impressions after 10+ hours in

[Sarismar]

the game is solid w/ some interesting art style held back by a lack of upgrade punch. most items seem to have little real visual impact other then increase damage/speed/range buffs.

you dont get the synergy and depth of BoI and it makings relic pick ups kinda boring.

Guns are to few in quantiy. Guns seem to be the major change of style of attack where as buffs are passive damage upgrades/range/etc. due to the lack of gun depth it makes most runs pretty meh.

also while story isn't exactly the main focus of roguelites its complete lack of gets highlighted when other areas are weak...

if i was to be asked by a fellow gamer if this should be a buy.. it would be a wait for update atm.

[derw4tz]

yes i see it in a similar way, the artstyle is amazing but the gameplay is a bit basic

the weapons feel very samey its basically always a cone that deals dps

when it comes to items theres rarely a choice you just pick anything you get your hands on

but overall the game is still very nice and definetly in the upper 20% of bullet hell rogue likes

[Meribela]

I've located and used 32 guns so far, so bad, some good, some awesome. Over 118 items. and counting. Besides the visual on the character the bullets will change in shape, size and quantity. Some will just increase in size like some of the laser guns. For an initial release I think it's pretty good. Just balance some of the annoying things in-game.

[Sarismar]

after a few more hours of gaming in I have to say i'm getting more negative not less. gameplay quickly becomes stale as the synergy of items falls off visually. by visually i dont just mean what the attack looks like i mean its impact on your run. Its all very generic and bland.

compare this to a hades, BoI, enter the gungeion ,dungreed(sp?),Deadcells and a whole host of similar roguelites both india and "AAA" and it simply comes down to a case they need to do a pass on their guns and the synergies to diffrentiate runs better.

of the last 10 runs i have had it has largely played out the same. i had multi bullets firing w/ a high rate of speed and a host of egg ppl running around hurting and annoying me(i'm looking at you mini trump).

[djcarey]

It's like old school mario where you havta finish in one run without dying

[Doctor Gitgud]

I agree 100% and was about to post a review with the same criticisms. I thought the trailer looked amazing, was really excited to see a game I might have bought pop up on my Xbox game pass for free on launch day.

But it isn't nearly as good as I expected. Most of the relics are boring. Chance to drop a crystal on getting hit. Wow. Heart container. Wow. Heart container with flavor text and a shield. Wow. It's all stupid stuff. I thought this game was going to have a bunch of guns, synergizing with a bunch of relics that affected how the guns behaved. It generally doesn't work like that based on what I've seen. You grab a new gun somewhere along the way and generic damage up relics that make it shoot bigger. Boring. The enemies are way repetitive and overused (bosses are solid though). Level design, meh.

There are no "builds" in this game. Nothing really synergizes together. And every game works out as a "pet run" where your view is cluttered by a mass of pets and eggs spamming weak attacks that don't really accomplish anything. It's fun to do a pet run on occasion in roguelikes but every game shouldn't be like that. The pets here should have been fewer in number (per run) but more impactful.

I was expecting a top-tier roguelike and this is clearly not that. Not in the same league as games like Hades, Synthetik, BOI, Dead cells, and others. I would not even put it in the second tier of still very good games like Starward Rogue. I'd say it's in the third tier, with the Neurovoiders of the world. Good but nothing special.

[Sarismar]

I have attempted a few more runs after i posted my impressins and my review ..

my final take away..is this is a pass. give the devs time to do some updates and check back in.

guns are largely bland and are effected by relics in a very boring way.

the pet system is more annoying then enjoyable and adds to visual clutter w/o giving a equal or greater benifit.

some weapon are so blindingly bullet hell and the mobs attacks so small/unnoticable you will take damage more due to being unable to see anything on your screen. enter the gungeon ppl... play it, love it... steal from it...

relics are so over all bland attemping to remember what the 3 ballons do vs the cluster of circles is just... its as if they attempted to check off what they thought a roguelite was w/o attempting to see if such a feature needed to be implamented. I play a whole host of games from fps, rougelites, rts and farm simiulators.. i'm not interested in remembering rougelite02s 3skulls and a stick relic meaning...damage and movement upgrade.

why am i doing anything my char is doing? little story bits something short sweet and meaningless so i can feel there is a reason for my actions besides shoot ♥♥♥♥.

the item unlocks seem arbitary and don't exactly excite me to progress. its more a box to be checked off then something to go for(other then the char unlocks..which honestly also are not very interesting when you get down to it).

[76561198995444303]

Hey, thanks for all of your feedback, your points have all been taken in! Some we are already looking into like the pets but are listening to everyone's opinions from launch. Thanks for taking the time to bring all of this up!

[derw4tz]

yes as mentioned the big point is the weapons;

in binding of isaac you had a polphemus run, brimstone; tech /tech X and they all felt different when you play them

in dead cells you have the different weapons that all have a different feel (traps / dagger bow shield)

even enter the dungeon had not that much variety but you had machineguns, rocket launchers, shotguns that needed different styles of play

here with any weapon you have its hold down the left mous button and point in the general direction, some guns have a reload others have a spinup but your general gunplay is the same (i mean there are the guitars but i never found them worthwile; and for melee theres just no reward on the risk reward spectrum)

[Doctor Gitgud]

Originally posted by Josh_Team17:

Hey, thanks for all of your feedback, your points have all been taken in! Some we are already looking into like the pets but are listening to everyone's opinions from launch. Thanks for taking the time to bring all of this up!

Glad to hear you guys are paying attention to everyone. This game *looks* like it could be something amazing but the runs don't really play out like that in practice. One of the most efficient fixes might be to alter loot tables so that different guns, and relics/attachments that alter the behavior of the guns, drop more frequently. And perhaps up the enemy volume a bit to account for increased player power.

[Yeldo]

Yeah definitely the weapons and ugprades need a big rework, the game is phenomenal, really incredible game for T17 this will become super big and you can tell but for that to happen the game needs to be fun for continous hours and that only happens if runs are fun and different which at the moment they are at a certain point, because weapons do not feel original, only a few of them like the guitar, bubbles they are quite original but then you've got cone lazers, like 5? That do literally the same thing and like everyone said, most upgrades do the exact same thing just look different, buff damage, buff hp, buff crystal.... that's not going to spice anyone runs

[76561198995444303]

Originally posted by JCD3nton:

Originally posted by Josh_Team17:

Hey, thanks for all of your feedback, your points have all been taken in! Some we are already looking into like the pets but are listening to everyone's opinions from launch. Thanks for taking the time to bring all of this up!

Glad to hear you guys are paying attention to everyone. This game *looks* like it could be something amazing but the runs don't really play out like that in practice. One of the most efficient fixes might be to alter loot tables so that different guns, and relics/attachments that alter the behavior of the guns, drop more frequently. And perhaps up the enemy volume a bit to account for increased player power.

Hey, just an update on some parts of your feedback, we do have a new branch here on Steam where you can try our changes early and we have a lot of changes in there!

There is also a lower grind on the item tree and new way enemies can appear which should help a little with variety whilst we take a look at weapons/items.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/788100/announcements/detail/2753339286193349786