas preciso seguir a vida, logo, dar um tempo de jogar, mais para experimentar outras coisas do que por enjoar do jogo, que é bárbaro.

Para mim, isso é videogame no seu estado mais puro e cristalino. Que é como sempre deveria ser.

A fun enough auto-shooter, although I wish there was a bit more variety and perhaps some meta-progression to work toward. It was great how each character has very different rules - which forces you to change up your strategy for each one. I also liked how the RNG biases toward decisions you've already made, so you can influence what kinds of build you would like to have while still retaining some level of randomness.

I do wish that there was more variety in terms of the map - both the physical map and the types and waves of enemies that spawn. As it is, you play each character on the same map and the enemy waves are the same each time, which creates a feeling of repetitiveness. I also wish there was some sort of meta-progression. While each character you win with typically unlocks a new weapon, that wasn't enough to make it feel like I was growing with each run as is common in rouge-lites.

This is the kind of game that is best played if you have 30 minutes here or 30 minutes there to put in a run, rather than playing it straight all the way through. It's quite fun in short bursts, but rather grindy when played in longer sessions.

In the genre of autoshooter roguelites, this game clearly stands head and shoulders above the rest. Such an elegant combination of familiar mechanics weaved together into a flawless system of skill and luck, amplified by near-perfect execution on all fronts.

It goes like this: you pick a character and a difficulty and just survive 20 one-minute rounds. After each round you upgrade your character’s stats like speed or damage and then go to the shop to buy weapons and items with money, which is dropped from killed enemies (you have to go pick it up on the spot of the kill) and also contributes to the level bar which allows you to upgrade your character as mentioned before. This all sounds very basic as every game in this genre basically plays like this, but the genius of the game is little tweaks to the systems that exponentially elevate the experience.

First of all, the map is a somewhat small square, unlike the infinite maps of other games, which forces you to play more aggressively in between packs of enemies instead of circling a big horde ad nauseam. Enemies in other games usually come from outside the screen in a big circle you are always the center of, but here they spawn wherever on the map even right next to you. It forces you to stay aware at all times of dying instantly. In this genre you almost always go for dps and once you achieve a good enough start only then start worrying about your defensive options, because enemies always spawn a distance away from you and are usually killed before they could feasibly do a thing to you. Not here, you actually have to be aware and build you character accordingly while being careful to dodge the x marks that show an enemy is spawning. Also there are trees that periodically spawn on the map that drop money and occasionally free items when destroyed. They are top-priority as soon as you see them and have to reach them quickly because early on they can take a few seconds to destroy if you dont have good enough dps. The combination of the limited time and map + the way enemies spawn + the trees works so well to fix the biggest criticism of this style of game, which is that you move around and hope for good rng to make you win. To do well at the game you have to get in there between the enemies to get money, dodging like neo from the matrix, moving around to check for trees and trying to maximize your rounds as much as possible. This alone actually makes the game worth playing and theres even more somehow.

By far the best thing about this game is the enemies. There’s only about a dozen of them but they complement and complete each other beautifully. From basic melee grunts to chargers to projectiles and buffers that get away from you. But my favorite two enemies are the ribcages and tentacles. Ribcages are tanky heavy hitters that get faster the longer they are alive, and tentacles don’t attack you straight on but shoot two attacks at an angle so you can’t really go around without getting damaged. On their own they make for a good challenge but if your build is lacking and you cant really move around the map and get stuck at a corner and these guys come at you you can kiss your run goodbye. Of course cant forget the bosses that can spawn that provide interesting challenges and movement checks. The best part is that you don’t even have to kill them if you absolutely can’t, you can just play normally until the timer runs out, but killing them is recommended if possible because they drop legendary loot. It’s so refreshing to see how far a game can go by just having an interesting enemy roster, it’s definitely one of the lost arts of design nowadays.

I don’t want to stop. I haven’t even talked about the surprisingly well implemented endless mode, weapon set bonuses, the amazing mod support or the banging soundtrack and art style. Get this game and witness what reaching your potential against all odds truly looks like. Beautiful piece of Art.