Asterogues

It is a charming game with a lot of replayability, you fight in dungeons, unlock chests, discover new items to aid you in overcoming the odds, unlock characters with different abilities that play differently and all in all it is a great fun with randomnly constructed dungeons and rng bulids. As someone with many many hours in Enter the Gungeons I can't help but notice how simular the two games are and appreciate it's existence, but the comparison also highlights how much of a better experience I've had with Enter the Gungeon. Maybe I am being unfair, the Gungeons is a real gem for me full of wit, charm and a great bit of love put into it, and Asterogues is trying to be the same but the movement is clunky, slow and it is annoying at times when you get hit by things you are sure you have dodged. Add to that the chest explosion mechanic that not only requires you to have a key to unlock chests to unlock items in dungeons runs, but to also sacrifice 3/5 of your health for the rng gamble and chests become anxiety inducing rather than treasure troves of excitement for item combination like in gungeon. That said, the game is a solid addition to Indie bullet hell titles and if you can overlook its somewhat questionable gameplay choices and occasional jank, it can be very enjoyable. For me, it just gives me the itch to replay Gungeon.

The art is cool, and the gameplay is fun enough. Obviously inspired by Enter the Gungeon (is there a better bullet-hell roguelike?). But it's also kinda rough around the edges - some items don't work as intended, the respawn system is a little weird (not giving you all of your items back if you do respawn), and the aim-assist doesn't work perfectly but I wasn't able to turn it all the way off. Tentative recommend.

Co-op is super buggy. Orion (character) frequently loses his weapon and can't fight. When 1 player dies, sometimes there's an invisible wall the living player can't pass until you revive the dead one. Sometimes one player teleports to another with no explanation. And all of this is on local co-op, which means none of it can be blamed on connection issues. Also the revive mechanic is incredibly punishing - you lose half your health capacity which effectively means your run is done. Fun idea, unique combat, but unfortunately no fun in co-op.