I feel like anything I like about this game is a result of it being an action roguelike, and everything I dislike comes from issues with how the developers have put their own spin on the genre, so I don't think I could ever recommend it to people who haven't already played each of (for example) Binding of Isaac, The Void Rains Upon Her Heart, Noita, Nova Drift, Tiny Rogues (if you don't mind the vibe coding in the forthcoming update), and Rabbit & Steel. I believe all of those do bullet hell better than this game, and everything but Binding of Isaac has a better build-crafting system.
It felt a lot like Pathogenic just gets bullet hell wrong. Sluggish movement pairs well with deliberate combat (see Rabbit & Steel), but I don't believe it works well with the chaotic combat that the game advertises in its trailer, where most of the clips involves the player taking damage from whatever crap is strewn about the screen haphazardly. I believe I played while maximizing my cell's thrust whenever possible, but I never felt like I could control my character well enough in the face of whatever attack I was being subjected to. It felt like playing Nova Drift (a game notable for its intentionally obtuse controls) without that game's very generous health regen. A lot of it comes down to knowing what the enemy will do before you see it start to attack, which is to say Pathogenic's combat just isn't readable; you're just going to get hit by a bunch of things seeing them for the first (or fifth) time.
On the topic of readability, the game is extremely obtuse with all its numbers. There's no shot speed, range, or geometry given for anything and the limited inventory space means you're likely going to make a lot of blind, irreversible decisions about swapping weapons or items. This sucked a lot. It also didn't help that on paper my epic starting weapon had higher dps than almost anything I ever found and a geometry I knew I could hit things with, so had to force myself to experiment with new weapons (because I have to learn somehow) rather than *want* to do so. It's like playing Binding of Isaac without missinghud or a wiki--never an experience I'd recommend. Also, I don't believe any of my damage increasing abilities ever displayed what they were actually doing on any of my attacks.
Pathogenic also makes the genuinely interesting decision of having your hitbox be tied to your character's geometry. There's no law of bullet hells that says "thou shalt be a single illuminated pixel", but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ was it maddening to get caught on every piece of stray geometry and catch probably a half-dozen projectiles because I'm a squishy little blob and not a tiny circle surrounded by an intangible blob.
I'm still going to play more of the game because people I trust have told me it's very good, and I don't value my time enough, so it's possible that my first impression is just off and the game gets better in the 6th hour.
