this is a really weird game to me. i think this game has some of the most fun space combat and flying mechanics of any space game but even the best of the genre can get pretty repetitive. all of the rites were pretty cool and fun. some felt a bit useless (like the grab ships one) but otherwise i was excited to get a new one. the gameplay was good enough that i finished it, but it was a bit too long. this game needed like 2/3 hours cut off of it or at least for the missions to feel more grand and different. there were 2 big exciting missions that were like a 4.5 star game while the rest of the game is like a 3. i feel like the game could have benefited from less filler/side missions and try to fit in 1 or 2 more big boss missions. i also think the story was a little too edgy/generally uninteresting. i ended up skipping most cutscenes because i was just bored. nara and forsaken had a nice little dynamic but it wasn't enough for me to particularly care.

tl;dr: it's fun but is a bit repetitive and goes on a bit too long.

i find it hard to give this game a star rating because by design it's meant to frustrate you and be obnoxious and doesn't particularly look/sound good (most assets and songs are stolen) but i genuinely had a really good time lol. i wasn't crazy about the super troll-y stuff (which to be fair is a lot of the in between) but some platforming challenges were fun and i genuinely really liked every boss! don't play this unless you're willing to deal with a game that wants you to fucking hate it, but if you're a freak like me and actually kinda enjoy that shit it's pretty fun.

this is a fun concept, but it just doesn't really function. the balancing is awful, the rogue-lite elements feel poorly implemented (dungeons are really uninteresting) and the upgrade system is incredibly incremental and not at all satisfying. combine that with a ton of co-op frustrations like game breaking bugs/annoying revive system that leaves friends sitting there for like 30 minutes at a time and you get a real mess of a game. it feels like it should have been a home run but it just falls short everywhere.