Wow, pretty snazzy game! Definitely hooked me in through its wild and wacky presentation: the game is a treat to witness with its funny cutscenes and story, along with its explosive gameplay and satisfying feedback. Speaking of gameplay, I found it quite interesting: while only being able to shoot in two directions is a bit confusing at first, it does add a unique strategy to the combat that is fun to play around. Love the little details here and there like the main character blasting his finger guns as well! Definitely seems like it does have a lot of potential and it does make me want to play more to see what sort of lunacy happens as I get deeper and deeper, but it did have some issues with which I will outline with much text:
First, some small nitpicks:
I found the controls really weird in that I couldn't see what they were assigned to: if I tried to look at them it immediately took me into rebinding, which is awkward to do because I don't even know how many buttons I'll end up rebinding so how can I plan it out? Also, a bit disappointed that my Playstation controller didn't seem to work for some reason.
I found the fact that enemies don't drop money, but pots do, a bit tedious. A lot of games like Enter the Gungeon will have enemies drop money, but while you can pick it up, it will have the money get automatically vacuumed up after you beat all the enemies as well. I find this nice because it keeps the pace up and lets you just focus on the action, whereas in this game, every fight has to have a tedious inbetween where I clean up the level like I'm a janitor. Come on, I'm playing a guy who quit his job, haha!
Speaking of enemies dropping things, I found it weird that you could get those little ability energy pips when you don't even have an ability yet. It really confused me at first because I had no idea what those glowing pips were (at first I was almost scared that they were bullets, haha). Maybe ability energy shouldn't even drop from enemies until you have an ability in the first place: it'd help you make the connection on its purpose a bit clearer, perhaps.
Now for the bigger issue:
While the game does decently hook me with its wacky presentation and story, I did find the core gameplay a bit shallow and lacking in any really unique hook. Yes, it does have some interesting elements like only being able to shoot in two directions and it does have some satisfying effects, but a lot of it has been done before and better by other contemporaries, I feel. It feels like the game could do a bit more, and if I were to suggest a quick fix, it would be to increase the variability and dynamics of the game through more items and upgrades. The few times I played the game, it felt like the game was never different from run to run: all of the abilities and upgrades I got were so few and far-between, and they were too confusing in how they worked and never seemed to do anything significant (for example, I got the guitar pick and savings envelope and I had no idea what they did). Compare this to games like Isaac or Risk of Rain, where you get so many items and abilities constantly and can have so much fun seeing the different ways your character evolves bit by bit into a god, or games like Gungeon where you're always getting a new wacky gun with some crazy shooting pattern to learn. I think this game could really benefit from some more dynamics like that to make every run be as wacky and crazy as the game it inhabits.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing how this game does: it definitely has a lot going for it!