The difficulty curve during the game is alright. Starts off really hard, becomes a boring slog after you learn the basics or find some cheese, and then turns into a challenge again.
I really hate the difficult timing required on some of these. Timing based puzzles are good when it's about having to identify timing, but then there's something like 26, where after solving the puzzle, I need to keep doing the setup over and over to try nailing the timing.
Moderately interesting putting together board layouts, but I'm honestly done after about 20 minutes at tier 2 cards already. Having my current optimal income at 110, it feels too low to justify buying more packs hoping to get something relevant before the next expansion unlock, and this feels like a ridiculously early point to have a 15 minute wait before I have anything to do.
People seem to like these reference times, so here's my run. It has two minutes to spare, so you can do what I first did to get under 24, skip grinding any level you find annoying, and go back to it when you need to or feel like it. L1. 0:25; L2. 0:32; L3. 0:32; L4. 1:10; L5. 0:37; L6. 1:10; L7. 1:10; L8. 1:00; L9. 1:17; L10. 0:45; L11. 0:55; L12. 0:54; L13. 0:37; L14. 0:49; L15. 0:40; L16. 0:46; L17. 0:50; L18. 0:59; L19. 1:12; L20. 0:51; L21. 1:44; L22. 0:52; L23. 1:16; L24. 1:05.
Ugh, getting to choose between 1234 and ASDF feels so meaningless when I just want off the arrow keys. Absolutely hate far down controls that force my hand off the wrist rest. I'm too lazy to create macro keybinds elsewhere. :(
This game kills me early so much more consistently than other traditional roguelikes. Getting a couple of powerful enemeis early is just too clear of a death sentence, when there aren't alternative routes and even something like an orb of fire will wait for you endlessly. There's definitely a lot of cheese potential in walking tougher melee enemies back to earlier fountains, but that's a really tedious way of keeping a winstreak going.
Either 15 is too precise, or I'm doing it the wrong way. Running the post game speedrun, I've spent dozens of tries to time returning the axe, turning around, and throwing it again. I just can't seem to get through the level a second time.
The first 40 levels or so feel pretty pointless. They're just a simple process of elimination to familiarize the mechanics, which could've easily been condensed into a faster ramp up over ~10 levels.
I had to try a couple of times for extended, and unfortunately it felt like it was almost all about generating a good map. If you don't get every type of resource near the center, difficulty skyrockets. My first couple of tries didn't seem to end up having enough resources in the constantly available center tiles, and I'm fairly certain they were simply unwinnable maps.
Every few years I come to sink an hour or so into trying for that badge. Feels like I've gotten every possible score in the 500s up to 598 by now.
10 years later I still think back to suiciding at 598 in 2008 thinking I had done it, based on where I was in my music playlist.
I'm done. The game beat me. I give up for good.
The stat balance is pretty weird. Dodge is vastly superior to block until the very best shields, and ranged always ends up a better dodge. In addition to being the defensive go to, poisonous ranged attacks are massive damage. Ranged just ends up being a ridiculously overpowered stat.
Getting under 3:40 feels incredibly hard even with credits viewed and refresh done pre-emptively. After recording an attempt and estimating how much time I could save, I still don't think I can hold a pace better than 3:45 :(
@Abomm The boss fight is completely doable without invincibility potions. Survival does not have visual changes for enemies, so ceilings are there to mark when the enemies become tougher.
@parik201 There is a speed-o-meter just right of your speed bonus. You cannot make a large gap to the lava, it is always right behind you.
So immensely frustrating to try and reverse engineer solutions part of the time and it gets just so much worse once an idea comes up that the game won't allow presenting or presents it in a less solid form.
Great concept, good music (even though sound quality is understandably a bit lacking), fun goals to strive for. Overall a fun game but not one I would spend too much time on. 4/5
I kind of wish the weapons and armor for other classes would be converted into gold (or possibly built up towards a guaranteed class specific epic drop?) straight instead of taunting you with epic drops that you can't use.
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