Loot River Review (ertdfgcb)
I would recommend this game. I was liking it overall but going to wait until I got to more of a true ending to review. But then I ran into the Houndmaster boss and holy shit that's a great boss. The other bosses were also really good to but damn, get to the pit of the glutton ASAP.
I was kind of mixed initially, it could use some more polish but I wouldn't call it unfinished or not fit for release. My main issue with the game is the hitboxes and models aren't great, they aren't awful but it's clearly a bunch 3d models run through a filter, so it's a bit janky sometimes. But they're janky in a fairly predictable way so it's fine. There are also some minor glitchy issues with the AI and platforms that don't really impact the gameplay but are clearly buggy.
There does seem to be a potential issue where you can get a lot of knowledge early and unlock everything super quickly. You just use the knowledge gathering sword, it gives way to much. But after playing some more I'm thinking it may actually be intentional. It doesn't seem overpowered to have everything unlocked early and the unlock tree seems to be at least partially intended to be used to tune the drop pool on new playthroughs, so the knowledge sword is more of a tool for doing that. But IDK maybe they'll patch it, I unlocked everything from clearing about 4 floors with it.
The structure is kind of weird, it's a sort of a roguelite like Hades where you get stronger between runs, and like Hades you dying a bunch is part of the story. The map is mostly always the same, but the arrangement of platforms varies. So you can always navigate easily but the details change, it's really smart. You also go back to home base between floors (walk to the head to heal), and there seems to be a bunch of different paths that you can unlock.
It also has this sweet potion mechanic where you invest potions at the start of a floor to get twice that many back at the end. This is a great idea and the game seems balanced to make it worth using. You can choose which bosses and how strong you want to get, to some extent - just getting to the end is quite fast once you know the fights you need to do, and you can skip most enemies, but if you do you won't level up.
And the platform fighting is sick, it's really well thought out and adds a bunch of unique tactics to have fun with. There's some puzzle parts too, I like them, they're fun and well designed. But they're clearly a secondary feature, you can even turn on a guide mode that tells you how to solve them. Sometimes you have to solve puzzles while fighting enemies which is great.
On top of all that the story is very intriguing. I haven't finished it yet but I really want to, they've done a great job integrating you dying into the story and the worldbuilding is very compelling.
Overall a really fun and unique game, it's kind of weird at first but once things start to click it's great. It's definitely an indie title, it could use some polish but it's still worth playing IMO. Maybe wait for it to be on sale though. Go find the Houndmaster guy, 10/10 boss design and fight.