8/10, a good brutal time!
I think this game is genuinely an amazing short and sweet bullet hell. It's incredibly fun despite the frustration that comes from repetitive failure, and your failures do genuinely feel like they can lead into learning. The game feels smooth to play, has nice customization for the battles ahead and 100%ing it is a cherry on top, not a requirement. You can kill off Bosses incredibly fast once you know their tricks and really perfect parrying. There's openings everywhere, if you are brave enough.
The pixel art is top notch, the music is really impactful and fits the vibes. The story while a bit difficult to piece together in the start is nice, but its impact depends on your skills and how the pacing goes in this game for you.
As for why this is only 8/10 and not a clear 9/10 or 10/10.
I personally think the game has some pretty steep difficulty curves out of nowhere, and also I think it could due with giving you far more training courses to play, especially as you get new toys. The only ways to practice your new abilities in a fitting environment is either in the absurdly short tutorial levels, or against the bosses themselves. Leaving not much wiggle room for honing your skill unless you want to throw yourself against the wall for a while.
Difficulty progression is a natural part of any video game, especially a boss rush. But I think the jump especially from Boss 2 to Boss 3 is pretty steep, and especially up to Boss 4 from ol' Boss 3. It'd be nice if maybe there were more training levels for this reason, or just a new boss to space out 3 and 4.
On the topic of Boss 3, and spoilers ahead now. I personally think Molter is a bit of an outlier so far. While I have yet to get past Reaper as of writing, Molter is so far the main one that feels like they're a bit overtuned yet undertuned all at once somehow. This is your true test using charged attacks, but a lot of the proper parry windows with said charged attacks are very unclear. Several of their attacks that require a charge slash to parry come out faster than you can properly charge up, or travel so fast they kick you out of charging. Then there's the oil and flame mechanic that just adds even more clutter on screen (more than Commander...).
Finally, there's their full heals. I understand they stay staggered for longer than any other boss in the game I've seen so far, and the goal is to knock them down with a charge parry and kill them before they can heal. But to almost hit a complete full heal (back up to 90%+) each time is pretty damn mean. The healing gimmick and the weird timings with this fight had me surprised I actually killed it when I did, because it just happened so suddenly and I was expecting it to just heal again.
I don't think I'd have as many gripes with Molter is it felt like the battle's synergy was SLIGHTLY cleaner, and maybe if the full heal was only up to 80%. Despite my criticisms though, Molter's my favorite design so far. It's literally a sandshark mole monster, that's pretty damn cool.
I'll probably come back and update this once I beat the game, and maybe again if I ever 100%.
Verdict? It's worth its price tag, the game is really fun. Granted, if you can't handle bullet hells or difficult games, I would watch a playthrough. If you can't handle pixelated gore, I'd skip entirely. But if you are fine with all those factors, give it a shot! You'll surprise yourself with your abilities.
