VALA is just really half-baked, like someone set out to make a certain kind of game but doesn't really like those or know why they are fun. They seem to think the llama thing can just stand in for everything else that makes the game experience actually good, and basically that the game is just a goof you can toss some friends into, rather than something that rewards you for trying to engage with it. It's not outright terrible. It just doesn't bring anything to the table. You endlessly kite big swarms of samey enemies (you'll be shocked when late game reveals the addition of spitting and exploding enemies) with random drop guns and random drop upgrades, both of which feel like they ran out of ideas a little early.
There are a bunch of on-reload triggers from upgrades (significantly more than the small pool of upgrades warrants), [i]but[/i] they only trigger if you just run the magazine out and it reloads on its own. If you actually engage with the action and try to reload yourself, you block all those effects.
Bad use of controller vibration. Just pulses with every shot fired, even though that's really obnoxious and completely unhelpful. At least there's an option to disable vibration.
Controller cannot exit the game.
No aim reticle for controller, and one of the achievements inexplicably wants you to clear zones without missing a single shot, which really just doesn't work with the game.
Sometimes llamas just get erased as they come on screen and you can't progress from the zone, so you have to kill yourself.
A lot of llama puns, but mostly the bad kind of puns, and they are poorly acted, which kind of makes them more grating. Weird to be so committed to making puns, but not at all selling the delivery.
Single energy bar for dashes, shield, and your [i]very[/i] awkward AoE stomp, all of which take big chunks of energy that only refills on pickups that don't even drop when you're full, so you have to throw out energy to get energy dropping, and the whole thing just feels clunky and overly restrictive where you want it to feel fun. It also means that when you are in trouble, your tools actually get [i]worse[/i], because drops don't keep up with any of those abilities if you actually need them, and then you have all the pointless walking you need to do after rooms, which you can't accelerate by dashing unless you just want to start the next room with a handicap, because of course your energy doesn't simply refresh while there are no enemies in the room to fight.
You have a special slot that can only hold one single-use consumable, which means you don't even have one of your buttons until one randomly drops, and if you use it, you're back to waiting for another drop. Many of the consumables aren't even very useful, so it's just annoying deciding when to throw one out to boost the fight.
You start runs with a pair of weapons based on which zone you pick (pistols, machine guns, shotguns). Pistol start may be only for the first area, but it still sucks to play with basic pistols. No option to change your starting weapons, just drop unlocks, but it's enough to want to be past the first area so you never have to start runs with just pistols again.
Would have been really helpful to offer cross-run progression to improve early runs and fill in some obvious cracks (like abilities/dashing/consumable/base pistol level), but everything is just unlocks from a fixed start--and yet this is a perfect example of how unlock-only progression can still very clearly be [i]power[/i] progression, because more unlocks actually does mean more drops here, not just better and more effective drops/options. You're meant to slog through a dull early game to eventually have a game that maybe throws enough in to be considered a basic twin-stick swarm roguelite with no significant interest, which takes rather a surprising number of hours for a one-note game.
Annoying tasks you have to do to get upgrade unlocks, but they come in sequence, so you just sit on bad ones until you get the right combination of random events to let you progress (and some require very specific drops you can go hours without lining up, which really drags). Also, the game constantly reminds/insults you for not finishing a task yet, because of course it does.
Clearing an area on lower difficulty only unlocks the next area on that difficulty, which kind of sticks you playing low level to clear tasks so you can unlock the tools to properly play the normal difficulty, since you can only get ten tasks per area.
Weapon unlocks come by simply accumulating kills with the most recent unlock in a weapon's group. No matter how bad it is. So you often have to decide between useful weapons that help and weapons that allow progress and need to accumulate kills.
It's amazing they ever thought they could ask $15 for this. Goes on sale for $3 now and then, but even then, you're going to ask yourself why you do this when you have better twin-stick games to play, even by the lowest standards.
