Hellbrella

Unique game. Unusual, fast, and fluent movement, fighting, and vibe. But it was too short. I didn't expect only a single stage, and it ended rather abruptly. There are 5 unique umbrellas with specific in-run upgrades. Each one requires unique gameplay, but I mostly played only the first one you need to unlock - gun umbrella. The second (bubbles) felt too slow and hard to master. The third one unlocked with my first successful run - and I don't feel any drive to continue playing. At least for the gun umbrella, there seems to be only one proper path of choosing in-run upgrades. Nothing else came out worth it. And the end game seems just too chaotic - so I always just spammed maximized area attacks while trying to avoid damage. No way I could move properly in that chaos - I am not saying that wasn't satisfying, though. All the umbrellas/meta upgrades/in-run vendor/upgrades suggest a much longer run and progress to try and master them all. And a bit of story or lore would be fine too; there isn't a single line of it. I guess you are supposed to repeat the runs with new umbrellas and hone your skills after you have finished the game, but without any rewarding in-game progress. I really enjoyed my 5+ hours of fun, and that was enough. Not having any intention to play it again. I mean - I still have additional meta upgrades to unlock, new umbrellas to try - but I've already beaten the game :(

If this game is like $1-3 on sale, sure maybe try it. It's OK, but far from perfect. The gameplay design feels kind of flawed. You attack enemies by dashing at them, shooting at them (with limited ammo that refills by killing enemies), or you can float down on an enemy while pointing your umbrella at them. The dash attack feels sloppy. It's super easy to dash at a enemies and get hurt at the end of the dash. Maybe you started too soon and didn't go all the way through them. Or as you flew through the group of enemies you shifted them around enough that you didn't clear them and get hurt. It just doesn't feel clean. Since it's really your primary attack you're gonna suicide all the time. You can position yourself above enemies and use gravity to pogo on them to kill them. So if you fly at the bottom of the screen you'll teleport to the top. Go through the right of the screen you'll end up on the left. And vice versa for both. But if you pogo on an enemy close to the top of the screen, you'll pogo and pop up on the bottom of the screen for a second, making the enemies start to move to the bottom. Then fall back through the bottom, teleporting you back to the top. So you kinda just teleport back and forth while pogoing on enemies as they fight to track you. It just feels super sloppy. Once you clear a screen's enemies, you have to continue to the next screen to fight more enemies. However the game doesn't tell you which way to continue. Sometimes you kill all the enemies and try the top or bottom of the screen, you just teleport back and forth. So then you're like "Ok, I gotta go left or right." Wastes so much time, and feels so sloppy just to figure out where to go next. When you die, it kicks you to a menu screen with different menu items to select. The first one is "options" for some reason. So when you die, continue to the next screen, if you immediately hit the confirm button it takes you to the options screen. Which is probably the last thing you'll want to click on after dying. Then there's the permanent upgrades, and main menu. I don't think there's a 'restart run' option. Seriously, why is options on the top of that list? That menu screen is poorly designed it hurts my head. So between awkward gameplay design, and a confusing post death menu, I don't think I'll be playing this game much. Getting hurt constantly with the primary dash attack feels cheap and unsatisfying. Teleporting to the opposite edges of the screen gets annoying in so many different situations. Ultimately, the game design feels broken and frustrating. It's almost there but I don't think the dev can ever do anything to fix these issues.

Um jogo bom e satisfatório, não é um de se jogar mais de 10 horas, a não ser que no modo infinito, ou vá desbloquear tudo (que precisa matar o boss final com todas as armas).