Might be the best rougelite I've ever played. (Sorry Hades!)

If you are a fan of rougelites, this game is an absolute must play.
If you are a fan of Shmups (STGs, bullet hells, etc.), strongly recommend, though the rougelite elements may or may not be your cup of tea.
If you are neither, play it anyway, its that good.

Below are my assorted ramblings.

There are so may combinations of weapons, keywords, cartridges, ship upgrades, and blessings. There are shortcuts, secret rooms, and rooms that are even more secret than those. There are 3 entire LEVELS that are secret. There are only 5 normal levels; so secret levels make up more than a third of the entire game!

There are around 755 hand-made rooms, just on the first floor! In the entire game, that comes out to over 5,000 hand-made rooms! What!?
(Each of the rooms is hand-made, including enemies, hazards, and terrain blocks. How the rooms are arranged on the floor is decided randomly/procedurally generated.)

Once you beat the final boss, you are only getting started. Now gather 5 seals, 2 of which involve wacky, difficult extra bosses. Ok time to fight the True Final Boss. Oh you thought the TFB would be behind the sealed door? Sike, its an entire new level with unique enemies you've never seen before. Then you finally get to the boss, and beat them. OK now the game is over. Except its *still not* you just unlocked a new ship you can play as. Oh and there are 6, you've only unlocked 2. This game just keeps going and going and going, long after you expect it to stop.

I've read that others say it is not very difficult, I strongly disagree. Enemies shoot so many bullets, constantly chase you down, and move super fast. Especially bosses are hard to complete without taking damage, even if you know their patterns well. On top of that, health pickups are rare or expensive. The game therefore demands as close to perfection as you can muster.

There is a "show hitbox" option in the menu. If you haven't played shumps before, turn that ♥♥♥♥ on ASAP, your hitbox/hurtbox is way way way smaller than you think it is. I also use the laser pointer aiming option, it helps me a lot.

it may seem bad at first but it gets good after 712093871298347u9182374981237498 hours

(Played since launch on Battle Net, ~400 hrs at time of writing. I figured it was time to reflect on it.)

Bottom line:
IDK I still like it. With friends or a group only. Balancing issues are there but they come and go.

The Good:
-- All heroes available for free!
- You are on the *exact* same playing field as the 1000 hour veterans from hour 0, no BS progression locking, only skill will set you apart
- (vs Paladins, League of Legends, Valorant, Apex Legends, R6 Siege)
- They changed this but reverted back to this way, thank god

-- HUGE hero variety, different heroes sometimes play like completely different games, never gets old
- (vs sameness of Team Fortress classes (I could not get into TF2, to be fair), same with Apex Legends and Valorant)

-- Only 40 heroes! So its much easier to learn what they all do!
- (vs League of Legends: 167, Paladins: 59, R6 Siege: 69. A few games have less, like Apex Legends: 25, Valorant: also 25)

-- Teamwork is fun and productive, I feel connected to my teammates like in no other game

The Bad:
-- Cosmetics basically all require real money now. And they get expensive.

-- Playing with all randoms on your team is really tough, since teamwork is so important.
- Also because you are 1/10 people in the match, only so much you can do to sway the outcome.
- Even playing with just a Duo improves this a good bit, A Trio of friends and up is golden. Just my opinion though, you will always have that one game where the 1 random throws the entire match.

-- The balance is either meh or poor depending on the day.
- Recently tanks have not been fun to play, this rotates.

-- Others point out that Day 1 release of Overwatch 1 or a few months in was probably the best the game has ever been, and I agree. Losing Jeff Kaplan as game director was a huge blow, though Aaron Keller seems to be doing his best. Overwatch 2 was a downgrade. Its a huge shame, but we can't play that game anymore. We can only play this one, and it isn't so bad. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, "So it goes."

The Ugly:
-- Roadhog. Sorry buddy.

The game is fire, highly recommend. Below are some essential tips for enjoying yourself more as a more casual player. For my purposes, casual = if you often ask yourself "what the ♥♥♥♥ am I doing", if not casual then ignore.

0. If any strategy from here or elsewhere is ruining your fun with the game, just don't do it. You enjoying the game is the most important thing, ♥♥♥♥ everything else.

1. *Most important*: At the beginning of the run, pick Brutality (Red, melee), Tactics (Purple, ranged), or Survival (Green, shields & utility) as your main skill.
- Whenever you get an upgrade scroll, pick only this color (unless the game does not give you the option).
- Use a weapon of this color too.
- Do NOT spread your points evenly.
- Reason for this: by the time you have 15 points, your damage is increased by more than 200%. (The 15% per level stacks.) If you spread the points evenly you get a lot of health but hit like wet noodle. Jack of all trades is a master of none, in this game anyway.

2. "Custom mode" is amazing, unlock it an use it.
- The mode lets you choose which items appear in the run.
- For example, if I don't like the "Balanced Blade" very much, I can just disable it for next run, and only other items will appear. You can disable more items and re-enable them before every run.
- You unlock it by finishing the 1st and 2nd stages, then go to Ramparts, then kill a special elite zombie there.
- There is no penalty for this as long as you keep at least 20 items. If you have less than 20, you can't get achievements but all other progress is saved.

3. Ignore the timer completely and fully clear every level. Kill all enemies, get all cells, get all gold, at least take a look at every (free) item.
- Don't be fooled by the "2:00" door at the first level, and similar doors. There are no scrolls behind it, they are way more important than the loot you get from the door. The "30 kills without damage" door is reasonable to shoot for, though.
- You are much stronger and hit much harder for the entire run if you are full clearing. This isn't Risk of Rain, difficulty is the same on the final boss and every level in between whether you are 10 minutes into the run or over an hour.
- You can save and quit in the middle of a run, come back any time, and pick up exactly where you left off. The game autosaves your exact location/progress frequently. You can literally play for 5 mins, and save and quit, and come back standing in the same place.

ok, bye!

Designed to be replayed at least once on new game plus. Great combat system. Great replay value. Jackpot. B)

Reach was my childhood. Being able to play it with mouse and keyboard at 60 fps on a modern system is a dream come true. The game does have some audio and crouching issues at the moment, but these do not outweigh an otherwise fantastic experience, in my opinion. Campaign is fun as hell (especially co-op with friends), and multiplayer is just as I remember it. Super excited for forge mode and for the rest of the games in the collection.