I wish I liked this game more than I do. I wish it was better and more finished. There is something here, that something that makes you stop and notice that this game has the potential to be something special, but there's just so much of it that doesn't work out for me.

The special part is that this game clearly has heart, soul and an obtuse message the developer wants to convey. Since you ride a metro into the dungeon and fight bosses named things like "Depression", I'm guessing the story is an autobiographical one of being stuck in a routine they're not happy with, but I haven't seen a single in-game story note aside from the one in my home base in 10 gameplay hours.

And that's my first major complaint. This game is in the Undermine and Hades school of roguelites, where you have to unlock literally the entire game, and it's a very slow dripfeed. You don't even get any first-run freebies to give you a taste of how unlocking works and what's to come. It takes hours until you've gotten access to a few weapon choices, but about half of them are so locked that the game won't even tell me how to unlock them. There are 193 items to unlock and after playing for ten hours, I have 28 and I still don't know exactly how to get more. I can see that they're tied to the secrets system, and that you can talk to the gardener to see your secrets list (which is very nice), but I don't really know how to speed things up and I still don't know if all of these amazing items that really change up the game and allow for crazy builds are super rare or if I need to spend another 30 hours unlocking things before I gain access to them, but I've developed such a low tolerance for these "unlock the entire game" roguelites that I really struggle to stay inerested. You know what one of the most brilliant details of The Binding of Isaac is? The fact that while the game also has several hundred items to unlock, far more than Revita, you can still find Brimstone and Tammy's Head on the very first floor of your very first run. In fact, Brimstone is a lot easier to find until you dilute the pool with mediocre unlocks. You have to give me a taste of what can happen in this game without demanding a 20-hour entrance fee if you want me to like your game.

At first, I really enjoyed the HP system, since this game asks you to sacrifice HP to do more or less everything (pick up items, upgrade items, etc), while also affording you a combo system (which you also have to unlock, by the way) that gives you a resource that fills a bar and not only allows you to heal back HP you've lost through combat or obtaining items, but also lets you create new HP slots if your HP is full when you heal. This seemed, at first and on a surface level, to be a very interesting mechanic, especially for me since I get really hooked on mechanics or challenges that require you to focus up and not take a single hit ever. Reminds me of my shmup days and trying to beat entire games on one life (which I rarely even attempt anymore). However, this system doesn't quite work out to be enjoyable for me, simply because the game isn't generous enough with HP and the resource used for healing. If you take every item you can find, which is the fun part of a roguey game, you will find yourself losing more HP than you can gain, but I never feel like I find anything awesome except for the spinning bolt (which is my favorite since it does big damage and is easy to use) and the +50% crit chance one. Oh, and the explosive shots one but I was really disappointed that it has friendly fire and that it's too easy to hurt yourself with it. I guess, as I wrote above, I have to unlock the cool stuff and I really don't have the patience. In 10 hours of play, I should've found at least one really cool thing that was more exciting than +50% crit. While that extra damage is awesome and my best run ever was +100% crit with some extra bonuses, +crit, +dmg and +hp are kind of boring things to find in a roguelite even if they can be vital. Where's the run-changing items I've been told so much about? Yeah, so, I have to spend 30 more hours unlocking them and I don't want to do that. I guess that's what I keep coming back to and why I have to give up on this game.

It doesn't help that I think the game generates rooms that are either pretty boring, or sometimes, on rare occasions, create downright unfair and annoying scenarios, like how the game somtimes loves to put the little ranged enemy that backs up when you get close beyond a spike trap with no platform for you to land on, meaning you have to dash over the spikes to get close enough to the monster (if you love using the shotgun like I do, anyway) and hope that it doesn't decide to back up as you fly over it so you have a safe pixel to land on. Another thing that doesn't improve the experience is that it's the same bosses every time with no variations.

I do have to throw in a special commendation to the simply fantastic music that fits the visuals and the personal style. It's a varied soundtrack, but the most noticeable and memorable are the french cafe in an old movie type accordion songs and the synth banger in the first area that very much reminds me of parts of the VVVVVV soundtrack.

It's sad and disappointing. This game is special and it could've been a classic if the developer hadn't given up on it. There was going to be a huge overhaul patch and the most exciting part of it for me was going to be improved room generation, which might have made all of the difference and kept me playing, but there was some kind of conflict with the publisher or something like that, and the lone developer gave up on the game. As it stands and for me, I can't keep spending time on this game since it hasn't allowed me that kind of run that gets you hooked to see it happen again, and because the unlocks take far too long to present themselves, so it is with regret that I'll have to be moving on to something else.

I was really surprised of how good this game is, I´ve never seen anyone talk about it but is a really really good roguelike. The health based gameplay is nice and unique, the items are really fun and they actually alter the gameplay quite a lot and the amount of content the game has it´s unbelieveable.

It saddens me a lot seeing people that only played 1-2 runs and left it there, the game has so much content to offer than even after 20 runs you keep seeing new stuff never seen before.

And the creator seems really nice and keeps updating the game and listening to their community.

If you want to play a roguelike similar to Gungeon, this one will greatly surprise you, it´s really good looking with awesome music and a really good overall gameplay filled with a looooooott of content. Even if I have already seen the credits there is a lot of stuff still to do so I will keep playing and enjoying it, go play it yourself.

Great game, feels really fun to play and is overall one of the better roguelikes I've played in a while.

Unfortunately, it suffers from being too obtuse to navigate once you complete the game a few times. Simply trying to get to the true final boss requires jumping through hoops like I'm trying to unlock The Lost in Binding of Isaac, something that should absolutely not be required to try and finish a game's true ending especially when there's not much to do naturally after beating the final boss a few times.

Going further requires using guides, which are poorly written online. Developers should have accounted for this and written up ways to actually progress once players inevitably hit a brick wall.

Regardless, game is fun and good for a while but I won't be picking it back up anytime soon. The wikis are also poorly created and the developers should have included some kind of log for all items/mechanics, as many are not very easily explained in-game.