Alchemia: Creatio Ex Nihilo Reviews

ok this is actually sick as hell

Do not buy it. I tried to like this game, I really did. I came back to it multiple times hoping to give it another shot, but it's just flawed. -The game at this point is clearly abandoned. It hasn't updated in years, which was right after it released. -It's not balanced at all. Some fights are stupidly easy and others are needlessly difficult. -There's no sense of progression when you can't even consistently get into the second act. RNG in the game only sets out to annoy you instead of rewarding you. An example of it is in how the spells work. You have to rediscover them every run. It quickly becomes annoying and inconsistent. Some runs you can discover spells you need almost immediately, but other times you'll already have half of your health gone before you even correctly guess one of them. Mind you health is somewhat limited, similarly to in games like Slay the Spire. There may be a way to unlock spells, but when you have almost no money and need upgraded pieces for the second act. It becomes a game of constant micro managing just to survive long enough to unlock spells to fight a boss who does so much damage by the end that you either need rng to bless you, or enough health items to barely make it into the second act. And If your luck is as bad as mine, you will fail immediately after the boss. There are no undos, no save scumming, nothing. I may be spoiled by games like Monster Train, but at the end of the day if a game's not fun, it's not worth the money. Monster train is very forgiving, and I like it that way. I'm the kind of gamer that makes mistakes without realizing and being able to just back out and redo a fight is important to me in some roguelikes. This one could have benefited from it. I've played a lot of roguelikes, especially deck builders. This is one of my least favorite. The difficulty is similar to pegglin before it's first few updates and dicey dungeons which I have a love-hate relationship with cus I love the concept but still haven't won even once as far as I remember. I wanted this one to be good and I had hope for it after playing the demo, but I was wrong. Don't waste your money when there are better games out there. A good roguelike is a game you love to come back to even years later, but a bad one is either forgotten or dreaded. I dread coming back to this because I know nothing will be different, and that it could've become something great. TL:DR At worse the game is needlessly hard, at best it's boring and abandoned. (Also I know there are easy ways to beat the game, but if it's through a broken means and you can't consistently do it in more relaxed play styles, then what's the point?)