OKAY. So. I just got all the achievements and I'm ready to write a review while the neurons in my brain are still outnumbered by the dopamine molecules in a single synapse. I'm not a scientist, maybe that's always the case, maybe that never happens, who knows? All I know is: ball. I know ball.
And pit.
Importantly, I would not recommend this to everyone, and I would not recommend this even to all of those who love the modern roguelike wave of indie games.
Here are the reasons:
1. There is a significant shift in the difficulty arc somewhere during the first 10 hours of play. When I was playing up until the Fungal X Forest, I was NOT beating every attempt. The Fungal X Forest seemed much more difficult even than the levels before and I was struggling to make it to the boss. An important note is that metaprogression happens in between runs, based on buildings you build on a grid (will talk about this later). So when I was done with one of my attempts, I think I must've built the most OP building in the game, or something, because when I booted up the game the day after, I couldn't stop winning. I actually couldn't - it was suddenly physically impossible to lose. And since then, the game hasn't been about winning, about triumph, perseverance... Instead, it just became about completionism. Doing everything and collecting it all. "I see I haven't beaten the Crimson X Desert yet with the Physicist and the Tiptoer, lemme just do that real quick". The challenge... Was gone. That is a big problem with this game and I think the devs knew, because they added New Game +... And when I beat that, there was... New Game ++? I didn't even bother. It wouldn't be that much harder. Just more annoying. There are few strategies that beat the higher difficulties, so the game revolves around finding specifically those things and then it's always an easy win. Not a great balance in difficulty, unfortunately.
2. The metaprogression system, as mentioned, is a kind of minigame where you place buildings on a grid and hit these buildings with characters you've unlocked. It's a cute idea to have this minigame reflect the main game's mechanics: you aim and send your characters down the grid to hopefully efficiently collect resources and build your buildings. The minigame is incredibly important early on for your strength during the main game, but falls off in importance quite quickly. By then, it becomes a chore to collect resources and frankly, a nuisance. The devs added buildings that you can upgrade endlessly, so resources wouldn't become meaningless numbers, but that isn't a fun mechanic. I don't bother adding one more Strength to my character for 57000 gold and however many stones, because it doesn't change the main game much and it costs.. So. Much. Time. To get that money. Of course you can play the minigame more often and more efficiently, to get more money quicker. If you want to do that. In short, not the best metaprogression system.
3. Some of the character designs (mechanical, not visual) are, by lack of a better term, weird. Two characters play either a part of, or the whole game for you. In a game where you get to combine two characters to make synergies... Why would you ever pair a cool character up with a mfer that plays the game for you, and badly at that? "Oh nice, Renegade, well done on fusing Storm, your strongest ball, with Dark so that it does almost nothing!" It's like watching a 5 year old play football (the soccer kind). The ball goes somewhat in the right direction, but there is no idea of strategy. Some of the other characters are also slightly strange, like the Tiptoer, who does essentially nothing, and the two latest additions (the Ballbearer and eh.. I forget, the old dude) that you'd only really use to fill up the encyclopedia, because they allow more ball evolutions and passive item evolutions per run. Some characters are super fun, but it just feels like some are there to fill the roster without adding much else.
Now why did I not click the thumbs down button? Seems like I'm in a pretty negative headspace regarding this game, huh? Well, nah. The game. Is good. The game is good.
There are so many cool combinations of characters, balls, ball evolutions, fusions and passives to theorycraft. "What if I combine Flash and Hemorrhage on the Physicist??" The sheer amount of evolutions already is very cool, I had actual FUN trying to find which ones I was missing based on.. Well, okay, I made a spreadsheet in Excel, are you happy now, devs? I plotted out all the balls on two axes so I could cross out every combination of balls that didn't have an evolution. Whipping out Excel for a game never felt this exciting. Some of the evolutions do have paths that are a little out there, logically speaking. I mean, why wouldn't the laser and shotgun become the sniper that's so obvious from the silhouette? But it's a fun hunt either way.
Finally, as I alluded to in the beginning, the dopamine goes crazy. It does, it really does, there are so many numbers and they ALL go UP. The colorization and the sound design all do wonders here. It's not a super pretty game, but visually it does score points by supporting the main design choice. After all, chemistry is the most fun when there's different colors happening when you combine stuff.
So, all in all, good game, flawed game, absolutely worth it if you're a completionist who doesn't mind the absence of challenge, but a bad choice for those who play purely for skill expression.
