Decent rogue-lite with a solid foundation when it comes to gameplay and visual clarity, that being said, it takes good ideas from other games and adds nothing unique to the formula, which is fine unless you like me and looking for more innovation in the genre. I would like to see more active abilities, perhaps in a form of sub-weapons with a cooldown, right now you are limited to alternating between 2 weapons. It does not have a ton of content, but the difficulty of the last section will keep you grinding for stats. There are many temporary and permanent upgrades, granted most of them are passive or have a passive effect that triggers under certain condition, which again, is not an active ability that I can use. So far the weapons are not very exciting, while you can get the generic arsenal from pistols to lasers, I am yet to find anything that really stands out.
When you die you keep a portion of your money which can be used in the hub to unlock permanent upgrades like health, damage and even improved stage layout - so even if you struggle, the character will get stronger over time. I wouldn't say it's too easy, once you get to the second zone the enemies can get very spammy and I often find myself running out of health, although I think the difficulty is just right, it's challenging but not unfair. The enemies have telegraphed attacks and you can also stagger them in the process, so when I die it's usually because I was not paying attention. In general, the visuals in the game are very intuitive, it's not too populated with particle effects which makes it easy to spot the hitboxes.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
+ polished visuals and telegraphed enemy attacks
+ enjoyable gameplay, fair difficulty
+ some progression, in the hub and even improving the store
+ achievements
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
[u] General Feedback [/u] - you should allow the player to skip the tutorial. If you get stunned, I think you should be immune to the follow-up stun for 0.5 seconds so enemies don't chain stun you. I don't like the reload animation as it's not clear when it will be over, why not just indicate the bar going from start to finish. When the game counts rewards upon death, it seems like you can stop it in the middle and you will get fewer points. Also, I am not a huge fan of the stun on the dash as it gets me in trouble more often than getting me out of it, maybe it should slow you down a little instead.
[u] I would like to see some active sub-weapons [/u] - using 2 basic attacks is not very exciting, the game should get more complex over time, maybe you can have 1 slot for active sub-weapons with different effects on the cooldown.
[u] 2 weapons only, but why? [/u] - I really do not like that you can only hold 2 weapons at a time and also you can't shoot both of them, maybe some weapons could be 2 handed and others could be dual-wielded, but you would have to compensate in terms of balance and make 2 handed weapons stronger. At the very least, maybe you could have another slot for 2 weapons so you could press a button and switch between 2 load-outs.
[b] Overall Thoughts: [/b]
Even though it's a good start for an early access rogue-lite that has no obvious problems, I feel like the developer is playing it very safe, not taking any risk with unique ideas, and honestly, this genre is so oversaturated with games that play exactly the same, I want to see more gimmicks that make each game unique. The core gameplay is fine, I am enjoying it, but at the same time, I want to see more than just shooting one of 2 weapons. Additionally, the game could use more 'risk vs reward' elements, right now I can only think of one mechanic that kind of does it.
[code]Review By: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
