Solid remedy for psychological anguish. Very funny, very silly, very charming, very relaxing. It's a writing style that's singular. It's not too anything. It's not the grating try-too-hard style. It's not the overly clever attempt at rapid fire wit. It's not a bland directly-to-the-next-plot-point style of many games. It's its own thing. It takes its time and has just enough inversion to surprise and delight. Seeing these anthropomorphic animals move around in motion capture is strangely captivating. It's all a bit reminiscent of a Wes Anderson movie.

It's hard for me not to be irrationally angry at this game for seeming to make every one lose their minds and start calling everything a "roguelike," including games like this that have next to nothing to do with the 1980 classic video game Rogue. But all that aside, I had a blast with this. At first I seriously thought the game was too hard for me. I couldn't believe that I kept dying and felt like I couldn't get anywhere. But suddenly it clicked. I realized it was all about the meta progression, i.e. farming gold. Once I invested in my health, attack, and armor, and got some good runes I could chop through the first couple areas pretty easily, while still being careful. Like with any hard game, I had to learn that not getting hit is the highest priority, a fact that causes me to play with a lot of intensity (which is fun in itself). All that farming brings me to my problem with a game like this: sending me back to the opening area at the start of a run wastes my time. I've already beaten it, it's easy, stop making me go through that area. I swear that sort of thing just exists so indie developers can charge more money because it increases the length of the game and therefore improves the value proposition, while at the same time they don't have to go to the trouble of creating more levels and enemies. It would be so much better with a system like the old mega man games where you pick which level you want to play. In spite of that, I'm having a great time with it now. The descendant system is a great idea and well executed. Game feels great. The different classes play differently and allow for different styles and strategies. Nicely done.