Okay, have finally finished all of the unlock on this so I can give my review.

Army of Ruin is an incredible addition to the bullet hell genre. Its quirky charm, long list of unlockables, and character choice make it standout among others.

Positive:
- Tons of characters, there are reskins, but they have different weapons and adjusted starting stats to make them not feel like a simple reskin.
- Repeatability is high with the amount of conditions to meet with objectives. It never felt like a slough to get through.
- The sounds are a positive if I had to choose. There's nothing special here but the music is good, and the chimes and dings aren't annoying.
- So many different skills, weapons, and trinkets to use! I was amazed how many they included in the game.
- Graphics are nice for the art style.
- It's really fun and if you somewhat enjoy bullet hells you'll love it too.

Cons:
-Occasionally I did experience a slow down with tons of enemies on screen, though it quickly resolved.
- Some mention the gatekeeping due to high cost on some of the upgrades. I don't really view this as a negative as more of forced to continue playing if you want the MAX upgrades (extra lives for example).
- 3x speed still does not feel that fast. I wish there was an additional speed to make the game go super quick, especially on the unlimited runs.

I tried to be fair and objective to my own points, but I really do love this game. It's unfortunate that pricing for games has become so skewed in the past 2 decades, I would have paid more than the sub $10 dollar price tag for this game. I got nearly 50 hours of pure enjoyment for it. I hope to see a sequel or meaningful DLC added in the future.

works great on the steam deck, played it about 24 hours, if any one likes vampire survivors this is a must buy, it plays similar but has much better graphics.

I believe this is one of the best iterations of the Bullet Heaven genre, specifically because it is building on the groundwork laid by predecessors. There is inspiration drawn from Vampire Survivors (e.g. increasing "Luck" offers a chance at a 4th option for upgrades or multiple rewards from opening chests), Spellbook Demonslayers (e.g. stand in this restricted area for a period of time in order to receive a great reward), HoloCure, Soulstone Survivors, and 20 Minutes Til Dawn.

One of the best improvements Army of Ruin makes is when it comes to evolving weapons. Rather than memorizing the other weapons/trinkets or referencing a built-in cheat sheet, AoR says, "All trinkets have one of six elemental affinities. Make the colors match to your weapons and then they can evolve at level 5 and opening a chest."

Now only does this reduce the information strain of trying to maximize your build, it also blows the doors open on which items you are allowed to pick. One of the best Night-element trinkets early on gives you up to +100% damage and fire rate as long as you have less than 50% health but then this other trinket later on gives you up to 3 additional projectiles as long as you are at 100% health. Options! Choices! Love it.

The game gives you an absolutely absurd number of achievements to complete (e.g. clear this stage without moving, clear this other stage without taking damage, clear this stage with zero meta-upgrades), characters to unlock (with slightly different stat preferences encouraging experimentation with builds), weapons, trinkets, and "charms" which are flat-stat boosts that come with a different stat penalty, e.g. +25/50% damage and -10% attack size. Which means you will have plenty of hours of content to hunt down and unlock... which slowly becomes a bit of a slog after getting into the 150+ range of unlocks. But with 21 hours logged inside of 3 days, I'd say this is worth the purchase!

On sale, of course. Patient gamers, unite!