I like this game. A lot.

It is what it says on the tin: Come expecting Mega Man X style of gameplay, stay for the rogue-lite randomness and item pools. There's a good bit of variety and learning curve in the game, and the items and weapons feel pretty good once you're used to them. Aiming a couple of the boss weapons is incredibly unintuitive, but this game lends very well to experimenting with differnent things to get used to how they work.

95% of my time so far was spent in the Beta, by the way (which was lovingly tended to for an incredible amount of time; This was a great example of Early Access Done Right even in the year of 2017). There's a lot of final touches I haven't seen yet that I'm sure I'm overlooking, but there's one particular pair of points I want to address.

By default, falling into bottomless pits won't kill you. This is good! It means you get to explore a bit and aren't heavily penalized for falling off of things. There's a lot of moving platforms, and a lot of enemies that fly, and you're not screwed just because something came on screen at the worst time. Falling into a pit seems to only ever deal 1 point of damage, and then resets you on the last bit of stable ground you were standing on. Fun!

...until you get into the final levels. These are the Wily Stage equivalents; Utilizing everything you know and your best reflexes to topple challenges that expect you to be able to respond to them. That's where my biggest problem lies with this game. At the risk of sounding like a scrubby scrub who scrubs, the final bits feels overly reliant on platforming over bottomless pits with no solid land "checkpoints." This isn't inherently bad, but if your run didn't give you any kind of movement speed or maneuvering ability (double jumps, enhanced jumps, better dashes, whatever) you can feel unfairly penalized for not being able to move fast enough. I've had more than a few runs end because the spinning platforms were blocked by laser barriers flickering every half a second and my only way out was a series of temporary platforms (Mega Man WHOOOOOOMF blocks) that didn't match the timing on either the mobile platforms I had to maneuver through or the blinking laser barrier.

Losing a ton of health because of "difficulty" isn't fun, and the final stages aren't particularly short! If you're lucky you'll get the tools to help you, but it does feel unfair at times due to the random pools of platforms and sequences.

As mentioned, I like this game a lot. I'd like it a lot more if I didn't have runs end simply because I dared to pick up certain upgrades, and as an effect I made the final platforming challenges nearly impossible. I'll continue to work on improving my own play in the meantime, but the combination of "haha, you're too slooooow" sections is a bummer.

Buy and play this game. It's great, and the dev team legitimately cares about it. Be better than I am at it and downrate this post as salty baby tears.

I like this game. A lot. It is what it says on the tin: Come expecting Mega Man X style of gameplay, stay for the rogue-lite randomness and item pools. There's a good bit of variety and learning curve in the game, and the items and weapons feel pretty good once you're used to them. Aiming a couple of the boss weapons is incredibly unintuitive, but this game lends very well to experimenting with differnent things to get used to how they work. 95% of my time so far was spent in the Beta, by the way (which was lovingly tended to for an incredible amount of time; This was a great example of Early Access Done Right even in the year of 2017). There's a lot of final touches I haven't seen yet that I'm sure I'm overlooking, but there's one particular pair of points I want to address. By default, falling into bottomless pits won't kill you. This is good! It means you get to explore a bit and aren't heavily penalized for falling off of things. There's a lot of moving platforms, and a lot of enemies that fly, and you're not screwed just because something came on screen at the worst time. Falling into a pit seems to only ever deal 1 point of damage, and then resets you on the last bit of stable ground you were standing on. Fun! ...until you get into the final levels. These are the Wily Stage equivalents; Utilizing everything you know and your best reflexes to topple challenges that expect you to be able to respond to them. That's where my biggest problem lies with this game. At the risk of sounding like a scrubby scrub who scrubs, the final bits feels overly reliant on platforming over bottomless pits with no solid land "checkpoints." This isn't inherently bad, but if your run didn't give you any kind of movement speed or maneuvering ability (double jumps, enhanced jumps, better dashes, whatever) you can feel unfairly penalized for not being able to move fast enough. I've had more than a few runs end because the spinning platforms were blocked by laser barriers flickering every half a second and my only way out was a series of temporary platforms (Mega Man WHOOOOOOMF blocks) that didn't match the timing on either the mobile platforms I had to maneuver through or the blinking laser barrier. Losing a ton of health because of "difficulty" isn't fun, and the final stages aren't particularly short! If you're lucky you'll get the tools to help you, but it does feel unfair at times due to the random pools of platforms and sequences. As mentioned, I like this game a lot. I'd like it a lot more if I didn't have runs end simply because I dared to pick up certain upgrades, and as an effect I made the final platforming challenges nearly impossible. I'll continue to work on improving my own play in the meantime, but the combination of "haha, you're too slooooow" sections is a bummer. Buy and play this game. It's great, and the dev team legitimately cares about it. Be better than I am at it and downrate this post as salty baby tears.