I am a backer of this game and I regret backing it. Astebros is a game that is bogged down by frustrating design choices and is missing functionality that makes a rougelike fun and engaging. The game starts off fine; you are introduced to three characters and can switch between them in between levels. The controls are a bit awkward but they're not hard to get used to. The average player will have no problem beating the first boss. After this, however, the game goes downhill as the difficulty ramps up without warning. This is partially due to the game's "rougelike" features; Weapons cannot be upgraded; you must choose either a random weapon with random stats (that can be worse than your default weapon!) or keep the one you currently have. A secret boss room can also spawn a random weapon (usually with good stats but can be on a crappy weapon). You can "choose" which type of weapon you want later if you grab a certain unlockable, but the stats of the weapon are still randomized. If you die you lose your weapon, most items and cards you picked up and gold. You must button mash to prevent losing everything but you are pretty much guaranteed to at least lose your weapon/cards/items which is frustrating. This can be avoided by purchasing anti-theft spray which prevents losing anything when you die. At the beginning this easily turns into a sunk cost as you may not have obtained enough gold to purchase the item when you die another time due to how horribly this game is balanced. Cards (bonuses that apply as long as you have the card) are automatically picked up as soon as you touch them. If you have two cards already the new card drops the first card in your slot automatically. If you didn't want to pick up the card you must waste time cycling through your cards to pick it back up. A card's functionality is also not explained until you touch it so you can end up in situation where you get a cursed card that *cannot be dropped and has incredibly negative effects on your character* on accident because you just wanted to read the description. Rougelikes normally reward progression with permanent upgrades; the only thing that can be permanently upgraded is HP and adding certain bonuses (a small dash, better bag) to your character that still won't help you if you end up with a crappy load out. Many enemies in later levels are incredibly obnoxious to deal with (Cymbal monkies in the Circus level can pretty much team up with other monsters to end you depending on positioning since they have a projectile that can be hard to avoid) without being able to 2-4 hit them. Most players probably quit after the first level due to how load out dependant this game is along with the multiple poor design choices. The HP upgrade? Only available in a random room which requires a large amount of coins to use. If you come into the room not knowing what it does and you do not have enough coins talking to the NPC makes it disappear. This is an incredibly crappy way to learn about this room, especially since the NPC is perma -gone until it shows up randomly in another level and you are unlikely to have enough coins at the beginning to purchase the HP upgrade. Barely anything is explained; cards, elemental effects, the vow system etc. Given how harsh punishment is for death in this game and how much **** getting coins can be; it discourages the player from figuring things out. I ended up avoiding any and all new cards due to the Cursed card incident mentioned above. There is a boss (Giant Level) that really should have a flashing lights warning. I don't have photosensitivity issues but even it made me have to squint due to how horribly everything flashes. The final boss lags horribly on Switch which has killed me more times than I can count. It also has too many randomized flight patterns that the player is not given enough time to react to. Most people skip this by utilizing a load out that kills the boss in a few hits but doing that requires grinding this game with it's annoying difficulty issues. After you get past the final boss you are forced to go through a platforming dependant run away sequence which is horrible to play. Nowhere else in the game are you required to engage in this much precision jumping. You cannot see above yourself to figure out where to jump in enough time which led to multiple deaths. And remember; you have to do the entire level over when you die... For players who do not have nostalgia for bad action platformers from the 90's this game can be skipped. The rougelike genre is over saturated and there are too many gems out there to bother wasting time with this one.

The game is fantastic. Played also on Genesis and Evercade. Awesome roguelite with good replay value if a tad short. For its genre it is top of class got its genre.