Recent reviews by Decency Man

Updated: I don't get it and I don't enjoy it. I wouldn't recommend this game but you might like it.

Game is a wicked cool looking with a seemingly incredibly steep learning curve. I like the weighty feel of the combat. I like the detail of the sprite work. God holy damn, however, either I don't get some mechanics or this game is much harder than it needs to be for it to be enjoyable. I'm having fun playing it, but I can really feel some weird quirks to the game that I either don't vibe with or just don't get yet. For the price point the game is worth it, though I would take it with a grain of salt that it is a bit over tuned as it is.

It is with great honor that I give this DLC a negative review.

This game sucks.

Absolutely backwards game design. Game spends the whole campaign teaching you bad habits on normal difficulty. Game also does ♥♥♥♥ all at teaching you how you should actually perform during combat. I feel compelled to save scum to try and fix mistakes that don't feel like mistakes, and I lose all reward for even doing well. I want to learn and do better, but I'm tired of restarting campaigns. Don't buy this game for any difficulty below classic. If you do, read a guide. Maybe you'll like this game more, but frankly I feel deceived and cheated both in the game's teaching methods and in it's own sadistic and malicious design philosophy. It's like a kaizo turn-based game, which in lay men's terms means it is a game that expects a certain method of play with little to no freedom, affording little enjoyment unless you like their slow, methodical, and frankly tepidly boring game play philosophy.

Great game overall. The majority of the gameplay progression is exploring levels and finding items to better defeat enemies and bosses. The player has some agency in routing through the dungeon by picking pathways that lead to predetermined "biomes" (i.e. If one wanted, one could go through the poison swap every run or the castle gates etc.). The gameplay itself is very rewarding, with items and weapons all feeling fairly unique and having mechanics that encourage a certain style of play on a per item basis. For example, the Baseball Bat deals more damage to stunned and rooted foes, so you seek out items that can stun and root foes, making combat be a setup for combos. Simple but effective.

I think most people who enjoy roguelites in general would enjoy this game. If that's you, then give it a go. The DLC is not required to enjoy the base idea of the game, but they absolutely enhance the experience if you find the base game enjoyable.


This below is mostly just a rant, which is not well written and you can reasonably ignore. I just had to b*tch:

My biggest, and really only, gripe is the platforming. Most of the times it is benign, mostly acting as a medium to facilitate the combat more interestingly. At other times there are small, mandatory platforming sections throughout levels that can be fairly dangerous, but these are mostly manageable as well. However, there are some "optional" platforming sections one needs to complete to unlock additional items or to obtain additional scrolls that increase your damage. And I write "optional" because I can't imagine the game expects me to NOT attempt to get the "fancy dinner jacket" outfit for my character. Furthermore, on higher difficulties, not going out of your way to grab additional damage scrolls can make the run significantly more difficult, especially since damage scales exponentially in this game. The game does not offer really any items to affect one's platforming ability, so one just has to be good at the game, which is fine in its own right. But I'm not playing Super Meat Boy where I can just retry a level. Some runs take me, and I might just be a poor player, 30 to 50 minutes to get back to these "optional" sections. And the game isn't a necessarily difficult platformer like SMB either, but it is just infuriating to lose a long run because I missed an unintuitive jump too many times. And I have only died perhaps a few times to each "optional" section compared to bosses or mobs, but it is exceptionally demoralizing comparatively. Get rid of this crap, man. If the items don't really affect my ability to complete some challenge in a *roguelite* then that challenge shouldn't exist or should not be able to jeopardize my run.

Bad. Eat your heart out Jonathan/Makayla.

Literally lose a run just because of one bad draw and the enemy decides to attack. Can be absolutely bombastic, but if you draw all of your strikes and none of your important cards while the enemy is revving up you just die. A single turn usually loses the run rather than a series of misfortune. You can absolutely play poorly and die in a single round, but as the mechanics of a deck builder necessitates, you can simply lose with a bad draw, too. There may be mechanics where you have passives that can limit the effects of a bad draw. However, these effects are limited and their strengths can easily be made ineffective by drawing poorly twice in a row, which can absolutely happen when the opponent stuffs your draw pile with useless or damaging cards as well. Absolutely fun at times and then miserably, unbearably unfun at others. Can be sky high and then ♥♥♥♥ blocked two turns in a row, ending an exceptional run in a way that feels completely outside the control of the player.

Absolutely masochistic and buzz killing feeling. Don't play, not worth the high when the low is so low.

Phenomenal game. Truly an inspiration for all immersive sims in the future. And doesn't play like graphing calculator.

I really liked the game. Got a lot of time out of it for the price point.

♥♥♥♥ mom gauntlet.