izigame.me

Not the same game as the one from Early Access...
This obviously goes without saying, but I feel like the game has changed drastically from what it used to be during it's development. The overload of content and update after update turned what was once a simple, quirky, yet appealing time killer into a generic try-hard. For a rogue-like, there is little freedom of choice in how to go about your next playthrough. Of the overwhelming amount of weapons and curses this game has, there are few that actually help you get through the game. Most of them will only help you through a little of the beginning while some are just useless, and the ones that are good are rare to come across. In other words, the game is luck-based. In all the hours I have put into this game, the only times I can remember beating the game were when I got lucky enough. On top of that, the game is horribly unbalanced. There are features not present before that make things too easy or too hard. You would think these two would balance each other out, but that could not be further from the truth. The "Contracts" for example. While they are a great idea on paper, and definitely fitting for this type of game, they are poorly done here. Once you progress to a certain point, you get to choose three contracts before starting a playthrough, and given the choice of four(?) random contracts to select for each of the three slots. A majority of them are terribly unbalanced to the player's favor, especially the "Take It or Leave It" contract, which basically just gives you a free item. You may also choose to change your selection of contracts at the cost of 50 gold, meaning you can basically just cycle through them and pick out the good ones to give yourself an advantage at the beginning of the game. And there is more stuff like this as you progress. Level up high enough and you can start the game with free curse re-rolls, animas, and soulary. On the first level you can choose one of three random scythes the use throughout the game, and gain elevator access to all the main bosses, allowing you to just skip through certain parts of the game entirely. Maybe these criticisms are invalid and I just don't understand rogue-likes (I don't...not entirely anyway), but I feel like being able to start the game with all this stuff right off the bat takes from the excitement of starting a game empty handed wondering what weapons and items you will collect for this playthrough. It also makes each playthrough a little less unique, I feel. Maybe I am just old fashioned, but I feel like this game was much better before all this new content. Sure it still had some problems with balance, as well as other problems of its own, but at least back then it had an excuse as, again, it was still in development. Also why did you change the soundtrack for the Physical Illness dept., Mental Illness dept., Maxxx, and Krank? The old soundtracks were much better, and I wish new players of the game could have heard it.
Despite all this, and many more problems I have with the game, I still love the theme, visuals, and atmosphere of the game. The concept is neat and original, and playing as Death is a lot of fun. It is just a shame that it has all been kind of wasted by the overload of new content and the developer's "quantity over quality" mindset. The only way the game could be fixed now is with some sort of cut-back...if only the developers could go back the games roots during it's Early Access phase, and focus more on balancing it out and introducing more ways to beat the game, rather than dumping out more and more content for the game. And please bring back the old soundtrack...at least as an option.
TL;DR: The game has changed. The difficulty, weapons, and curses are terribly balanced. It is mostly luck-based, with there being just about only one way to beat the game. Please bring back the old soundtrack.