Vital Shell

If you get this game and enjoy it, refund it before it's too late and go get Brotato instead. This is that game but with far less content, a camera angle that makes projectiles harder to dodge, and a MUCH more rigid (and frankly boring) weapon selection/stat/upgrade system. The biggest omission is the shop/item-buying phase. If you're familiar with Brotato, imagine "Brotato without the shop/items". Your most frequent picks are comparable to Brotato's 'level up' stat boosts but without more powerful rarities. I.E if one of your upgrade options is Attack Speed it's going to be 5% every time. More interesting effects like 'leave a fire patch if you kill an enemy with a crit' come at fixed intervals and you only get 3-4 per run. The last upgrade mechanic is gems, which seem like a neat idea: grant a 1-3 levels worth of stats to a single weapon, then when you add the fourth and final gem, grant that weapon a bonus effect based on the color combination. Not all color combos have effects: 4 Red grants you the 'Detonation' effect, but since 'Red Red Blue Green' doesn't have an effect, the game just takes those 2 Red gems and gives Detonation again. Unfortunately, most of the combo effects are bad, boring, or both, and often deal a damage type your mech/build is a poor match for. Meta progression comes from the game's "Devotions". You gain 'EXP' to level them up at the end of each run, and each level grants a small boost for all future runs. By 'small' I mean on the scale of "2% attack speed". I don't really know how deep these get because I've only gotten one to level 5 and I'm already bored out of my mind and won't be playing it again. Needs a LOT more time in the oven.

Not very impressive. I love the music and atmosphere but it just feels like a worse version of Vampire Survivors in every way. The hits don’t feel satisfying, the enemies take a while to kill, and at the end of every stage there’s a boss that runs away from you while enemies continue to spawn that just makes each level drag on for way longer than it should. The gameplay loop of Vital Shell’s contemporaries all feel unique in the sense that you’ll be weaving in and out of enemy hordes to get gems in order to level up, but in this game you can just run in circles around the enemies and after a full minute the round will end and all the gems will automatically get pulled to you. Every match I play feels exactly the same as the last, and even the music gets repetitive. I respect what it was going for, but it just feels like a really mediocre take on the Bullet Heaven genre and I didn’t feel like sticking around to see more.

its peam

good enough it's got me pondering the efficacy of building an arcade cabinet for to run it on

I need a tangible copy of this on my shelf

It's like standing in front of a PS1 demostation in a shop display back in 1996. Everything is so 90s in the best way, the fonts, the music, the demodisc demo, even the official website made me crack up. Nostalgia done right and I love it!

Hard recommend. The game does well to stand out among others of a similar genre. Pros: - Glorious visual throwback to PS1-era Armored Core. - Beautiful soundtrack. - Fun gameplay loop. - Great varierty in enemies, weapons and abilities. - Baked in mod support. Cons: - I want more of everything.