Recent reviews by Astral

As much as I would like to, this game is far too buggy to recommend to other fans of the genre. And unfortunately, given that the developer stated that many things would be fixed as of their posts in 2018 but then stated in 2022 that they "haven't pushed any new patches mostly because [they] don't want to risk stability of the game," it's pretty safe to say this is an abandoned project.

Others have posted much longer lists of bugs in the discussion forums, but the ones that especially bugged me were:
- secret doors do not always appear to the party when first walking next to them, even with maximum Detect skill
- sometimes enchanting and disenchanting an item will affect multiple items of the same name, even those that are already equipped (normally, equipped items are unselectable to enchant)
- all of your class upgrade tokens mysteriously doubling in number at times, for whatever reason
- taunting doesn't always work, even though the enemy will have the Taunted status icon; this seems to only be buggy with certain enemies, but I have seen taunted enemies use single-target and row-target abilities on party members other than the person who taunted them
- item descriptions and conversations that just say '#!# text #!#'
- randomly generated dungeons frequently produce broken labyrinths where it is impossible to reach the boss, forcing the player to exit and start a new one
- for those who care about achievements, the game does not always track achievements correctly (particularly for store recipes and the list of Kessens/summons you've unlocked)

In addition to the above, there are plenty of minor bugs like UI abnormalities that might require you to reload the game or restart in order to remedy the problem. There's not much balance in terms of classes - some are better than others overall, and not just when doing certain things, and this becomes much more apparent as you go up in difficulty levels. The pacing is usually good, but there are some story moments when the game forcefully teleports you back to town for a NPC conversation, and then when you return to the labyrinth and explore a tiny bit further, the game does it again and forces you to return to town for more conversation. There's nothing special or memorable about the artwork or music; the world building is probably the game's strongest point, but the storyline is pretty bland, complete with a tacked-on forced-heterosexual romance with someone you're supposed to feel something for but don't really care about.

An adorable game about exploration and friendship. The mechanics of moving and putting together map pieces to uncover secrets and open up new areas was novel and fun, and none of the solutions felt obtuse or unintuitive. Highly recommended!

Although the idea of a purely cooperative game is a wonderful one, I really can't recommend this game in its current state. Multiplayer was very popular when the game first released and I had no trouble finding rooms that quickly filled up with the maximum number of players (10). However, now it's a struggle to get that many players, regardless of day or time. And yes, I'm aware that there's a discord, but that's not a solution - merely an inconvenient workaround.

There are also a number of things in the game which are antithetical to the notion of a cooperative game:

1) A lot of the unlocks are incredibly overpriced and/or the amount of karma earned per run is too low. This leads to players rushing through levels (often simply a pair of players, since all it takes to survive the miasma are two character halos protecting each other) which is neither cooperative nor fun for the others. One easy fix to this would be to always make fruit give karma, and increase the number of fruit in each level.

2) Bonus cards given in between rounds which reinforce rushing behavior (e.g., "Remaining Time = Karma"). This card should just be removed and replaced with something else. Also on the topic of bonus cards, the fact that players will always prioritize cards that award extra karma is strong evidence that unlocks are too expensive.

3) Character quests that reinforce rushing in order to accomplish (e.g., Camel's "carry 3 items at once", Frog/Pear's "eat X fruit", Frog's "open 3 key locks", Lantern/Teapot's "reveal X fruit" and "reveal 2 karma gift boxes", Raptor's "catch 100 floating light bits"). Progress is not carried over between runs, leading players to rush ahead to get what they need. And if there are multiple of the same animal or animals that share the same goals? Good luck in that cutthroat environment.

I really wanted to love this game. The idea behind it, the art style, the music tracks - they're all great. Most of the procedurally-generated levels are good, although a few of the ones involving light bulbs are a little overtuned and seem to prove difficult for most players, based on the high frequency of total group wipes in my own experiences. Hopefully the developers will change the more problematic aspects of the game, allowing the game to be more enjoyable for more people.

Absolutely awesome deckbuilding roguelike. The writing is fantastic, with heartwarming characters having their backstories revealed slowly with each win, and some very funny commentary from allies and enemies alike. The art style is simplistic but delightful, and the soundtrack is very catchy. The game mechanics are easy to learn, and each character has their own deck of unique cards that gives them distinct playstyles.

I made an ESO account on the website first, then tried logging into the game. I kept getting an immediate "Connection Timed Out" error. None of the solutions yielded from a quick Google search helped.

Then I tried making a new account in-game, using an alternate e-mail address. The game told me that [username]@gmail.com was an "invalid e-mail format" and wouldn't let me progress.

I'm taking these as signs that the universe doesn't want me to play this game, and refunding.

The similarities to Undertale are undeniable, but that shouldn't be a valid reason for people to write off this incredible game. It's a lot sillier (in a good way) and has more personality (pun intended). The demo already tracks a large number of player choices and changes the player's path accordingly, and the full game is supposed to do the same but on a much grander scale. The combat is enjoyable and sometimes challenging, the music is jammin', and the writing is, for the most part, entertaining. Definitely worth a try.

A lot of fun! It's an interesting lane-based, turn-based strategy RPG with a compelling story, that keeps things fresh by instituting unique rules and/or placements for each battle.

Horribly designed, buggy as all hell, zero fun.

I was loving this DLC, until I learned that for some dumb reason, you cannot play through all of the Castlevania stages in one run. The player has to make a choice to either play through the first 3 stages (Castle Outskirts, Dracula's Castle, and the Defiled Necropolis boss fight versus Death) and then never encounter Dracula, or to play the standard Dead Cells stages and choose to fight Dracula as a final boss instead. It's a very, very dumb design choice which soured the whole experience for me.

Otherwise, everything else that the DLC has to offer is excellent. The art and soundtrack are top-notch, as usual. You'll see a number of characters from all across the Castlevania universe return, although I did find myself wishing for a greater variety of iconic enemies in the stages. Almost all of the trademark weapons and sub-weapons from the series can be found and used by the player. There's even delicious Wall Chicken to recover your HP.

It claims to have "Partial Controller Support" but even that is stretching the truth. Moving the character around works, but players cannot even open and close menus or dismiss tutorial messages while playing with a controller.