Spirit Dungeon

The first 20 something floors of this were a wonderful experience, finding new spirits, rearranging my team, and managing resources for comfort when exploring the dungeon. Around the 35th or something floor, the experience slowed down considerably, and I found myself wading waist deep in unwanted encounters just to get to the next floor. It's worth nothing that I also beat the game on my first try, but that's mostly because the insect faction is rather OP. No spoilers, but there are certain cards/units that allow you to scale infinitely, given you put in the legwork to grind. I wish the bosses had more of a gimmick to them, but overall it was a decent experience. Looking forward to see the final version of the game! Kudos dev team! 7.5/10 experience. Music is lovely but repetitive, Combat loop is entertaining enough, hope to see more variation in game!

Wholly uninspired, very little thought was put behind game design. Every single system is an afterthought, which is incredible because I have a hard time thinking there was thought put into any of them. Why is it a dungeon crawler? Dunno! You won't dungeon crawl, the system in which you engage with the fights could have perfectly been a "slay the spire"-esque tree map with fork choices, as it does not interact with its dungeon crawler aspect. Why is it a roguelite? Dunno! There is barely any knowledge you'll gain inside or outside the game mechanics, as interfacing with them is incredibly simple and easy to break almost on accident. Why is it a deckbuilder? And this one I genuinely want to ask, why is it a deckbuilder? There is no deckbuilding aspect, the amount of ways in which it fails at being a deckbuilder are a more interesting topic to discuss than playing the game itself! I'd write more about how this game fails at the absolute bare-minimum basics, but I genuinely feel as if I only just barely dodged a scam and don't think the game deserves more of my time. If someone showed this as a class project they'd get a bare passing grade and a sardonic smile, but on steam it's 10 …

Edit: given more thought I retract it. It's not worth the price and it feels very lazy and uninspired. Leaving the following intact just for transparency, but I've changed my mind. Just plain bad. ~~I wanted to like this game and I suppose for the price it's probably worth it... I dunno. I wish I could give this a neutral, neither yes or no recommendation. It's in early access and a lot of my gripes might be fixed in short order, who knows.~~ Insects feel vastly OP and beasts seem trash. Plants are OK. For context, my first run I got 20+ floors deep with a plant deck. I didn't feel like most encounters posed much of an issue and then somewhere there I kept running into bug enemy encounters and got wiped. Next run I tried going with a beast build, but I quit after a few floors. Felt like a slog. I started with a tank beast that couldn't survive tanking and it only went downhill from there. In short, balance seems way off, it gets pretty repetitive pretty fast and there doesn't seem to be any unlocks or meta-progression. Or maybe you need to lose more than once to unlock anything. Also, dialogue seemed to be the same on my second run, which is kinda... not great for a roguelike. …

Overall I enjoy the game and I will agree that insect is easy mode/hell mode when facing them. I look forward to other zones and actual unlocks. This game has so much potential, but in its current state i would not have released it to early access it should have stayed demo until they released more of the rogue like element. I enjoy the game so far, but honestly the only reason to change up spirits are for ones that encourage infinite growth. I'll say this I think the developers did great for what is available currently i give it a 6/10. My yes is tentative. I recommend waiting like a month for more content.

hhmmmm