[h2]A humble, solid, and lovingly crafted entry to the genre.[/h2]
(Note: I played in single player. Co-op is probably fun, but might defeat the purpose of the gameplay. Also, I agree with the devs that you should REALLY play with a controller.)
I can tell this game was designed with the goal of making movement fun, varied, and thoughtful. This is not a "fill your screen with particle effects" or a "spam abilities/items" type of game. You will never reach a point where you can just stand still while everything around you dies... Instead, you are always having to weave between danger. It hits that sweet spot where you'll always feel engaged, but not overwhelmed.
While you, the player, can spend points to make yourself permanently stronger, that won't let you totally brute force the game. You have to care and you have to try.
To me, the weapons are designed to make creative, varied, and synergistic movement rewarded. Boring/predictable approaches are usually discouraged or made impossible via level terrain and enemy spawn patterns - walking in circles will get you killed. Almost all of the weapons and powerups feel pretty good, even if some of them shine more under specific circumstances. There are maybe a couple of weapons I found underwhelming, though I might be misunderstanding their use case / might be a skill issue. The devs went for quality over quantity, I feel, which made for a more polished playthrough.
Visuals are usually pretty clear and pleasant. However, the audio design steals the show. Despite being a free-flowing action game, every weapon / enemy attack / ability / etc happens on-beat to the level's music. The level's music also grows in intensity / complexity as you progress through the stage. The dev team of just 3(!) people didn't need to put in that extra goodness but they did, and it's such a fun element of the game.
My one and only mild critique is that I think the system for items and upgrades has some clunky parts to it. But it's not game-breaking - it only affects the optional endless modes.
(More details: Since your level-up selection can include any weapon, and each weapon can be upgraded like 5 times before it fully "evolves", you can end up in a disadvantaged loop that turns into a death spiral. This death spiral happens whenever you desperately need to fully evolve a weapon for its power spike but keep getting recommended new weapons/other stuff instead. This means it becomes harder and harder to focus your upgrades on the weapon(s) you need, because you just keep acquiring new stuff or upgrading that new stuff instead lol. You can overcome all of this if you're pretty good at bullet hells. [Note, I am not good at bullet hells.] )
Being good is not required to beat the game, since the upgrade system does let you kind of grind yourself enough of an advantage to get through, albeit with some effort.
I think if you're a bullet hell fan you'll probably breeze through the main campaign and unlock hard mode, which is where the game became harder than I could manage. However, I'm very happy with the campaign and the unique design experiences Archon brings to the table. The game is just as long as it should be; it never overstays its welcome but offers you more challenges if you want to go above and beyond. :)
[b]I think Archons is worth its full price.[/b] My usual metric is that I want to spend $1-$2 per hour of fun, with brownie points given for unique gameplay experiences. Archon checks all those boxes.
