▲ Recommended
3 hrs
The objective and gameplay are straightforward. You have a cube in the middle of the screen, which you must protect by using a shield to parry incoming projectiles. Your stamina decreases with each parry attempt, but if you time your parry perfectly, right as the projectile touches the small circle around the cube, you don’t lose any stamina. Both stamina and shield energy recharge automatically over time.
You can only take one hit before dying, but death gives you the chance to spend money, earned by successfully parrying projectiles, on upgrades. You start with a single visible upgrade in the middle, and once you purchase it, additional upgrades unlock around it. All upgrades are hidden at first, so you never know what you’ll unlock next.
Upgrades come in many types. Some increase shield regeneration speed, widen the parry window, or boost recovery from successful parries, among others. Each upgrade line continues into higher levels, for example, shield regeneration level 1 leads to level 2. Upgrades can often be purchased multiple times, and some advanced upgrades require completing earlier ones before they become available.
Every upgrade matters for progress, especially shield capacity. This becomes clear early on when you encounter a larger projectile that you can’t block because your shield isn’t strong enough. After buying a few upgrades, you’ll be able to parry it, though only partially. You’ll need a few more rounds to afford two parries to defeat it completely.
Once you beat the “boss,” you move on to the next stage, featuring more enemies and another boss. You continue through stages until you reach the end. While you can return to previous stages, doing so isn’t efficient since newer stages include more enemies, allowing you to earn money faster. Enemy patterns are randomized in each stage, but there’s always one new enemy type to learn and counter.
Later upgrades introduce even more prerequisites. Some require different currencies that must be unlocked first to appear, while the most important upgrades can only be obtained using a special currency dropped by bosses. You earn this reward only the first time you defeat a boss, so replaying earlier stages won’t let you grind for more.
As you progress, you unlock additional perks. For example, there’s a satellite spawn chance, occasionally summoning small cubes that orbit around you and damage enemies on contact. Other perks include a stationary barricade that deals contact damage, a forge that grants bonuses the more resources you sacrifice, and even an auto-parry function, though it’s not particularly useful since it can disrupt your parry rhythm.
The game features ten stages, with the final stage culminating in a survival sequence until the giant red cube appears. You’ll die when it touches you, but that’s part of the ending. It’s possible to reach the red cube with skilled parrying and all upgrades purchased, but if you’re struggling, you can upgrade the forge to level 10 to unlock invincibility. However, if you want every achievement, you must finish the game without using invincibility; the forge can’t be reset, so enabling it will lock you out of that achievement unless you reset the game.
There isn’t much reason to replay the game after completing it. Finishing unlocks a prestige option that resets your upgrades but increases currency drops. Overall, it’s a solid upgrade-based game that lasts around three to four hours.
You can only take one hit before dying, but death gives you the chance to spend money, earned by successfully parrying projectiles, on upgrades. You start with a single visible upgrade in the middle, and once you purchase it, additional upgrades unlock around it. All upgrades are hidden at first, so you never know what you’ll unlock next.
Upgrades come in many types. Some increase shield regeneration speed, widen the parry window, or boost recovery from successful parries, among others. Each upgrade line continues into higher levels, for example, shield regeneration level 1 leads to level 2. Upgrades can often be purchased multiple times, and some advanced upgrades require completing earlier ones before they become available.
Every upgrade matters for progress, especially shield capacity. This becomes clear early on when you encounter a larger projectile that you can’t block because your shield isn’t strong enough. After buying a few upgrades, you’ll be able to parry it, though only partially. You’ll need a few more rounds to afford two parries to defeat it completely.
Once you beat the “boss,” you move on to the next stage, featuring more enemies and another boss. You continue through stages until you reach the end. While you can return to previous stages, doing so isn’t efficient since newer stages include more enemies, allowing you to earn money faster. Enemy patterns are randomized in each stage, but there’s always one new enemy type to learn and counter.
Later upgrades introduce even more prerequisites. Some require different currencies that must be unlocked first to appear, while the most important upgrades can only be obtained using a special currency dropped by bosses. You earn this reward only the first time you defeat a boss, so replaying earlier stages won’t let you grind for more.
As you progress, you unlock additional perks. For example, there’s a satellite spawn chance, occasionally summoning small cubes that orbit around you and damage enemies on contact. Other perks include a stationary barricade that deals contact damage, a forge that grants bonuses the more resources you sacrifice, and even an auto-parry function, though it’s not particularly useful since it can disrupt your parry rhythm.
The game features ten stages, with the final stage culminating in a survival sequence until the giant red cube appears. You’ll die when it touches you, but that’s part of the ending. It’s possible to reach the red cube with skilled parrying and all upgrades purchased, but if you’re struggling, you can upgrade the forge to level 10 to unlock invincibility. However, if you want every achievement, you must finish the game without using invincibility; the forge can’t be reset, so enabling it will lock you out of that achievement unless you reset the game.
There isn’t much reason to replay the game after completing it. Finishing unlocks a prestige option that resets your upgrades but increases currency drops. Overall, it’s a solid upgrade-based game that lasts around three to four hours.
5 found helpful
Steam ↗
