To clarify: After playing through NG+11, it's much easier to beat the base game with no upgrades. NG+11 has so many enemies, and the bosses so much health, you pretty much have to max out to have a chance XD
I just managed to beat it with no upgrades, no potions, no bard song, killing nothing but the bosses (and Mushroom boss's minions). After playing through NG+11, it's much easier (though still took about 6-7 lives to get through it)
@hacker24 is just copying previous highly-rated and top comments. The one with several upvotes is a copy of a previous best comment that currently has 135 upvotes (currently around 7th when sorting comments for "best"). Suggest upvoting that one instead and downvoting plagiarism.
Just learned that after beating NG+9, the next game just says "New game". However, do not be fooled! It is certainly NG+10, as the first room has 18 brown slimes
For higher NG+ (6, 7, 8, etc), it seems near-impossible to survive long at first. However, just beating a map or 2 per life for awhile, the grind seems to become insanely fast (potentially like 20 minutes or so to buying everything using heal potion, probably faster with invincibility), and it gets much easier once you get to the wolf/bear maps, and switch to hymn of protection/heal potion. (I always like to full sweep the map once I'm maxed so I can enjoy the upgrades, and is never all that hard once you're maxed and healing a ton)
Could use a level selection feature; it could be fun to replay levels to look for alternate solutions. Some of mine were... clearly not what was intended XD
With the right warlords, pets, and squad, it's known to be possible to reach league 1 (to unlock max soul rewards before grandmaster, but not to stay in it) using heroes in rebirth 3 with levels between 16-21. Discord is very good for helping you design the right squad.
(Also the drop rate for the second legendary you pick in wish shop, once you get to the point of selecting multiples, seems to be far, far lower than the drop rate for the first one you get)
With a bit of patience, using wish shop and chosen hero event, you can get all the heroes you want using only a small amount of gems. Tip on wish shop: only spend 300 gems when it shows up, as that one guarantees to give you one of the legendaries you pick. For most folks, its better not to spend any more, because you will be able to buy more souls for a better price in other modes, and anyways it's usually better to focus your gems on warlords and pets until you have everything you want for those.
The best way to afford what you want for warlords and pets is to get good at draft. There's nice information on the Discord to help get you started :)
@bill I would argue that the game is not pay-to-win except possibly for getting to grandmaster tier. Besides that, if you join the Discord for strategy help and build the right team, it's said to be possible to get all the way to League 1 without paying a dime. Chest slots help with event progress, but are not necessary to reach a high level with your core squad in a reasonable length of time.
For example: I'm a moderate spender (VIP 5 without activating the bonuses, and not planning to spend much more) who's played about 7 months with a slightly less efficient progression progress, and I have managed to get all warlords and all pets that can be bought with gems, reach league 3, and have enough gems saved up to get my core pet to max level, with max soulbinds.
The game has its issues (and over-advertises its spending), but overall you can do very well without spending much if anything.
@soltip Best to contact the devs to give them crash information. I don't think they monitor Kongregate comments, and it clutters up the section. To contact support, navigate in-game to the settings page on the upper-right of the main screen, Then click the blue "send" button next to Support. There is an option for "Freezes and Crashes" while playing.
If you lose anything due to game crashes, support can often help by sending some form of compensation - for example, refunding your lost The Pit or Dark Tower attempt.
Still come back to replay this periodically. So much fun. Now on New Game +4; +3 seemed significantly harder than +2, so looking forward to see what +4 has in store.
The song Green Week is waaaaay too hard. The rest seem doable to learn with practice, but that one has too many notes to process at once, too fast, to really do on a keyboard
 "Rogue Isles"){kind=icon}
 "Mighty Party"){kind=icon}
 "Fall Words Physics Puzzle Game"){kind=icon}
 "Tiny Jukebox"){kind=icon}