I’d never actually played a game like this before, but when I saw it pop up somewhere along the way, I immediately wishlisted it. Thanks to the generosity of The Gamer’s Tavern and the Secret Santa 2025 there, I was gifted a copy of this game.
Right off the rip, I had a freaking blast playing this, although I was shocked by the flagrant nudity that awaited me in the character selection screen! Once I got over the initial shock of seeing a huge dong on my screen, I realized that there was actually a few customization options but most were locked at the moment. So I spun up a Barbarian and went to work.
The name of the game could be “Don’t Die” because that’s the goal of each level. Don’t die, and destroy ludicrous amounts of enemies in the process. Along the way, you’ll pick up your weapon, various types of armor (gotta protect them bits!), passive and active skills, and various other enchantments that enhance your various stats like attack speed, attack range, etc…
There are the concept of tiers in that you start off with just a few mobs attacking you, then more, then more, then you’ll face a boss and unlock the next tier where you’ll repeat the process again but with maybe different mobs and even more of them. This continues until you complete the level and are introduced to the death tier which is, presumably, unbeatable. I had one play through where I had upgraded my characters running speed so much that I was able to outrun the death shrouds but even with all my upgrades, I wasn’t able to stop them entirely.
There are other modes too where you’ll face different types of arrangements, but largely once you’ve experienced a couple of levels, you know what the game is setting up for. There are also different classes and starting specs you can choose, and you can upgrade your various skills outside of battle with permanent boosts as well. I found that Oathbringer with the right setup was just unstoppable for the most part, but really any class could be made into a powerhouse that had me cackling away at just how obscene the damage counters were ticking up to.
Eventually, I ran out of things to do outside of the levels where you just kept doing them over and over to try and unlock everything and that’s where most games lose me is in the grind to 100% completion phase, so I packed it up and called it a day. It’s still early access when I was playing it and it looks like maybe the map will expand further, but unless they introduce a new way of playing the game, I think I’ve gotten what I wanted out of it.