Beat on Hard during free trial. I decided to stick with John exclusively because of his level 20 passive hp regen for all characters. Playing him reminded me of Dark Souls because of the importance of timing evades and blocks. I eventually learned that he could block and attack at the same time, just like spears and rapiers in Dark Souls; this was important for dealing with sudden lunging enemies like the bats. Ranged enemies were troublesome until I got the shield smash stun. I died 2 or 3 times to the spider boss before finally winning. Infinite adds and webbing that slowed movement speed was not good for a melee character. I had been pumping money into upgrading armor and felt I won by having so much hp rather than through skill. Best way to be; in my book the best offense is such a high defense that you can't die.
I beat the dual goblin boss 1st try but only because my hp would regen from critical to a baseline amount upon avoiding damage for a few seconds. I abused that heavily by running around in circles and only using the area ranged attack. I was confident going into the golem boss because I had a sweet set of powers, including passive hp regen. Nope, the Golem kicked my ass. I tried to keep distance to heal but ended up taking more damage. I hated his cheap stun followed by ranged attack, and the bullet hell shooter mode which heavily punished me for staying at range. At this point John was fatigued so I switched to Linda. She was my style, like playing a shooter. The shooting felt good, and I loved the mechanic of using stamina to move and shoot at the same time. Even better when she later got a damage boost for standing still, giving good tactical interplay between standing still and moving. I often took a middle ground of moving back while firing a shot every second rather than holding down full auto. Not sure if I died or beat the golem 1st try but I felt winning was more about all the money I spent on armor. I was surprised that she beat it because the golem was anti ranged.
Linda was fatigued after this so I started the desert stage with Lucy the mage. She had range but played completely differently to Linda. Rather than being a mobile sniper, she had to stand still and take a couple seconds to build up to full firing rate. Hit and run was not the most effective, rather she relied on disabling enemies with the cyclone and decoy. I did manage to beat the boss with her, then went back to Linda for the next 2 bosses. The shadow boss that kidnapped the mom was tough. I did manage to get past the fleeing sequences without dying, despite barely surviving with only 3 hp at one point. It took several tries to beat the boss as I learned to hide behind the pillars to avoid the boss attack, ignore the adds, and spread out activating the pillars to get more free healing and time to attack. Ranged was definitely the way to go for this boss and I can only imagine how much harder it would be with melee. Then I unlocked the cleric character and tried her out for the 3rd desert stage. Her basic attack had medium range and a large area of effect, making her excellent at taking out large numbers of weak enemies. I did not find her other abilities that useful. The tree boss seemed to be specifically designed for her. Her attacks had just enough range to outrange the boss, and the area effect was just right for killing multiple roots at the same time to get health globes (with her passive to improve them) and fast enough to get free hits on the boss.
For the 1st industrial stage I decided to try out Mark the monk. He was fast with high dps, but very difficult to avoid taking damage. He devastated ranged enemies, and could chain knockback most enemies. I found it a lot like the Diablo 2 paladin's charge, where I tried to set up a nice long straightaway to wreck single enemies. He did not do so well against groups though, almost always taking damage and having to do hit and run. The slimes would power through his attacks to hit him so I just ignored them. He wrecked the boss by using his mobility to keep away until making a bomb hit the boss, where his high dps shined on the stunned boss. I used Joey for the final industrial stage and I hated him. The seconds of wind up on his attacks and recovery afterwards made for very frustrating gameplay. Like dude, if you can't handle your weapon properly, use something lighter. He did well against groups of melee enemies provided he started swinging before they got into range. He was good once he got going, but was very bad when he had to stop and start. He was terrible against ranged enemies and I gave up fighting some of them. Some of his skills boosted him after taking damage or being low on health. I had armor maxed out by then, and he absolutely relied on the natural regen from critical to high red hp. I did not think he would last but I managed to beat the boss. Now I never want to play him again.
Then I was at the final boss. Before that I gave Kevin a try by repeating Joey's stage. He started off very weak but once I unlocked his other skills he was kicking ass. His frenzy was like the Diablo 2 barbarian frenzy, strongly encouraging aggressive play to keep his attack speed high. He was dropping enemies in a second or 2 and was a lot like Mark; being amazing against ranged and struggling against large groups. By now I was pumping up workshop attack damage, and got a few points to improve money drops. His stealth ability was awesome. Then I beat the final boss as Linda; it felt more like a bullet hell shoot em up and I think she was a great choice. She struggled a bit at the middle part fighting off hordes of enemies to revive the other characters. She was not the best dps to burn down the enemies, so I had to use her rage to clear them out before respawns. Other times I just took the hits to get the revive done.
New game plus looked interesting but there was not enough time left in the free trial, so I tried out the family trials mode. It was interesting to fight mixed enemies from all the stages and how leveling up gave a choice of rune powers rather than talent points. I was not happy about having to fight bosses again, especially without the high hp from story mode. I beat Normal as Linda then failed Hard twice. This mode was much more roguelike because there were only slight buffs from achievement like things that carry over between runs. I decided it would be better to unlock those buffs on Normal before trying Hard. Lucy failed Normal at the end boss and the trial was nearly done so I stopped. Definitely worth getting the game to play more.
Excellent gameplay that was highly satisfying (except Joey). Not as good as Hades though. I was very impressed with the art style and how much detail could be portrayed, and the little touches and animations in the house showing each character’s personality. The story was a little on the weaker side and really could have used more character interaction. I loved the tactical decisions and search for loot, though I never felt a trade off between risk vs reward for exploring, since more kills means more xp and healing from leveling up.
8.8/10
