finished in 8 hours! this is such a fun game, and a huge step up from the former game's narrative. the characters feel alive and fun, the spritework is amazing, and its just genuinely a great experience. hamir my beloved

Pretty good but it really sucks that you're locked to one character and only get to play as that one character for their chapter of the game. I overall enjoyed it but its' really shallow

Pretty weak at at being both an rpg and a dungeon crawler, very little depth to building and small enemy variety. The story also repeats levels, has pretty mediocre writing, and you only get to play as the main character for the first chapter. The dice combat is a decent gimmick but often gets very slow and dragged out especially in late game areas. It sometimes feels like you're playing tic tac toe with a bot where you just draw with it over and over. You'd have to love aether studios to death and eat up anything from their universe to be able to enjoy this game.

the mechanic and aspect of this game is really good

I purchased this game to support the Rivals of aether devs, as I really enjoy what they do, plus, I'm a big fan of roguelikes too, so I expected to have a lot of fun on this game.

The story mode is extremely limiting forcing you to swap the character you play, realistically there's also nothing new past the first 3 runs, and they're enough to buy every single permanent upgrade.

As for the challenge runs. Screw those, I saw other people say that the game can be a slog, and after trying out the challenge runs, I can 100% confirm that this is the case. The harder fights require you to just spend 10 turns in a row defending because every single one of them out-stats you like mad, so you just have to wait to find drafts that can allow you to do *something*

The alternative is using your consumables on those fights for stamina or extra dice, But if you don't save those for the actual bosses, you're doomed, they out-stat you to unbelievable amounts, you NEED your consumables thereto have a proper chance that doesn't require RNG to be majorly in your favor. (And skipping on the fact that the game can decide to casually give you 5 times the exact same equipment in a run, which you can't equip, thank you, RNG. As if the game wasn't enough of a slog.)

Honestly heavily disappointed, which is a shame because it is clear a lot of effort went into this game, just like all the others from Aether studio, but sadly on this one, the gameplay and the amount of content simply don't follow that same level of quality.

A must-play for all fans of the Aether universe. Provides important lore that you'll be able to reference later. Also just very, very fun.

the starving NPC should've thought about that before passing out on the one floor no enemies drop food on

Phenomenal game. Difficult if not used to strategy and heavy thinking. 10/10

(This review is written after 100% achievement the game)

At first this game seems to have overwhelming mechanics requiring you to calculate a lot, however as you get the hang of it the gameplay kinda gets addicting.

game can be challenging sometimes but barely to the point of frustration (unless you ran out of resource, underprepared, or... playing as Hamir)
I managed to finished the 1st run blindly without any upgrade to characters, the items and equipment did a lot jobs themselves. And I still enjoy this game a lot in hard difficulty. The low percentage of unlocked achievements could be due to the gameplay of the game is kind of a hit or miss.

The pixel art animation of this game is satisfying to look at (damn I'm not furry but the shark's hot), save and quit anytime provides a smooth experience so I could take a rest from doing math for 10+ battles.

Overall it is a game worth to play, but a little bit tasking for brain, might not be for people who wanted to play games in a relaxing way.

Game is alright. It has great visuals, music and sound design, but gameplay wise it has quite a few flaws.
Battles are a slog and you spend multiple turns essentially not doing anything and waiting for a dice draft to go your way. Some overworld mechanics are not super well thought out and feel kind of boring - the one in particular I think about is the Magma themed ones.