This game has the potential to be good, and the art style and sound design are beautiful. However, in it's current state it's not there. Some observations from my first few hours.

I defeated 3 bosses on my first play through, making it to the 4th floor. This was mostly due to the ability to heal yourself mid battle feeling broken. I only died in the end because I got stuck in a corner.

The boss fights themselves are also not enjoyable, I'm used to bosses In games like this having attack patterns that need to be figured out, that when mastered can lead to you beating the boss without taking damage. This isn't the case here, each boss has 1-3 attacks that it loops, so the gameplay becomes very repetitive very quickly. Second boss feels broken as it will continue to spawn enemies as fast/faster than you can defeat them. I ended up just ignoring the enemies and focusing on the bullet sponge boss. Third boss was a walk in the park comparatively and offered no threat at all.

The level design (and enemy type) only changes every 2 floors, with little variation between enemies. After the 2nd floor there aren't any enemies with projectiles (so the parry becomes pretty useless), instead they're replaced with rushing/swarm type enemies, so the game loop just becomes move in circles and shoot until dead. More variety (and more space to properly dodge attacks) would be greatly appreciated.

inventory management quickly becomes a chore. Requiring items to be picked up to be able to "release souls" coupled with the relatively small Imventory slots mean you end up constantly having to throw stuff away or sell (which annoyingly you can only do 1 item at a time). The option to scrap the items in each box would be welcomed. Also, if you alter the controls from the default (it's nice to be able to parry without releasing the right analogue stick using the bumper), the toggle to switch to crafting doesn't work, meaning I had to switch back to default controls every time I wanted to craft.

Speaking of crafting, it's not clear which scrolls are compatible with which wand caps, they could do with more differentiation/explanation.

Finally, there isn't much variety in attack type, these games are at their best when fun items are unlocked and are available in chests, there doesn't seem to be any of this in here, just 2 main modes of fire. Some variety in style, flashiness, and animations would be great.

Nice drawings, but there's almost no game. Everything is tedious as ♥♥♥♥. Why do I have to equip the thing that takes me to the next level?

In the second room I managed to get a channeling wand cap which got stuck in "on" mode and trivialized the next two floors. Bugged as hell as well. The bosses have a single move each.

Was this supposed to be early access?

For context, these are my opinions of the game after ~20 hours of playtime and multiple completed runs in both Elevated and Rush game modes. Mostly M&KB

Current Rating - 9/10
This could increase to a 10/10 in a few patches. I’m still encountering some bugs but nothing that a restart/load hasn’t been able to fix.

Highlights:
⁃ Rush mode, this has been my go to after completing the story mode. I enjoy the faster pacing.
⁃ Boss fights, some of the negative reviews mention the room to room combat being tedious but I just see it as the go between to gear up between boss fights.
⁃ An extremely responsive developer. I dropped a few suggestions in the discord and they popped up in the following day’s update. Might be a coincidence but I appreciated it none the less.

Negatives:
⁃ Some of the late stage bosses seem to still have a really large health pool. The earlier stage bosses had their health reduced but these seem unaffected. Not sure if intentional or coming in a future update.
⁃ I wish the Meizer dropped more than just the items he stole from you when defeating him. It feels a bit unrewarding to just get my same items back and still lose the gold I staked.

My understanding of the game in its current state:
Fight your way room to room in typical roguelike fashion, get a reward when clearing a room, repeat until you find the boss room. It’s simple, but like I said, I’m here for the boss fights. The stand out “dodge” mechanic in this game is a parry that reflects the enemy’s damage back at itself. It’s solid for damage avoidance, but until you get to the later levels where enemies are dealing higher damage, it’s not incredibly useful as a “weapon”. I think a hat that multiplies this damage could be useful but maybe that’s already in the game and I just haven’t found it yet.

The item system consists of a Hat Slot (Passive Ability), Amulet Slot (Active Ability), Robe Slot (Health Pool and Shield Pool), Wand Core Slot (Mana Pool and Passive Mana Regeneration). There are also 3 slots for Wand Caps which are essentially spells that you can switch between. You can also unlock an additional 4th slot if you find a “Dual Wand Core”. The 3 “Types” of wand caps are Shaping (Projectile), Manifesting (Healing and Speed), and Channeling (Laser Beam that goes through enemies).

NPC Interactions:

The Meizer - Can combine your wand caps but only if they are of the same type (Manifesting, Shaping, Channeling). You can offer him gold as a bribe to increase your chance of success which is locked between 5%-95%. If the combination fails you can choose to fight him and if you win you will recieve your wand caps back (still wish there was an additional reward). My only gripe with this system is that I can only set the gold amount and not the percent. I wish there was a way I could choose my percent directly and the gold would update accordingly.

The Enchantress - Gives quests that give scrolls when completed. These scrolls can be added to wand caps to make them more powerful in various ways. The scrolls also appear in soul chests, so the incentive for quests isn’t huge, but the quests tend to be simple things you are already doing such as collecting gold.

The Petch - A shop keeper where you can buy and sell. The only interesting interaction with this guy is a bag you can buy that gives you an item (similar to the mystery box in call of duty zombies).

Overall the game is really fun, and I’ve really enjoyed playing it! Would definitely recommend!