What does this game offer?

[FlanMan]

As a person who doesn't like roguelites unless they're a chaotic (in a funny way) co-op experience, who also really likes the Mega-Man Franchise. Is this game for me?
I played 53 minutes of it with the roguelite mode solo and the game controls great, the character designs look really solid, and I can see myself really enjoying the abilities available to me.
I just don't like the feeling that I'm not progressing after each restart. It just doesn't jive with me. So far the only Roguelite I've liked is Risk of Rain 2 for it's Co-Op, I've even tried Hades for 4 hours and it didn't click with me.
I also feel like I might be missing out on stuff since I haven't played 20XX.
Is the Mega Mode any good, does it offer any replay value where I'm not subjected to starting from scratch?

[Kurokzg]

The idea of rougelites is that you start with barely anything and you pick up random power ups along the way and adapt to the situation with what you're working with. Sometimes you'll be blessed and receive strong items early and your run will be smooth, other times not so much and struggle hard.

Most rougelite progression system is based on unlocking permanent upgrades and extra power up drops to both make future runs easier along with changing up the experience. Most games rewards you after clearing even a single boss so you'll make small progression every attempt. Very rarely do you clear a run in the first few attempts. By repetition you slowly get stronger along with acquiring new knowledge to help you succeed in future runs. As soon as you can clear 1 run, you probably have all the stats and know how to consistently clear more run. Most games at this point offer extra gimmicks and difficulty options to make the runs harder but offer more rewards. Hades, although starts off really slow, actually has one of the better progression system imo.

Try out Mega Mode, it functions like Megaman games where you can pick and choose stages you want to tackle and the everything randomly generated is only done at file creation, meaning the stage layout will always be the same with powers in the same location just for that file.

Megaman/Megaman X games are generally short in nature when you know the games ins and out, even on a casual level. They generally take 1-2 hours to beat. Putting a Megaman formula game as a rougelite gives it great replay-ability.

You can always try playing the game coop. Playing with another is always fun in nature.

You don't really need to play 20XX unless you really want to follow the story but that is heavy deep dive.

I haven't played Risk of Rain 2 myself so I dunno how to compare but honestly give this game a few more attempts and try out different things. If you want to coop you can hit me up. Try going back to Hades eventually and maybe things will be different. I have played rougelites with worst progression and man those suck.

[FlanMan]

Originally posted by Kurokzg:

The idea of rougelites is that you start with barely anything and you pick up random power ups along the way and adapt to the situation with what you're working with. Sometimes you'll be blessed and receive strong items early and your run will be smooth, other times not so much and struggle hard.

Most rougelite progression system is based on unlocking permanent upgrades and extra power up drops to both make future runs easier along with changing up the experience. Most games rewards you after clearing even a single boss so you'll make small progression every attempt. Very rarely do you clear a run in the first few attempts. By repetition you slowly get stronger along with acquiring new knowledge to help you succeed in future runs. As soon as you can clear 1 run, you probably have all the stats and know how to consistently clear more run. Most games at this point offer extra gimmicks and difficulty options to make the runs harder but offer more rewards. Hades, although starts off really slow, actually has one of the better progression system imo.

Try out Mega Mode, it functions like Megaman games where you can pick and choose stages you want to tackle and the everything randomly generated is only done at file creation, meaning the stage layout will always be the same with powers in the same location just for that file.

Megaman/Megaman X games are generally short in nature when you know the games ins and out, even on a casual level. They generally take 1-2 hours to beat. Putting a Megaman formula game as a rougelite gives it great replay-ability.

You can always try playing the game coop. Playing with another is always fun in nature.

You don't really need to play 20XX unless you really want to follow the story but that is heavy deep dive.

I haven't played Risk of Rain 2 myself so I dunno how to compare but honestly give this game a few more attempts and try out different things. If you want to coop you can hit me up. Try going back to Hades eventually and maybe things will be different. I have played rougelites with worst progression and man those suck.

Thank you a ton for the insight, as someone who finds these sorts of things daunting. I'm really glad you took your time to address the point I mentioned.

[Cirom]

It's hard to tell if a game is specifically for you as everyone's different.

In Mega Mode, each of the 8 main "Robot Master" levels generate before you start playing them, at a difficulty dependant on their position in the Mega Mode lobby. (Levels lower down and to the left are easier, while levels higher up and to the right are harder.) You can tackle these levels in any order, not necessarily in difficulty order. Additionally, when you die, the run isn't over - you just set sent back to the lobby with all your stuff, ready to pick another stage. (Or the same stage! Your choice, really.)

I'd say it offers similar replay value to Standard Mode, as the levels and items you find are still random with each Mega Mode run you do, you can still pick whatever Entropy Conditions (difficulty modifiers) you want (including getting the Titan Shard rewards!), and there are no character restrictions.

Do note that there are a few small mechanics missing from Mega Mode: Delta's Challenges aren't present, and the REV Device story stuff also doesn't happen in Mega Mode either, for some reason. The Autotank (revival) mechanic also doesn't exist, but as you have infinite lives in Mega Mode anyway, that's mostly a non-issue. Shops and the Scrap Dealer also don't appear in the middle of levels in Mega Mode, but that's just because they appear in the lobby instead.

Mega Mode's a good time, and who knows? Maybe you'll come around on Standard eventually once you learn the game's mechanics through Mega Mode.

(Though, as for the feeling of not progressing - have you interacted with the blue Memoria Index between each run? You can unlock powerful permanent upgrades there which persist between every run, which can definitely give you an edge.)

[FlanMan]

Originally posted by Cirom:

It's hard to tell if a game is specifically for you as everyone's different.

In Mega Mode, each of the 8 main "Robot Master" levels generate before you start playing them, at a difficulty dependant on their position in the Mega Mode lobby. (Levels lower down and to the left are easier, while levels higher up and to the right are harder.) You can tackle these levels in any order, not necessarily in difficulty order. Additionally, when you die, the run isn't over - you just set sent back to the lobby with all your stuff, ready to pick another stage. (Or the same stage! Your choice, really.)

I'd say it offers similar replay value to Standard Mode, as the levels and items you find are still random with each Mega Mode run you do, you can still pick whatever Entropy Conditions (difficulty modifiers) you want (including getting the Titan Shard rewards!), and there are no character restrictions.

Do note that there are a few small mechanics missing from Mega Mode: Delta's Challenges aren't present, and the REV Device story stuff also doesn't happen in Mega Mode either, for some reason. The Autotank (revival) mechanic also doesn't exist, but as you have infinite lives in Mega Mode anyway, that's mostly a non-issue. Shops and the Scrap Dealer also don't appear in the middle of levels in Mega Mode, but that's just because they appear in the lobby instead.

Mega Mode's a good time, and who knows? Maybe you'll come around on Standard eventually once you learn the game's mechanics through Mega Mode.

(Though, as for the feeling of not progressing - have you interacted with the blue
Memoria Index between each run? You can unlock powerful permanent upgrades there which persist between every run, which can definitely give you an edge.)

I did interact with the Memoria Index, and as important as it is. Still sad to see all those cool abilities disappear behind RNG. It's like Digimon (random analogy, I know). You may have fully leveled up a Digimon to it's highest evolution, but once it dies, only a percentage of the fully evolved stats, go back to the reincarnated little guy.