Edit: I've had more time with the game now, so my review's flipped. I do still like the aesthetics, but there's just a lot of things that aren't that enjoyable to me.
Firstly, I don't make it past the first boss typically in my runs anymore. Why is that? Well, everything is a damage sponge and it feels like even upgrading one of my weapons to 20 damage it does nothing. Meanwhile, if I take any damage, even with 1 regen per second I barely see my HP move. I can take 3-4 hits at most, usually less before dying. Regen feels useless, although the health pick ups may mitigate that, the boss fights typically don't drop many health pick ups past the first two.
Secondly, meta progression is slow and unrewarding. At first I thought you didn't need to put many points into the currency meta progression, but now I'm realizing how little you get in general. Sure you might get 3-4 upgrades per run (if you don't die to something early) but 2% increases feel like you didn't have a run at all. You do notice the feat nodes when you take them, etc. gain current HP on level up, but past that most of the meta progression feels hardly noticeable.
Thirdly, I have three characters and only one of them feels useful. The first character's ultimate roots them in place, but everything moves so fast I never would use it. The second character is very finnicky with their melee weapon, and as mentioned before with everything being damage sponges, it's not worth it to be in melee distance. They also have an ultimate that roots them to the spot. The third character not only has better mobility, an AOE main weapon that chains between enemies, their ultimate is also an invulnerability button press for a good 10 seconds or so. I have never stopped using the third character because in comparison the other two feel useless. I don't know how to get the other characters since that would require me to get further than the first boss.
Lastly, imo the game just doesn't feel great to play. There's exploding enemies that move so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fast you will inevitably take damage dodging them into other enemies or take damage from them. Most of my runs end before the first boss because I'm trying not to die from exploding enemies. Even investing heavily into the meta progression defense stats feels like it did nothing for me. I found out weapons cap out at 10 levels, and you can get useless upgrades like 15% knockback or incredibly powerful upgrades that increase all stats, both take up one of the 10 slots you can get for each weapon. Rerolls use the shop currency you need to make shops worthwhile, so I never use them. So I'm typically stuck with passive upgrade that gives me 2% increase to something, knockback, or range. Damage and CD are the only two I find worth taking, if amount or chain jump aren't there.
I'll let this one cook for a while, but imo I shouldn't be having this much trouble with the base difficulty. These types of games benefit from having harder difficulties that are more rewarding, but when you getting your toes wet you can actually do something. Vampire Survivorlikes/bullet heavens that have you repeatedly smash your face against a wall get stale quickly, since you can't experience all of the content. Plus this genre doesn't have much skill expression, other than the dodge mechanic. However, despite all these points, the devs seem open to feedback. I'd keep an eye on it in case they make the game feel better in a way I don't suggest.
