Probably best suited to for those who generally don't engage with turn-based games. The mechanics are very simple and the game does not offer a lot of complexity. It is also quite short, but it's probably for the best, because by the end, the game has exhausted pretty much all scenarios it could have thrown at you. You start levels with your "commander" unit (Matriarch) and use her to get the first couple kills, eat corpses for biomass and proceed to spawn your units. The basic spawn can then mutate into 3 sub-types (all cost additional essence). A stealth/assassin unit, a tank unit and a ranged unit. You then use those to go through the levels, usually trying to find a way to dispose of the enemies in a way they don't do any damage to you. There is also one special unit which the Matriarch can make, called Drone, where you can take over one of the civilians and then use it for free scouting as enemies generally don't shoot them. The Matriarch also has large vision range, making her ideal for scouting/spotting. You can also upgrade between missions, each unit having a grand total of 3 upgrades. They can be pretty impactful, making the game even easier. You won't be able to get them all, but can freely swap them if you don't like one of them. The stealth unit is by far the most versatile, the others you will mostly use just to counter specific enemy types. Speaking of which, there are only a couple of them. All enemies also have very limited movement (half of your units'), which makes outplaying them and their pre-scripted patrol routes very simple. The game is presented in a satirical tone (big greedy corporation bad!!!). You play the indigenous species of the planet the big bad corpo came to mine. There is some voice acting for the 2 main baddies, but otherwise, all NPCs just mumble with text bubbles. Zero replayability, but fun for the 6-8 hours it's going to take you to beat the game. Worth it with the 80% discount the game has pretty much all the time.
There are definitely worse ways to waste a couple hours. You click, you die, you gain currency, you upgrade, you click for longer, earn more currency, repeat ad infinitum until you scale enough and hit the final stage. Infinite survival also unlocks at the end, but it's literally pointless. Has the usual currency spending where you start with upgrade costs in double digit numbers and end up in millions. Would have been nice if at least the "storyline" at least concluded, but it just drops the main plot point completely for whatever reason. There are also a ton of unlockable items with zero clues on how to unlock them. 100%'ed the game and still had only 97/130 items unlocked. In a game like this, being able to see the unlock conditions for the items so they could be target farmed would have been nice. Besides that, you get to equip 4 items, weapon, amulet, armor and potion. Those scale as you progress throughout the game with stronger enemies dropping better items. These allow some customization, mostly in whether you want to focus on HP, damage, or crit. A 6/10 for what it is. If you're out of ideas as to what to play, this will keep you occupied for a day.
Not sure why it's getting railed so hard in the reviews. Controls are pretty complex, but can be gotten used to pretty quickly. Finished without issues on a keyboard (sans bugs, see below). You get a 2.5D game, riding on a bike, going through levels, platforming, fighting enemies etc. You can switch between up to 4 characters and there is a storyline too (with voice acting). Upgrades/skins to unlock/purchase and secrets to find. Some things are questionable though. - Points challenges are pointless, because you can just stack max multiplier by doing stationary spin jumps before doing anything, making them trivial. - Levels also have challenges to complete, but often require you to do dumb stuff for basically no benefit (other than a checkmark on the map screen and marginal currency reward). - Most of the story is hidden behind secrets, so if you don't go after them, you won't get to know that much about the world. - The game operates on 3 "lanes" and targeting anything in-between them can be pretty rough. What is annoying though is the physics bound to frame rate and bugs. Vertical riding specifically, in where you hold a key to stick to pipes so you can ride on walls/ceilings is completely screwed up at 240 FPS. You can't go over bends in the pipes without boosting, it will often launch you randomly or just crash your bike outright because it sticks to the pipes too fast due to the high frame rate. Next very annoying bug is using ultimate abilities. On left CTRL, there are 3!!! actions. Pressing it turns your bike 180 degrees. Holding it spins you constantly. Double tapping it does a spin attack and supposedly, holding it for 3 seconds is supposed to release your ultimate. This however, does not work at all. Whether it's due to frame rate or outright bugged, I can't say, but you will not be able to use the ultimate at all. Respawning after death can also occasionally bug out but not that frequent. Overall, a 7/10. Pretty unique, but rough around the edges.
One of the main "strange" things is how the game is structured. You can save the game at any time, but loading it will put you at the start of the level in the default state (3 lives, 0 score, no weapons). This means that as long as you can beat a single level from this state, you can save in the next one and never lose progress. There is also a time limit. A pretty strict one. Luckily, there are checkpoints in the levels and if you run out of time, you just lose a life and respawn. So as long as you manage to reach the checkpoint sign before the time runs out, you don't have to restart the entire level. Some levels would require some serious speedrunning to beat in one time limit, so most levels will likely include one or two "time deaths" to beat. Or playing in the "turbo" mode, which is toggleable with T. However, the game is basically unplayable at that speed combined with the zoom-in, so the vast majority of time will be spent in the normal speed. Although, the time limit runs at the same rate, no matter if turbo mode is on or off. So it can be used to save some time in long open stretches or make a last desperate reckless attempt at reaching a checkpoint. The game defaults to turbo mode, so make sure to disable it at every level start with T. Score items are absolutely irrelevant, other than leaderboard entries. They can be entirely ignored and all focus can go into avoiding damage and making progress in the levels. No extra lives for score - just lost time, meaning it is preferable to skip most of them anyway. Other than score items, there are some relevant pickups like weapons (although the base weapon is easily sufficient for everything) and most importantly - powerups, which can help in a major way, but are often hidden in secrets. Everything respawns after death (including 1-Ups), so clearing enemies or trying to get every pickup is basically pointless. Fun overall, but nothing spectacular. No nostalgia for this one, but still a solid 7/10 I'd say.
Everything is just generic and uninteresting. Loot makes no sense. A random magic item can be better than a set item. The only way to get decent gear is to savescum the enchanter in town. Why savescum? Because every time you enchant an item, there is a chance it gets completely wiped for some reason. Gold is pretty hard to get in this game and the price of subsequent enchants always increases. Nothing spells fun like spending 50K gold on an item, only to have it deleted next time when you pay another 10K. Getting better loot in this game means finding an item with some good inherent bonuses and then enchanting the crap out of it. The chance of finding upgrades from actual drops is basically non-existent. Once you have enchanted an item 5+ times, the only way to get an upgrade to enchant another item 10 levels later. Rinse and repeat. You don't look for gear in this game, but gold. Characters are really basic and uninteresting and levelling is unexciting. Combined with the fact that the game ends when you are about level 33 or so when the cap is 100, you barely get to explore anything in the skill trees other than 2-3 maxed skills which you will be spamming the entire game. The only way to continue playing after the campaign is just running an infinite dungeon with constantly repeating quests of "kill X", "find Y and Z". No variety at all, it's just an endless mode. The game is also wildly unbalanced. Some enemies can pretty much one shot you while others do barely anything. Playing melee is a torture when there are enemies with breath attacks that melt you in seconds, forcing you to constantly kite. Enemies can also randomly crit you. Don't play melee in this game. Story is basically non-existent, art style is really basic, dungeons are mostly uninteresting. Music is absolutely forgettable sans 1 or 2 tracks. Honestly hard to find any positives other than it being an ARPG. It's worse than Diablo 1 in pretty much every regard imaginable. it's like a 4.5/10.
