Brewed and Battered

Pretty disappointed, I played the demo a few months ago and was quite excited to see the completed game, but it feels like very little has been done in that time and some aspects seem genuinely worse. The change so that every potion requires a bottle in order to function makes some sense, but it makes the game harder since you effectively have 1 less slot to use. It's also unintuitive when you can remove the bottle. The water element just doesn't seem to work and disappears almost immediately, and the heal from it doesn't stack and disappears along with the water. Enemies seem to randomly gain absurd amounts of speed, zipping across the screen into you with no hope of dodging. I had this happen 3 time over about 5 seconds, ending my run. The attack effects from potions frequently fail to render properly so you can't actually see where they are. In general the game could do with a better inventory system and a bit more guidance/structure in how different potion components combine. I'm not too put out since the game cost next to nothing, and I think there is the potential for a fun game here, but given the disappointing progress since the earlier demo I don't have high hopes for that potential being reached.

Whilst I really want to recommend this game for its concept, in its current state, I can't recommend buying it. It feels like it should have been released in early access for the amount of characters that just say 'coming soon', and the odd way it handles resources doesn't really feel interesting or fun. Kill things whilst moving to get a resource that lets you upgrade owned effects, kill things whilst standing still to get a resource that lets you buy new effects... but with your current loadout you may not be able to stand still in the face of incoming enemies. Furthermore you can upgrade a lot of effects to no benefit - it tells you 'upgrading this components has no effect', but you can still click the button, as if it's schmuck bait. The graphics are lackluster, the music mind-numbing and repetitive. I'll probably look in on this every time it has a sale and see what updates it has, but releasing as a non early-access title doesn't leave me entirely optimistic it'll get any updates (not that early access guarantees it, but it usually indicates a desire to improve the experience).