Ok, so there is an achievement system. And in fact it's more intricate than the original. Even some minigames. I retract that comment. this presents itself considerably less well than the original, but there does seem to be more to it. It just takes some time to start unlocking things.
Game seems to be substantially easier if you don't unlock the rightmost 6 upgrades until after you have full stars on everything. Looks like only unlocked things ever spawn, and some of them just aren't very good. I was getting a full clear extra round every round until I upgraded, then suddenly it became much more difficult. Later levels especially depend on you getting extra rounds, so careful what you upgrade.
I guess every map is unlimited waves? I've been playing the very first mp for over ten minutes now, up to wave 40, and no end in sight. I would have thought TEN waves would be good to start with then ramp up as we proceed. Starting at 10+ minutes per map...this might be too much waiting and spamming next. Also not looking forward to doing half hour maps and losing in the last two minutes and needing to start over.
DEV: Would you eliminate all the deliberate slowdown effects? We don't need letter-by-letter text, slow fadeouts, character movement that crawls, and battle results that slowly tick by one line at a time. Nobody gets anything out of these delay effects everywhere.
Second to last boss is really getting to be annoying. I've ground out 7 levels since I got to him and reworked my gems...still can't beat him. Last attempt he he 30,000 health left. Don't really want to grind 2-3 more hours just to beat this one fight.
DON'T buy the huge 300 coin axe. Not only cn you not use the shield with it, it also has a huge minimum range and everything just walks up to you and hits you where you can't hit it back.
Bosses might need some rebalancing to give steadier difficulty curve. U beat the 8th boss around level 20, but I've been grinding for 6 levels and still can't beat the tenth. From the comments it seems like most people are 40-45 when they finish. Needing to grind over 50% of your levels in the last 10% of the game seems a bit off.
A lot of the mutation "up"grades really aren't improvements over lower tiers. Especially when you have everything in either phsyical or psy, and the next upgrades give the opposite and/or massive health penalties.
Ok, figured those out: not all events are t ournaments (silly me) and as for getting stuck, it looks like the pit fight RNG weights opponent levels based on...something. Anyway, as soon as I beat the boss pit fights immediately drops about 3/3 levels and got easy again. So...looks like the game discourages early grinding.
How are we supposed to usefully progress without getting stuck? Fight opponents keep getting tougher whether or not I advance through bosses. I'm currently on boss two, day 13 with levels 4/3 and my fight opponents are level 5/5 and I have to burn a +1000 food just to survive. Fights are leveling up faster than I am, and I see no way to grind to get tougher except doing fights.
Bug: I keep getting events that are on the last day as soon as they show up. No event before a fight...I do a fight (and get injured) and then the event appears on its last day. So I can either do it while injured and lose, or eat and lose the event. This has happened several times now.
Game seems awesome, starts out great...but rapidly becomes completely easy. Winning strategy: no more than two plants, no power wells, no spells, invest skill points in abilities not spells. Do it every mission and you'll breeze through the game in 20 minutes.
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