A fun take on Pokemon/creature collectors with rouge-lite mechanics, a great art style, and neat creatures to encounter. Runs feel long enough to put effort into but just short enough to still also do in a casual "time killing" session.

It is really light on content right now, so don't expect a Rougelike that you will put 100+ hours into. However, this game is the perfect example of being a really solid "Plan B" game when your main game just isn't the flavor of the evening.

Pokemon roguelite. 2D sprite graphics. What is wrong with it?

1. Persistent damage mechanic that permanently reduces max HP of your pokemon for the run every time they are hit. Meaning sustain teams tend toward failure. You can reset this at the end of a zone (substage within the roguelite run).
   
2. Enemy mobs have high health and damage as artificial difficulty in later stages, bosses often one-shot, so you either stop, or get stomped
   
3. Few viable team setups. Since the weakness in this game is quintessentially an interrupt mechanic, it makes investing into interrupt specific builds very risky due to how elements are distributed and the fact you can only have three pets at one time.

TLDR:

• Gameplay emulates Pokemon if it wasn't formulaic and baby easy. Thinking beats luck in this game.
  
• Devs clearly want to focus on adding as many monsters as possible which makes the gameplay feel really full.
  
• Things other than gameplay is lacking (Story, Hub World, and Roguelite Elements)

7.8/10 now, but I expect the game to be a 10/10 if the devs continue to flesh out the framework (which they so far have done)

There are a lot of people/content creators playing modded Pokemon ROMs that make it into a roguelike. This is that but 2x better. The 3v3 battles provide so much complexity and synergy that make for an addicting gameplay loop. The sheer amount of moves, traits, and monsters make each run different in the best way. Pressing the random monster button is my favorite way to play because I have to invent new synergies on the fly, and the infusion update makes this even more exciting to do. I often say to myself "just one more battle so I can see what I get when I level up" because adding new moves and traits to your monsters is genuinely exciting. I can say with absolute certainty that this game is one of my all time faves, and I can't wait to see where the devs take it.

However I will not glaze this game without providing critique (despite it deserving the glaze). There are so many NPCs that are just waiting to be fleshed out, but they are currently just one interaction lacking even a full sprite. It is clear they want these NPCs to matter and to build a vibrant hub world, but after 20 hours of playtime, I have over a dozen NPCs just sitting around with no dialogue or quests to them. Even the main NPCs that have sprites and multiple dialogue options feel hollow, as the story is muddied and they seem to have no purpose within the world.

Another critique/suggestion I have is the banality of traversing the maps. They don't feel particularly unique (apart from the gargoyle sneak attacks, those are really cool), and my only reason for exploring them is to find specific interactions or coins in crates which don't really change from environment to environment. Why do I need to dash if not only to move quicker? What am I dashing from? Why are there two levels if not only to do 1 more poise damage and to press more buttons between fights. I want some more meat I can snack on in each map. There needs to be stakes in moving around. Heck make me able to fall in a pit, make me have to do parkour, make hidden rooms, or even make the amount of poise damage I do equal to how fast I'm going. It's a small thing, but I think it could make a big difference.

A suggestion/qualm I have is the uselessness of the starter class. The Alchemist class is cooler by several orders of magnitude that after unlocking it, I feel no need to play the starter class despite them being framed as equally good. The ability to change any monster to perfectly fit your team at the small cost of a little bit of corruption is overpowered in comparison to 1 more poise damage during a sneak attack. The two classes are just Siriux and cooler Siriux.

These qualms would be deal breakers if the core gameplay wasn't SO. GOOD. Seriously, support these devs, and invest in what could be a truly great game.

(Also please make it so each time I pick a monster I have to give it a new name. It feels weird that even after a monster dies and gets rebirthed in a whole new run the it has the same name. I know in theory it's supposed to be the same monster, but it doesn't feel like it.)