This review contains spoilers
I really don't know how to begin on how wrecked this thing is. There's a lot to unpack here:
- Gameplay itself is fine, there's many ways to expand it, but weapons suck. They feel absolutely underpowered from the beginning and you need to unlock stuff to make them at least usable.
- The sword is absolutely busted, and with the way enemies get in the end game, is the only viable option I've found to consistently finish the game. The other weapons can be fun, but they just can't keep up with the hp, swarms and speed of the enemies on the last levels.
- The way the level map works just sucks. It's fun to plan your route from the beginning, but not having enough scout points to know what is where is a pain in the ass. Also by the later half of the game, when you have everything unlocked, aether and insighr points are useless as rewards, so they're just taking up slots. Sometimes you'll run onto a map full of aether rewards and then you might as well just restart your run.
- Coins and shops are, for the most part trivial. They feel like filler rewards most of the time. Coins are only useful if you go for a coin-based build, but focusing on that deviates your attention from power and strength, which is a must if you want to finish a run, so it's basically pointless. Shops are so scarce and hard to find due to the way mapping works that you might as well not even bother. This also makes most shop related upgrades a waste.
- Bosses suck, plain as that. They're not dynamic, not engaging their movesets are limited as hell. The giant worm and Ridley got tiring really fast, and don't even get me started on what a joke Occulus is. Some mini bosses are more engaging than the main ones, and it's a shame all of them are trapped behind RNG.
- Most transmutations and upgrades are useless, due to how spongy and swarmy later enemies get, you only end up focusing on a handful of them, and only specific selected builds end up working.
It's enjoyable enough though, I 100%'d it, but it's just so confused on how it wants its game systems to work. Some balancing would do the trick, but I overall didn't enjoy this that much
- Gameplay itself is fine, there's many ways to expand it, but weapons suck. They feel absolutely underpowered from the beginning and you need to unlock stuff to make them at least usable.
- The sword is absolutely busted, and with the way enemies get in the end game, is the only viable option I've found to consistently finish the game. The other weapons can be fun, but they just can't keep up with the hp, swarms and speed of the enemies on the last levels.
- The way the level map works just sucks. It's fun to plan your route from the beginning, but not having enough scout points to know what is where is a pain in the ass. Also by the later half of the game, when you have everything unlocked, aether and insighr points are useless as rewards, so they're just taking up slots. Sometimes you'll run onto a map full of aether rewards and then you might as well just restart your run.
- Coins and shops are, for the most part trivial. They feel like filler rewards most of the time. Coins are only useful if you go for a coin-based build, but focusing on that deviates your attention from power and strength, which is a must if you want to finish a run, so it's basically pointless. Shops are so scarce and hard to find due to the way mapping works that you might as well not even bother. This also makes most shop related upgrades a waste.
- Bosses suck, plain as that. They're not dynamic, not engaging their movesets are limited as hell. The giant worm and Ridley got tiring really fast, and don't even get me started on what a joke Occulus is. Some mini bosses are more engaging than the main ones, and it's a shame all of them are trapped behind RNG.
- Most transmutations and upgrades are useless, due to how spongy and swarmy later enemies get, you only end up focusing on a handful of them, and only specific selected builds end up working.
It's enjoyable enough though, I 100%'d it, but it's just so confused on how it wants its game systems to work. Some balancing would do the trick, but I overall didn't enjoy this that much