Just not very interesting

- Playtime: 13 minutes

- Played: 2026

- Context: I hate roguelikes but i thought it looked cool.

Review

You jump/dash around, slash/stomp enemies and then you die. If you're lucky you got an upgrade token to make future runs a little bit easier. And then you get to repeat the process without anything to make it interesting like different weapons, skills, different areas/enemies, etc. Kind of a shame, the dash feels really good in this.

I'm gonna not recommend this one. I must have accidentally bought this not realizing it was a "roguelite". Not a fan of the genre to begin with but I guess I'll break down what doesn't work about this game.

Firstly, like most in the genre, it is incredibly repetitive. You will fight the same enemies in the same rooms over and over again. Get to the boss, die on the boss, repeat the same rooms again and again. It is mind numbingly boring. Killing the easy as hell mini-boss will give you a skill point you can use to unlock a permanent skill upgrade. So the progression here is kill the mini-boss, get the point, die on the major boss, unlock stuff, repeat until you are powerful enough to proceed to the next dungeon.

The major boss wasn't too difficult but it's damn near impossible until you unlock the deflection skill. Without that, you can't dodge the massive barrage of bullets coming at you. Locking crucial skills like this behind this stupid system only exists to pad the game's very limited content. I only got to the 2nd major boss within an hour of playing but based on how they have already laid out the content, it is paper thin distribution here.

I don't even see a reason for the dungeon layout as all you do in this game is fight the same few enemies in the same simple rooms. There isn't any real platforming or hazards to deal with, so it's just pure combat. The combat itself is okay but nothing deeply engaging. You can basically stun-lock every enemy in the game by chaining a heavy with a string of light attacks, rinse and repeat. Heavy attack bullets that get near you to deflect them back and that's about it. The 2nd dungeon does introduce enemies that fire lasers at you, this is much harder to deal with when you are juggling other enemies.

You really only take damage due to our limited cognitive ability to track dozens of enemies and bullets all at the same time. Enemy design may be simple and easy but in large numbers it's difficult to manage it all so you are gonna get hit and eventually die as healing is very rare in this game.

I will say, the game is polished, while perhaps undercooked design-wise. Controls are fast, responsive, character movement is fluid and easy to learn. So I can give credit there, it feels alright to play. it can be annoying dealing with enemies on ceilings though, a lot of the larger flying enemies like to hang out up there for some reason and it can be difficult to reach them in the taller rooms. There is also a weird mechanic where if you change direction while air-borne, you lose most of your speed, so watch out for that.

It is nice that you don't take contact damage, and you can attack in all directions. But I don't like the gravity pull that happens when you hit an enemy. This gets me hit more than I'd like as it reduces player control over where you are while you are attacking enemies in the air, which is important because the game is basically a bullet hell and PRECISION IS NEEDED. So it can feel pretty damn floaty at times.

Anyway, the graphics are okay. Nothing breathtaking. Very typical minimalistic indie design here. Main character looks weird as hell though but is so tiny you can barely really make out what it even is. Some kind of marshmallow man I guess.

The music I find to be abhorrent. It's a lazy rip off of the later Doom games' djenty/synthy metal riffs. I hate this style, it's all aesthetics over substance. Boring chuggy riffs with glitchy sludgy guitar noises. Basically no real composition or interesting melodies that'll stick with you. And the default dynamic behavior of it is absolutely awful. You clear out rooms so quickly that the music just starts and stops and starts and stops over and over again. It's like driving a car by smashing the gas and slamming the breaks over and over again. Sounds terrible.

Fortunately you can turn the music to just the exploration tracks, which are a lot nicer. Not amazing but much more tolerable.

Let's rap this up. So basically the game is very thin content wise, each run is identical and has no variation whatsoever, and the progression of the game is built around repetition, you die, gain some points, use them to upgrade yourself than cheese the area, rinse and repeat. It's got none of the great qualities of a linear action game, and none of the qualities of a great roguelike. So what the hell is the point of this game? What's it even trying to do? Hell if I know. ~4/10

Great, dynamic combat. Beautiful art style.