I will recommend the game, however I am really mixed on it.
On one side, you have amazing features like an actual top run history (sadly not a historical one on top), as well as your character growing based on how much you played him, but on the other side the game offers very little explanation on pretty much anything. Above actually gives me hope that the game has potential and the developer has good ideas that I haven't seen in games in this genre in a solid way, the advancement by playing is in fact the first time that I saw it being done and it felt rewarding to play a character I would enjoy. However, I can't really say I had a character I enjoyed which I explain further down.
Which skill affects what? What do the values on the character actually mean aside from high or low? How do you unlock new characters? Especially the last one is one that hurt since you have to read the game updates or go to discussions on here, and that should not be necessary.
Further, reaching 30 waves is quite far in - either by play time or in general how far you advanced. A nice progression would be that special bosses drop a key. E.g. I think at 22 minutes in the game itself, I killed 9 bosses. Giving 4 keys at that time would allow me to buy more characters and test out more. I played for 2 hours and haven't gotten a second character, not that it takes you that long if you know what you do, but first without the information and then learning how the game actually works, you can expect it takes more than 2 hours or a lucky run of picking what is good without knowing it.
I don't want all unlocked after 2 hours, but at least that I can play 1-2 more characters, especially if I chose one that I end up disliking - I am just stuck with him.
Talking about unlocks, it may be better to start off with 2 keys instead, or make it 3. And instead, weapons are also locked away that you unlock via playing, or add upgrades into that as well. I see no reason why 1 of 3 elements should be locked away and the rest is fully available.
Now to the game itself. After figuring out what weapon is solid, this was all it needed to get to 22 minutes on insane, after which I died because a boss slowly approached me and I didn't pay attention, so the issue was not being too weak, but simply bored by having nothing to do. You play on the same map with the same character and a very small selection of weapons. A good chunk of the weapons are directional and feel just way worse than the rest of the weapons, but due to the small selection and the easy access to rerolls, you pretty much always end up with the same build if you want the best build. The only difference is a slight delay in which order you get them.
The graphics are meh. The Barbarian/Warrior (Axe guy) I played felt weird. His body and head is 66% of the sprite, if not more, and while the body looks buff, the legs look more like sticks and frantically move around like legs of an insect. The background is nice but repetitive, the map does not simply repeat it's structure but is missing something to fill it out (as in, it doesn't loop forever and feels hand-crafted, but is completely empty and just stone walls and a stone floor).
The monsters are kind of the same. The first thing you face are 3 differently colored slimes, to then face your first boss who is a weirder and bigger slime of one of the 3 colors.
2 of the weapons - poison and skull - use the same (to be fair, wonderful looking) texture but differently colored. Now that I wrote about that, the names further go into the bland aspect. Poison. Skull. Flail. Kunai. Bow. And upgrades like Speed, Damage, Armor. It just feels incredibly boring and lacking character. That actually describes this part including the graphics and stage design the best. It almost feels like you have 2 different people working on this, one coming up with creative and interesting ways and the other being barely motivated enough to do the bare-minimum that it functions.
On the other hand, the achievements are nice and well thought about, which again shows the creativity of the developer that was also shown in the positive things I mentioned, which makes it even more confusing as to why the actual game feels bland.
Hitboxes: Top, Music: Top - but the music has long gaps in-between playing tracks and it almost feels like their volume is not leveled, Sound: Lacking and overlapping sound kills the sound, also sound is too loud.
So why did I give a positive review despite what I wrote? I think the game has potential based on the interesting features that I talked about and the rest can be fixed or improved on easily.
All in all I'd give it a 4/10, but I could see this being a very well polished game and I'll keep track of it.
