Battle Shapers

its very good

A big surprise. I don't know how i missed this one. Great gun play, fun art style and roguelite elements.

DO NOT BUY. Sweet Baby Inc touched this game. There are a lot of good ideas, but few of those ideas were executed in a manner that makes a game truly great. Far too many systems are locked behind progression, meaning the initial impression of the game is that it's a bland FPS with an unnecessarily tacked-on roguelite skin. Meta-progression is irritating, as whole systems are again locked behind death instead of just adding an increased weapon/skill variety. Boss and enemy design prioritize bullet-sponge over skill expression, and the variety between enemies is severely lacking. Each of the three main bosses are effectively just boiled down to the same attacks with different skins, essentially just 'jump the hazard', 'sidestep the hazard', and 'kill the minions'. Weapons aren't particularly interesting either, you're mostly just going to be using some type of machine gun with an elemental coat of paint put over it. Maybe something will change when I'm deeper into it, but a game really shouldn't take 10h to get good. Edit follows: Nah. It's missing one of the most important things for a roguelite: Excitement. You never pick up an item and think "Oh, this is THE run!" You never get those rush moments because your end of run capabilities aren't much more interesting than what you started with. Depth of a cookie sheet. Also, if you're going to require a 'don't get hit' mentality from your players, you have to have sound and visual design good enough to warrant that level of expectation. If you want to have firing methods based on timing, do NOT slow down actions without warning. You can't demand perfection if you're not going to offer it yourself. Oh and it loses frames like you wouldn't believe once you're anywhere deeper than the first couple difficulty levels. RE2 Remake typically leaves my temps around 42-45c, but Battle Shapers averages high 50s to low 60s, which is unforgivable, given the visual style.

Repetitive runs that take far too long to complete and the weapons are poorly balanced with most of the unlocks feeling like downgrades that clutter the loot pool.

genuinely one of my favorite rougelikes I have played in a long time

I had a blast, it felt like FPS Mega Man. I hope we get a sequel or DLC in the future.

If you read this buy the game and play it its really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fun

I bought this game via humble bundle. It sat in my backlog for a couple months before I decided to download and give it a spin, assuming I would likely only do one or two runs before deciding it wasn't for me and moving on, The game is what you would expect based off the tags. It is a roguelite,atleast in the sense of getting handed random abilities, weapons, and perks, throughout a run, and there is meta-progression so you can strengthen yourself in between runs. If you have played any popular roguelikes, you will know what to expect going in. outside of the usual, i only have a few remarks. One thing that is a bit different, atleast in comparison to some roguelikes on the market, is that the perks that you get are simple. Meaning, the moment you read them,you know exactly what it does, and how it will potentially mesh with other things in your build. That is a breath of fresh air. The game has a weapon and ability modding system. Guns will spawn with a build in mod,and you will be able to either take the gun, or take the mod from the gun, and slap it in whatever your already using to further customize your kit. This makes for some extra fun putting together sometimes interesting combos or just giving yourself more damage. There is some mobility in this game which always adds to a games enjoyment for me. Admittedly, it does take a few runs to get used to it, but once you do, it feels good. A lack of variety is a bit of a blessing and a curse in this game. You will hear the same music ALOT. The music isnt bad so i wouldnt say it actively is negative to the experience, but more tracks would have been nice, Level variety is non existent,in terms of multiple runs. Each run has the same set of environments and room designs, and the room order is just randomized a bit. The one blessing this comes with is,although there is a solid amount of perks in the game, it actually plays out that you can pretty reliably throw together the same build in back to back runs. While that can be a turn off for some, that again, was actually nice for once. Once i found a build that was strong, I was able to use that to clear my way up the difficulty ladder without much fuss. Speaking of difficulty,i would say this game is alot more forgiving than roguelikes typically are. They require you to slam your face in the wall alot more when your learning the game. (unless the game is similiar enough to games your already played i suppose) Even the final difficulty, which i saw some complaints over, I feel like isnt that bad once you find a good build that you like. Overall,i recommend the game. Also to any achievement hunters, 40 hours is roughly how long it took me to 100 percent, albeit,it can be done faster. After looking at Steam DB, i think its sad the little amount of love the games gotten. Although i think the game could have done more to earn that $25 dollar base price, I do think it is worth it if this is your type of game.