I don't like Rhythm games, I think Roguelikes are terrible, and I despise Card Battler games. This game LOOKS like all of those, and yet in practice doesn't FEEL like any of those. If you also hate those genres, hear me out: this game isn't those.
Really, this is a fighting game. You've got timing, strategy, and execution. You've got to make decisions based on your situation, what your opponent is doing, and you've got to make the decisions fast and pull them off well.
Why it's not a Roguelike/light:
The main single-player mode of the game is just an old-school fighting game "Arcade" mode, where you punch down a series of opponents in order, and then defeat the boss.
If you lose, you go back to the title screen.
This is just a regular old-school arcade game loop, with short session design, regardless of whether you win or lose.
There is an option to turn on random upgrades after each opponent you defeat in the session, but it's optional, and the balance of the game is such that it's more of a 'spice and variety' option than a central mechanic.
Why it's not a Card Battler:
While technically you have a 'deck' and a 'hand' of sorts, your deck is tiny and your hand is large.
You can shuffle at will, and you rotate through all your available options VERY fast.
You are generally not that limited by randomness, you're pretty heavily in control of your deck's capabilities.
Yes, it's a bit more random than a pure fighting game, but in practice I never feel like I lost due to randomness.
Every loss I've had I felt was because I didn't execute well, I didn't adapt to my opponent's gameplan well enough, or I had a bad strategy.
Why it's not a Rhythm game:
This isn't Dance Dance Revolution, or even close to anything like that entire genre.
Like a fighting game, you've got certain input sequences you need to do to pull off your moves, and just like a fighting game they are consistent, memorizable, and practicable.
You don't even have to input them at a set speed, you can draw them out longer and mash them in faster, there's actually a lot of strategy and personal expression in what speed and cadence you give your inputs in, just like a fighting game.
The only quirk is that you can't give inputs faster than the beat of the music, you're rate-limited, and each input counts.
That's about as close to Rhythm as you get.
So, all that said, the game is pretty fantastic.
Each character in the game has a pretty unique approach to how they work, and they have interesting gameplans they're built around.
Any character you unlock will start giving you all their moves when you play as them or beat them in the main arcade mode.
You can customize your own version of the characters, by unlocking their moves and appearance, and then mixing up their passives and moves with the passives and moves of other characters.
It's a lot of fun, and the sessions are short-length, so you don't have to commit a lot of time in, making it a good little pick-up-and-play game for quick breaks.
Notable issue at time of writing:
It IS in English, but the developer isn't properly checking your language at the start of the game, so you need to fumble about in Japanese to get to the language choice in the settings menu.
(Developer, please fix the new user experience by asking Windows for the current language, asking Steam for the user's current language, or by giving new users a screen where they make the choice first)
