so I really wanted to enjoy this game but in its current state it's just not a recommendation from me.

Solid art style
soundtrack
diversity of weapons

overall the game is stylistically beautiful and interesting to me. that's about where the positives end.

no permanent upgrades to your character
lack of healing items
no real reason to fight enemies outside of the locked arenas
useless dodge
shops and control rooms are too infrequent

my first several runs felt incredibly punishing as it felt like every regular enemy hits as hard as a boss enemy, just with less health on their end. then I realized that the best way to play the game is to just not fight most of the enemies, their drop rates for items are so low that it's just better to skip pretty much anything that you aren't required to fight. this is partially in part to the drop rates, but also due to the severe lack of healing items, coupled with the "trauma damage" that causes your health to stay reduced unless you find specific healing items. so even with the healing items already being incredibly sparse there's a chance that even if you do find a healing item that it'll be completely useless for you. it also seems like the break room area only gives you 1 item per run, though I only made it past the second boss a few times in my runs, but it didn't seem to appear in the second break room if I took the item in the first room. these items would be fine if they were always pure heal items, but there's a solid possibility that you can beat a boss and get to the room afterwards and all it gives you is a slight damage boost for 2 minutes. it just feels like there isn't really a reason to fight the random enemies around the map because there's an incredibly low chance of getting anything useful from them and the chance that they can hit you for 1/6 of your health potentially is not worth the risk especially when some of that health will be "permanently" lost. the dash has very little I frames, which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that there are enemies that will track your dash and either dash back themselves and then attack or if you're close enough to dash behind them turn around mid windup in order to hit you. the hallways where these enemies tend to appear aren't tall enough to jump over their attacks and they're too bulky to reliably stun with your attacks making the damage almost completely unavoidable in some spaces. I also found myself dying on many of my runs with pockets full of resources but nothing to spend them on because the only shop I would come across would be on the second section of a level, meaning there were 3-4 more levels between that shop and the boss, that coupled with the fact that out of pretty much as many runs as I could fit in to the 5 hours I played I think I came across a control room(the room to upgrade your weapons) on a total of 5 runs. this wouldn't be so bad if the upgrades were permanent but they too are lost after each run. I was really excited when I purchased this game, but in its current state it's just a miserable groundhog day simulator where I sprint through most of the level because it's a better strategy than actually playing the game and fighting things and hoping I come across the exact right combination of rooms and items to have a somewhat usable build and to hopefully reach the bosses with a reasonable amount of health. the game needs a lot of love, but I think if it gets the right fixes and changes this game could be something great... but it's not there yet.

so I really wanted to enjoy this game but in its current state it's just not a recommendation from me. [h1] Pros [/h1] Solid art style soundtrack diversity of weapons overall the game is stylistically beautiful and interesting to me. that's about where the positives end. [h1] Cons [/h1] no permanent upgrades to your character lack of healing items no real reason to fight enemies outside of the locked arenas useless dodge shops and control rooms are too infrequent my first several runs felt incredibly punishing as it felt like every regular enemy hits as hard as a boss enemy, just with less health on their end. then I realized that the best way to play the game is to just not fight most of the enemies, their drop rates for items are so low that it's just better to skip pretty much anything that you aren't required to fight. this is partially in part to the drop rates, but also due to the severe lack of healing items, coupled with the "trauma damage" that causes your health to stay reduced unless you find specific healing items. so even with the healing items already being incredibly sparse there's a chance that even if you do find a healing item that it'll be completely useless for you. it also seems like the break room area only gives you 1 item per run, though I only made it past the second boss a few times in my runs, but it didn't seem to appear in the second break room if I took the item in the first room. these items would be fine if they were always pure heal items, but there's a solid possibility that you can beat a boss and get to the room afterwards and all it gives you is a slight damage boost for 2 minutes. it just feels like there isn't really a reason to fight the random enemies around the map because there's an incredibly low chance of getting anything useful from them and the chance that they can hit you for 1/6 of your health potentially is not worth the risk especially when some of that health will be "permanently" lost. the dash has very little I frames, which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that there are enemies that will track your dash and either dash back themselves and then attack or if you're close enough to dash behind them turn around mid windup in order to hit you. the hallways where these enemies tend to appear aren't tall enough to jump over their attacks and they're too bulky to reliably stun with your attacks making the damage almost completely unavoidable in some spaces. I also found myself dying on many of my runs with pockets full of resources but nothing to spend them on because the only shop I would come across would be on the second section of a level, meaning there were 3-4 more levels between that shop and the boss, that coupled with the fact that out of pretty much as many runs as I could fit in to the 5 hours I played I think I came across a control room(the room to upgrade your weapons) on a total of 5 runs. this wouldn't be so bad if the upgrades were permanent but they too are lost after each run. I was really excited when I purchased this game, but in its current state it's just a miserable groundhog day simulator where I sprint through most of the level because it's a better strategy than actually playing the game and fighting things and hoping I come across the exact right combination of rooms and items to have a somewhat usable build and to hopefully reach the bosses with a reasonable amount of health. the game needs a lot of love, but I think if it gets the right fixes and changes this game could be something great... but it's not there yet.