Ancient Weapon Holly

UPDATED REVIEW They fixed a bunch of major problems such as glitches and control issues that made the game near unplayable, now it's much better So, what's this game? Well lets start with what it isn't. People tagged this game as "action roguelike" "souls like" and "dungeon crawler" But the thing is, it's neither of those but at the same time it does have some elements. This game is like a "Roguelite without randomness and without permadeath" which if you think about it doesn't really make sense because the main attraction of a Roguelite is the whole idea of having a different run each time, they are not meant to be beaten on your first but you get stronger little by little in some way. In this case, you have 10 floors/levels you have to go through but all 10 of them are predetermined, nothing changes in each run, but still they went with a roguelite kind of progression system even when there's no perma-death , you have an skill tree of permanent upgrades for that run, if you die, you go back to the previous level but keep everything you unlocked in that skill tree. But here's the weird thing, there's also permanent upgrades you can find in the map that will persist even after you have already beaten the game which would make sense for an actual roguelite. You really can't lose a run in this game, if you die you just go back 1 level so it's more like a regular static game with roguelite elements on top of it, not to mention the permanent upgrades cannot all be found in your first playtrough, you can only find 1 per floor so it's as if this game was built to be a roguelite but removed the core elements of the genre and kept the secondary elements. So this isn't really a Dungeon Crawler either, same thing, "it kinda is" but when people hear that term they are usually expecting randomly generated levels, enemies and upgrades, roguelites and dungeon crawlers pretty much go hand in hand. So what would happen if you couldn't lose a run in a roguelike? Balance issues. Like i said, when you die , you go back to the previous floor (Floor 10 is the first), but since you keep every upgrade there's no way you will go all the way down to floor 10 unless you're doing it on purpose. in fact chances are if you are taking your time you will max out your entire skill tree by the 4th floor, if you want you could farm certain enemies and get all upgrade incredibly early and very quickly too. Then later on as you upgraded everything you might find that enemies by the end are a bit too spongy and numerous to be dealt with your normal attacks, and that's another point where the progression is weird. You see, this is normal in a roguelike, in your first runs as you go further you reach a point where you get outpowered by stronger enemies to encourage you getting permanent upgrades. But this isn't a roguelike, you already have everything in your skill tree so whats left?, the permanent upgrades. Ok that would be fine except that would work if there was permadeath, like i mentioned before you can only get 1 of them per floor and per run, so in your first run at maximum you will get 10.. Ok "Just start a new run then!" , well , there's one problem, the only way to play a new run is to beat the game which defeats the whole purpose of wanting such permanent upgrades in the first place. UPDATE: They added a Timeattack mode, you start as if it's a fresh file, this mode acts more like a roguelike, these are the changes i noticed: now permanent upgrades can be obtained more than once if you lost and came back to that same floor, also some levels are randomized (from a pool of layouts) More balancing issues: There's "Bad Upgrades" , You can upgrade your whip or your projectile up to 3 levels, and believe it or not, the level 3 upgrade is actually a downgrade, you are much better off with level 2 with both weapons. Basically what level 3 does is a charged attack but the increased damage is inferior in terms of DPS when holding the attack button, it would be worth it if they did AOE damage or way more damage. The reason they become useless is because there's way too many enemies near the end for it to be preferable So if you play this game, avoid these upgrades at all costs unless they are changed. UPDATE: This issue is still present, level 3 is still a downgrade. Another way i suggest to make them much better would be to significantly reduce the recovery time of the 3rd attack and add a piercing effect to the level 3 fireball to be able to deal better with many enemies at once as they basically outscale you right now and you will end up avoiding them instead. Digging and Burying attack: By the end it's very slow compared to everything else, i think the speed of these should scale with attack speed upgrades too, specially the recovery time Control/Jank Issues : Jump Related: They fixed jumping not responding. [strike]Sometimes you can't get out of holes by jumping[/strike] This got fixed, now you jump much higher and get out of holes, this was a huge problem before. Selecting Tiles / Tile Cursor is inconsistent: On a recent update this issue got somewhat fixed but it still doesn't feel right This is the worst issue by far if you are playing on Keyboard + Mouse. it's probably not much better in controller. Selecting tiles is inconsistent and jittery , apparently the cursor gets confused with the game's 3D objects and perspective. Your mouse arrow could be on top of an enemy you want to bury but the cursor will decide to select a tile you don't want and end up making a hole in a place you didn't intend to. But here's the thing, accuracy is key in this game because you need to get it right twice in a row on the same tile (One time to trap the enemy and the second time to bury the enemy) The tile cursor moves around even when you are not moving your mouse or your character, for example you may trap an enemy by making a hole, and then you would think by not moving the mouse and clicking again the cursor would stay at the same tile, but no, the cursor will choose whatever tile it wants except where you want it, it's very jittery and inconsistent. It doesn't end there, this issue is present with anything that has to do with selecting tiles, opening chests, placing or restoring teleporters, in a critical moment this will get you killed, you have to be very conscious on how unreliable the tile cursor is. The cursor should have been simple, the cursor should be at the position the mouse cursor is and that's it. This is issue discourages you from using the mechanic that the game advertises the most because it could get you killed instead of helping you , the digging mechanic. Currently, you will die because you were wrestling against the controls to make them do what you actually intend, it was really bad at launch, now it's better but the issues i mentioned still happen but not as bad as before. Apart from those formerly major issues it's actually a fun game and would be a pretty decent game if these issues were all fixed. I had fun with this game by aproaching in a different way which was to go full gorilla mode, taking my time on the first playtrough was a mistake, ignore the "strategy" part and just go nuts (but don't die). I like the whole idea of protecting your base while you go and hunt to destroy theirs The story of the game is honestly as simple as it gets , comparable to the plot of arcade titles , if you're in for the story there's basically nothing in that regard The music is nothing memorable, not bad just feels like stock music. The enemy variety is lacking, there's basically a total of 5 different enemy types. The playtime this game offers is about 3 to 4 hours if you take your time, you can beat it under 1 hour if you know what you are doing My rating for this game would used to be a 5 but now it's a 6. There's a lot of room for improvement , with its issues fixed it would be a 7 (If those issues get fixed i will update this review)