Recent reviews by Banana Pancakes

Writing this review a couple of days after the early access release.

I'll start out this review by iterating this game is beautiful and funny as ****. All of the art is hand-drawn, and wonderfully crafted. Rogue-likes that are this smooth on release deserve all the merit they can get. They do have their own handful of flaws on this game, however, and it is a long way from being finished. (I assume that's why they put that good ol' "early release" title like all indie devs do).

Pros:
- The game is smooth and seamless with its animation, and it gives you a feeling that a high profile team that has been making games with way more experience than the team that made this actually has. Each level is a cog in "Death Inc's" machine, and you can see the gears turning and come to life!

- This game has a perfect blend of poppy colors that contrast with the dark and drab backgrounds it displays, constantly impresses me with its awe-inspiring art with every attack and boss battle presented.

- The soundtrack is so fitting for the colorful and playful tones this game sets while being centered completely around such a dark theme of death. I love it in every way possible, there is no song I would not play over again.

- The characters you are introduced to are dead, but they could not be more alive. Each employee under death has their own beaming, sometimes cheeky sometimes cute personality, and the way they interact with each other and death is hilarious and never gets old. All the NPC's that are important have their own way of talking, and I believe it was voice acted perfectly (in the same regards as Undertale's characters but with human sounding noises). Their interactions are really extensive and fresh, and in the 5.5 hours I've played this game I'm still seeing new dialogue.

- The game's combat feels fair, and you're rarely left with moments of feeling cheated out of a cool combo once you get the hang of how it all works. (I'll explain later why I said rarely). It mirrors the timeless "git gud or die" template, and it feels awesome when you clear a room without taking a single tick of damage. Collecting weapons and spells that better your survivability is RNG based like The Binding of Isaac, and you soon outgrow simply using the scythe main weapon you start out with.

- Another character point I found awesome is that the joke of "haha death in a corporation" isn't shoved down your throat, and allows some breathing room for you to just enjoy the game, while not taking itself too seriously.

- It's ****ing CHEAP for how much gameplay you'd get out of it. The $15.00 pricepoint gives you endless replayability and there are challenges everywhere.

Cons:
- When items or shops are described in this game, the descriptions are brief and make you feel like you should already know what it is or does. For instance, the game never explains what your "cloak" does, yet it is referenced many times during lots of upgrade processes. Eventually I figured out that the cloak is referencing any secondary or tertiary weapons that are physical and not spells, but this was still never explained anywhere. Another example is how the shops are described once in brief, easily skippable detail, and you are left to read over the "tutorial guide" later if you're confused that gives little to no detail on what the shop is for; i.e There are no descriptors in Joe's shop, and nothing indicates what each item does when you buy it with gold, it just...exists and gives dialogue from the character once purchased.

- While the combat feels fair most of the time, the team definitely has some bumps to buff out. The odd dash will not give as much time as normal for invuln, and can lead to some pretty frustrating deaths.

- Speaking of deaths, dying in this game sends you ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE START, in Binding of Isaac fashion of course. You never get a "game over", but there are absolutely no checkpoints in the game at all so far. It very quickly makes you feel under-powered in combat once you reach a point you've never gotten to. This is technically a pro as well, as I know this is a stylistic choice like in "Getting over it", but god is it frustrating.

- My final gripe is with the health and pickup system. Health definitely needs to be more common than it is and do more healing than it does right now. Entire runs of nothing but Soularies when I needed health bad have made it feel like an unfair death at times, and doesn't make for a fun playthrough if there could have been no way to survive a few attacks. (inb4 git gud spammers)

Overall, this game is already a comedic, lively (heh, death) masterpiece, and although I abhor the "early release" title that all devs put on their games nowadays, I can see the cons I talked about easily being implemented into the game in its current state if the devs listen to reason.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some expense reports to give the old fashioned CEO "okay" on.

is gud game