I have played a lot of Survivors-like games. The core mechanics are simple and they may be cheap-looking games, but I find them fun.
This game, on the other hand, is NOT fun. I am going to explain why I didn't enjoy this game.
I am not going to talk about graphics and sound, since I have played games with worse quality in those areas, but they ended up being enjoyable. You can just watch the trailer, that is all you need to know about the game.
First, a lot of survivors-like games feature some kind of progression. You start a run, get some resources (maybe materials or some kind of money), die, use those resources to make you stronger (like increasing stats, getting new skills/items), repeat the process.
This game doesn't have any kind of progression/way to get stronger. You unlock characters and items by getting achievements. While some items are pretty good (like the Voodoo Doll and Elegy of Metamorphosis), there is no way to make your characters get stronger. Every new run is from the beginning. How strong a character is is how "lucky" you are with the stats and items you get in your run. And that wouldn't be that much of a problem if the game were balanced.
I have completed the game (getting all the achievements). To do that, you have to beat the game with all the characters in Standard difficulty. One (minor) problem is that you need to beat the game on Easy difficulty with each character (15) to unlock their Standard difficulty. So you have to beat the game at least 30 times, a thing that wouldn't be that bad if the game was enjoyable.
While Easy is quite an enjoyable difficulty (and it isn't too easy, I think it should have been the Standard difficulty), Standard is the problem. It is supposed to be the intended difficulty for the game. While you can beat it without much of a problem with a few characters, most of them will have trouble... if you play honestly.
Here comes the biggest problem with this game: lack of balancing and infinite retries.
First, I am going to talk about the infinite retries. If you Pause the game and return to the Title, an option to Continue the game will appear. This will let you restart from the beginning of a Wave (also called Round sometimes). You have to beat 20 waves to complete a run (you can later select Endless mode if you want to keep playing). At first, I thought this was some kind of bug and was something that was going to be fixed. But the more I played, it seemed like it was the intended way to play the game.
The two main reasons to keep trying the same wave over and over are to select good stats, items and weapons, and to get a "no-hit" round.
About the stats and items, when you kill enemies, they drop experience you have to grab (like most survivor-likes). At the end of the wave, you can select a stat to increase (of 4 chosen randomly) for each level up you got. Killing a mid-boss drops a chest. Generally, you can only get one chest per wave, unless you picked an item that can change the number of chests you can get. At the end of a wave, you can select an item (of 3 chosen randomly) for each chest you got.
With weapons, you can select a new weapon at the end of every four waves. It works similarly to items; you can select 1 of 3 random ones. You can have two weapons equipped (some characters can only equip one, and another character can equip six). There is a special item that lets you use the two weapons at the same time, with a minor damage penalty.
Getting "no-hit" for three waves in a row lets you select some strong level 4 items (you have 3 random choices like the chest items), but if you decide not to select an item and get a "no-hit" wave again, you can select level 5 items (most of them are the same as level 4 but with no penalties).
Contrary to some reviews saying this game is easy, I can say that this game (on Standard difficulty) is hard, or a more properly word would be unjust.
This game has bosses that serve as DPS checks. If you aren't strong enough to kill them, then it is better to start the run again. You may think that it would be easier to just run away from the bosses and let the timer run out, but good luck trying to do that with the last two bosses. If you don't have shields or any other way to protect yourself, they may kill you in one/two hits (once your HP drops to zero, even if you pause the game and return to the title, the Continue option won't appear).
That means you have to restart a wave over and over to get the stats and items you need to get stronger. This is tedious and not fun at all. Good luck if you don't want to "cheat" and just play with what the game decides to give you in each run.
This is like when people tell you to reroll in gacha games because a character makes the game easier, more enjoyable. If a game isn't fun with the characters and resources it gives you and you need specific characters to make the game "playable", then it is a bad game design (this is why I never reroll in gacha games).
With a properly balanced game, unless you have horrible luck, you should be able to beat the game with the random things they give you. The only thing you have to do is adjust your gameplay style and plan ahead. Not Survivors isn't balanced at all.
Most builds have to focus on high Power (Attack or Magic), Attack speed (the game is confusing, because Attack Power is just for Physical attacks, but other mentions of "Attack" are used for both types) and critical. Your goal is to quickly kill any enemy, especially bosses. Any other stat doesn't matter too much (you need some extra Speed to move aroung and evade things), since you can retry any number of times. You don't have enough levels to get a more tanky build (some characters can, like the Tree).
Ranged weapons are a lot better than melee ones. Getting into close combat is just a way to get hit easier (meaning, more resets). The basic weapon like the AK-47 is too strong with a 2000% critical effect (I think it should only be 200% like most weapons, since the rare version of the AK-47, the M4A1, has the second highest Critical at 400%).
I think I mentioned all the reasons why I think this game isn't fun and I wouldn't recommend it. As mentioned previously, Easy difficulty is actually enjoyable; you have the chance to experiment with more builds, there is no need to "reroll".
If you like survivors-like games, there are a lot of other options. But if you like rerolling, a cast of "parody" characters (borderline copyright infringement), and pop culture references, then it may be your game. It is kinda cheap, so it isn't all that bad.
