As far as late 90s beat-em-ups go, this really is a pretty miserable experience. The graphics are about old-school Runescape levels of CGI and the gameplay is rigged to be as much of a monotonous quarter-muncher as humanly possible.

In fact about as much as it reinvents the wheel actually is its worst detriment: the block system. Late-game bosses block to the point that in some cases it genuinely feels like the only way you can hit them is dying, giving them a ludicrous amount of "continue" damage and doing a meagre amount of excess with the level 1 magic stocks a new life gives you, only for them to block everything once again and take you out in three hits. It's about as fun as it sounds.

This is a surprising amount of fun and has had me hooked for a good five days now; there's genuinely a lot to do on the daily checklist and, even without money, you can genuinely feel your character gets stronger in real time.

Then today's event came out and, attached to it, is an active incentive to spend money that isn't just consumbales that level up specific areas of a character for min-maxing. This is, for the next 48 hours, a wheel that gives you an entirely RNG multiplier on real money you invest in it as cashback in virtual currency.

I just watched a guy spend 50 euros on this wheel in real time, get 3 times his money back as payout, spend 90% of it on hammers to raise his power level by 2-3 MILLION, brag about it in the world chat, spend 5 minutes in chat with the number 1 in server (a terminally online user who he's still 1 million away - each stat level up costs exponentially more than the previous one - from despite just spending the equivalent of 150 EUROS, imagine how much money this guy spends for the ego boost to stay number 1) fellating each other, then spending the remaining money on a limited event mount (that is usually a 0.15% pull on an another RNG wheel) so he can then post the stats of it in the same chat for ass pats for a secondary fellating endorphin session.

Good game if you're able to switch off from any competitive play and admit you're never getting in the top 50 if you don't have 50-150 euros lying around every single season. I've been dropping 99 cents here and there just for the spirit of the whole thing (3 times, mostly on little frivolous packs that give an extra dungeon key for example) but I think this puts me off even doing that now unfortunately.

Oh, also conversion isn't calculated based on currency either, so expect to spend more if your currency is stronger and less if it's weaker than the dollar. It's frustrating because some of these gacha games are genuinely fun to the point where they do get pretty addictive, but they really only serve to stimulate the primitive conditioning to be the best at something and that's where they achieve their predatory success - from people like the little 50 euro hero of my story.

I truly don't know where to begin with this one; it seems like a roguelike on the surface but it really brings jank to a whole new level.

I've seen videos praise this game like it's the secomd coming of indie Christ and it genuinely made me feel like it's my fault to the point where I rebooted the game and gave it an honest hour. I'm serious - one review that made me really want to give this game an even shake REALLY seemed to be a fan, going in great detail about the the "chained-DLC" gimmick the developer seems to be about as well as his own perceived intuition about indie sensibilities, all while the footage showed him getting his ass beat while he inched further on the dogshit menus.

There is nothing here to even satiate the retro enthusiast. You want retro-inspired wave-based combat? It already exists in much stronger measure. You want 2024 indie-stink that's actually fun? You got that with Black Gunner Wukong. It says a LOT when the most fun for me to be had with a game sits in its Tiger Electronics minigames.

I'm going to assume this is developer loyalty thing and that whoever made this is releasing the exact kind of games their fans want and expect; unfortunately, it really isn't for me.