Can't stop BONKING !!!ㅤ█▬৻( •̀ ᗜ •́ ৻)

I don't think I've ever spent so much time and energy trying to find the fun in a game where it just isn't really there.

I like survivor-likes a lot, hundreds and hundreds of hours in probably 20+ different ones. I like Risk of Rain 1 & 2 a lot, again tons of hours in them. This on paper is a fusion of the two, and at first glance seems promising, but the way it's designed and balanced it plays closer to just a convoluted slot machine than either of those.

Survivor-likes are glorified stat check / build check engines, but they usually have a lot of allowance in how you build and navigate / engineer a run, which is (IMO) where the fun comes from. There are extreme ends where truly OP builds can trivialize everything and 0-synergy builds can't do much of anything, but by and large the games thrive in the middle zone. RoR is also "stat checky" but there's more variety and active participation in how characters interact with the mechanics, and also there are still a variety of builds you can aim for.

Here, none of that seems true. The game is PURE stat check, and it's essentially pure RNG. Most combos of items, weapons, tomes, and characters cannot clear tier 1 of a stage, much less the higher tiers you require to "see" builds and to unlock stuff. Even with the exact correct character, weapon, and tomes you can still just lose due to poor RNG with items or map objects (Shady Guy / Statues). Legitimately one of the main things you do is restart and look at the spawned object list if you're trying to unlock a particular item or achievement, and even when that all lines up, then you're beholding to your level up luck.

"Oh, but there are rerolls, banishes, and skips to mitigate your RNG!" except many of the achievements and the highest non-challenge difficulty seem to be built around using those VERY specifically - "meta" here isn't just for leaderboards, it's for actually playing the game normally. Heaven forbid you try to push through with slightly too low difficulty or XP tome stacks and get wiped through no fault of your own 22 minutes into your 27 minute run because you didn't scale correctly.

This game basically takes the fun parts of VS and RoR and delegates it to the RNG. Your only real skill is whether you know what thing you are supposed to select when it pops up, and knowing when it's too far gone and you have to restart.

There's some interesting things here, there's "movement tech" except it's largely mandatory (again). There are really only like... two or three builds that are viable, at the end of the day, as far as picking different things, and those are echoed across almost all characters. Some characters in theory have more novel ways to do stuff but you are beholden to choosing a few of the "good" things to make it function at all in the first place.

It's just... there's nothing here. A walking simulator is more interesting because you can choose what to look at an chill and immerse yourself. RoR is more interesting because your choices actually mean something. Every single bullet heaven I can think of offers more in the way of choices and rewards and those are usually seen as brain-off games. I thought I was missing something but I read the guides, watched some people play, and no... that's just it. "Restart for RNG, the game"

The literal slot machine simulator games have more meaningful choices than this.

Games super punishing without there being a lot of control or skill ceiling, even when building tank everything still hits you like a glass cannon so i felt myself avoiding half the builds and just rinse and repeating the same weapons and tomes. All while trying to avoid something spawning directly under me and insta killing me.