Recent reviews by PyroSalamander

Very fun game especially with friends (bonus if you all played FFXIV together in my case). I love the cute art style of everything. The loot and shops definitely solidify the replayability of this game without becoming a crutch to being able to complete a run so far in my experience. I like the curve of the difficulty levels where it really ramps up to test player skill past Hard difficult. I do have gripes with the game as it is though.
1) The lobby system is terrible. You only have 4 slots available for players however I have seen up to 10+ people in a single lobby. On top of that, in the lobby browser you can only see if those slots are occupied when the class is selected, not when there are 4 players that have joined the lobby, meaning you could have what looks to be an empty lobby except in reality all 4 slots are already taken and they are still choosing classes with no indication as to how full the lobby is. I can understand having space for more people in the lobby as spectators but I imagine not a lot of people are using the browser just to watch other players play the game.
2) The boss attack indicators need work. Emerald Lakeside area boss fight is the shining example of what I believe is the best fight in the game. The theme/mechanics are fun and even when there is a lot on screen the fact that it utilizes several different colors makes it actually "readable" with less confusion as to what mechanics are what. The biggest offenders of readability I believe are Red Darkhouse Lasers, King Arsenal Cleaves and the Swap Arrows of the 4th Arsenal boss. The lasers are difficult to tell if or when they activate, the cleaves are even harder to read when you have 4 of them all layered over each other, and the swap arrows are impossible to read when you have the case of 3 clones in a line and they show [-> -> <-]. I remember seeing the same setup in two different runs before but the swaps themselves where different (1 swapped with 2 the first run, 1 swapped with 3 the second run) so I just don't understand it currently.
3) (ties into 2) Overall there needs to be more color variation used, While I appreciate the theming attempt to keep areas in respective color palettes it has quickly become a point of stress when there are multiple different mechanics going on and they all share the same colors. There are only so many things that can be on the screen at once before it all starts to blend together. (example: the "kunai" walls flying over box cross lasers are the EXACT same colors) I have used every single attack color option in the settings and none of them fix this issue, sometimes making it even worse.

I've participated in a total of one and a half wars on Charlie with a playtime of 336.4 hours as of writing. I love the game as it's been a very unique experience compared to anything else but it's because I love it so much already that I can't honestly recommend it. There are a slew of problems with no dev communication unless you count update changelogs and a bunch of mechanics currently that clearly weren't thought out fully.

Fairly relaxing and easy to put down and pick up again later. Makes for a very nice filler game when there is nothing else to do while you are waiting for something.

I liked the DLC, as of writing I have unlocked and completed all EX levels. The story and cutscenes were meh for me, didn't care much for them. I loved the new mechanics it brought EXCEPT the free movement/spikeball mazes, they really don't have a place in a rhythm path following game. The holds and triple ball are great additions that will definitely spice things up in the future for custom levels if/when added to the editor. Despite many others not liking T3 because it's "gimmicky" I don't fully agree with them. I liked the warioware-ness of it (except the freepathing), the problem will come if there are a multitude of levels like it in the future, that's when I think it will "dirty the game" to paraphrase some negative reviews I read. I can't imagine completing any of the levels sped up though, not because of the speed but because of having no checkpoints. I think it would be fair to say it's impossible to clear any of the freepath levels with no checkpoints until you prepath it which removes the point of freepathing in the first place. I can't see myself completing T3 or T5 sped up ever.
On a scale of 10 I would probably give it a 7.

I'm writing this shortly after beating the campaign the first time. I haven't touched post-campaign or PvP yet as of writing. I have thoroughly enjoyed the game so far, The story is simple but good and the rate of progression felt paced out fairly well, I wasn't stuck wondering what to do and I never had to over-level or anything to beat boss fights. The combat is enjoyable and I haven't found myself feeling like I'm forced to play with a certain set of monsters or team comp. I absolutely love the ease of customizing monsters, be it switch stones, skill resetting, or just hatching new ones. Having them boost to just a few levels below the highest monster you own is a god send that gets rid of pointless grinding just to make small changes or try new things out. I do predict I will be doing actual grinding in the post game though to max out item levels and money. My only complaint would have to be that evolutions are a complete mystery without the wiki or just plain guesswork, I haven't seen anything in-game indicating what items to use on what monster.

Its fun with friends but I think nostalgia + initial hype way back when has scewed my view of the game slightly

Very promising and unique in my eyes. Hope to see better tools for drawing in the future and what they can come up with next.

The text was very slow and couldn't be sped up or skipped. Everything looked very complex in the very beginning and made me want to avoid it all. Controller didn't work right. You could probably play with it but things like " press the "A" button to continue but it was actually left on the dpad" would make it very difficult to figure out.