On paper, this game should suck omega gnards. A free-to-play souls-like where you can spend money to prevent a game over.

The game just oozes charm and style. I actually made it pretty far up the tower just to see all the cool blueprints/levels ahead!
The difficulty is borderline unfair though. It includes grinding for hours on end to get enough magic mushrooms to cheese the boss. If you do die, you go back to base and have to fight back up. You could just buy a VIP elevator pass to take the golden elevator instead...!!! oooooo
Pass.

Kinda weird to mark this shelved as I have about 2000 hours in it across the PS4 and PC versions. This game has pretty terrific controls, but is severely lacking in any interesting combat scenarios (or platforming which they'd work decently for believe it or not, but that wasn't a focus of the game). The main loop then is the slow grind of upgrading equipment to meet ever higher stat-gates. You don't have to upgrade everything all the way, but that's also the only thing with any drama behind it. It becomes mandatory anyway if you want to continue past floor 40. Going through it again on PC, I got to the point where I had 2 more pieces of equipment that needed a green metal and I would've moved up to the 20s for black metal equipment. I lost interest. The game hooks you with a pretty trashy gambling cycle. You can remove the unpredictability of it somewhat by finding the vendor on a cycle throughout the week and buying the upgrade material you need one at a time. Very games as a service-y.

The worst part is, I've still marked it shelved and I might go back to it. Marked between something I'd be willing to finish and something I wouldn't at a 1.5/5. One of the most confusing games I've played.

Love this game. It's pretty fun to play and work your way around levels, trying to survive. I don't feel it's cashgrabby as you can just do the subway online mode to get more cash. My biggest gripe with this game has to be the insane amount of grind you'll have to do to upgrade weapons- definitely a spreadsheets game in this regard. In my playthrough in PC, took me no time to get the Iron blueprint, but in my PS4 playthrough, it took me a whopping 49 HOURS OF GRIND JUST TO UNLOCK IT. If you can be patient it's fun- but definitely not for everyone.

Only played for about 10-12 hours with no intention of seeing it through given the time it demands. By no means a bad game but by no means a good one either. Easily my least favourite Grasshopper Manufacture/Suda51 titles but definitely one of the better free to play games I've played. However I do wish we got to originally see whatever the hell Lily Bergamo was supposed to be before it got turned into Let it Die but at the same time, I wish Let it Die got explored into a fully realized game and not this because theres some good ideas, genuine charm and personality that keeps this from being a complete waste, and Uncle Death is hilarious. The art style is unique, the soundtrack is pretty killer and it had it's moments of fun but the repetitive and drawn out nature of this game prevents me from caring to see it all the way through for any kind of rewarding end. I'm glad Suda & Grasshopper came swinging back after this with Travis Strikes Again and seem intent on never doing something like this again which good, but in the end this is definitely one of the more unique and interesting f2p games I've tried.

I played thousands of hours worth of this game
I had spent entirely too much on this game as well
I think what kept me coming back was mixing and matching weapons for the sake of the climb.
What does not work for this game's favor is the dedication to the "Four motif" only 4 enemy variants, 4 areas, and 4 boss types. It's very limited and gets thin when you get into the uber high levels where the meta is exhausted.
I still appreciate this game and encourage people to not give in and to not spend as much money as I did on this game.

The combat is visceral and fun but don't burn yourself out on it, but be sure to enjoy the soundtrack!

The best part of the game bar none! A collection of various Japanese artists covering many ranges of genres and all of them are absolute ear worms!

If you don't like grinding then this game is not for you. I personally didn't mind it because at the time I played it there was a stream I followed religiously so I would harvest mushrooms and farm materials while I listened to that. It was comfy.
Not even whaling will help you skip the grind to a significant degree because you can't directly buy specific materials or consumables.
That being said, the gameplay is pretty good. It has a bit of a Souls feel thanks to the controls and deliberate animations, but you can also sneak attack, do wrestling moves, dual wield and perform special attacks. The best weapons for me were the iron and the katana, but there's a lot more to choose from.
On a different note, I really like the visual style and presentation in general. Each area of the tower has its own distinct theme and every song in the OST is called "Let it Die" which makes it a pain to find a specific track.
What I don't like about the game is its always online nature. This is used to great effect for the procedural generation of levels and interactions with other players, but I could do without that if it meant that this game wouldn't get bricked some day in the future. Hell, maybe by the time you are reading this the shutdown already took place, I don't know.
In order to end this review on a high note, I want to mention that this isn't the only game I know where you can eat a lizard alive because Rune Classic exists. Believe in the power of the mushrooms!