Brotato Review | Tips & Tricks | Steam Games

I played this author’s previous work, Space Gladiators, and was impressed by its exquisite adjustments, so I had high expectations for this work, and it delivered right from the start.
Even though we take into account the opinions of testers, this adjustment would only be possible for someone who truly understands the joy of a fair game.
Judging from the previous work’s track record, it should continue to be further refined with the addition of items and other elements and balance adjustments.
There is a lot of consideration given to usability, and you can play by changing the strength of the enemies to your liking, so you don’t have to worry about the difficulty of the game.

Since it was developed by an individual, there may be some limitations in terms of visuals, but the fun and playability is so great that you don’t have to worry about that.
The overwhelmingly positive reviews at the moment are no joke, so please give it a try.

A work with perfect balance in one direction.

Estimated play time: 1 game approximately 25 minutes

Defeat enemies to earn experience points and money, purchase items and weapons, and survive 20 waves of enemy attacks to win.

Well, the outline is simple, but the details are complicated, and I don’t know how to explain it.
First of all, this game is roughly divided into four elements: deck building, roguelike, van saba, and action.
I will discuss the specifics later, but please keep in mind that the overall trend is that this work is aimed at core gamers.

Deck building elements.
Among the four elements above, deck construction is the main element.
The big appeal of the deck construction type is not aiming for 100 points, which has a low probability (strong luck element), but rather looking half a step ahead so that you can maximize the final winning rate with a realistic draw of 80 points. I guess it’s about picking up cards.
This game has a variety of ways to win, so you can clear the game even if you don’t get the best items, and even if you’re lucky, you can still lose if you let your guard down. And this is no exception even for the highest difficulty level and most difficult characters. This delicate balance adjustment is the greatest strength of this work.

action element.
The next most important element is the action element.
Although not as good as the deck construction, this part is also well done.
After the middle stage, the number of enemies is enormous, so you will have to focus on evasion. This is where the invincibility time comes in handy, and defeating enemies may drop recovery items, so charging into the center of a group of enemies can sometimes be a good tactic. Decisions change frequently depending on the weapon’s tendency, enemy density, remaining time, etc., so you can enjoy emergent maneuvers. Intuitively, it’s similar to STG’s spirit avoidance and lie avoidance, and I think people who like that kind of improvisational element will find it easy to match their tastes.
This game is a perma-death game, and although the penalty for defeat is large, it works effectively because it is tolerant of damage.

Roguelike Vansaba elements.
In the end, these two have the least weight in the game. Indeed, looking at the game’s basic rules and formats such as permadeath, there is no doubt that this work is referring to precedents from both genres. However, in reality, I think there is a big gap in terms of gameplay (in a broad sense) from the Vansaba type and roguelike types that are generally considered.
This is because the technical aspects of this game are tied to the action elements, and the knowledge aspects are tied to deck construction. Also, there are no permanent upgrades, so it probably won’t suit those who are looking for a good Vansaba series.

To summarize from the above, it is a game that requires constant judgment and decision making, with deck building as a macro strategy and action as a micro strategy, based on the skin of Vansaba roguelike.
You can fine-tune the difficulty level, so it’s probably not impossible to clear the game, but the structure of the game can be tiring, so I don’t recommend it for people who want to play casually. Having said that, the genre does not define the game. The price is reasonable, and if you’re interested, you should try it out and see what it’s like.

It lacks originality, so my rating is probably lower than it should be.
However, considering that it is a rare work that has created such a wonderful balance in an action that has a wide range of player skills and is difficult to adjust, I think it is appropriate to rate it as a masterpiece.

Finally, a bit of a geeky aside. The truth is, this work is not a vector game with a high degree of balance. If I had to name 10 weaknesses of this work in terms of balance, I would be able to point them out.
However, I think this will look different depending on whether it is a subtraction method or an addition method. Powerful items that would be denied in terms of completeness are necessary for the game design of this work (although there are limits), and as a result, in previous works, the build tends to be fixed, but it is necessary for the game design. It is possible to present rationality that will enable a bold change in policy.

The sense of balance and game design that embodies this philosophy is what I think is truly outstanding.
It’s hard to imagine this, isn’t it? After all, according to this logic, if you clumsily fix your weaknesses, your strengths will disappear. This is just a side note, and there are ways to look at it like this.

I can’t make a general comparison like this, and I don’t think it’s okay to bring up other works, but it was such an excellent work that I thought it was comparable to Slay the Spire in one direction.

I cleared all achievements, cleared all characters on the highest difficulty level, and cleared infinite mode wave 160.

Although the price is very low, the depth of play, action, strategy, addictiveness, volume, etc. are amazing, and I personally find it more interesting than Vampire Survivors. It’s a god game.

It is divided into a battle phase and a shopping phase, and you collect the money (and experience points) dropped by defeated enemies in the battle phase, and if you survive, you use the money you picked up to choose from 4 slots randomly selected in the subsequent shopping phase. By making full use of methods such as purchasing weapons/items, re-rolling items, consuming one slot to lock the item you want, and putting it on hold, you can strengthen your potato while working well with random elements. The game is cleared by defeating the boss in wave 20, which has a boss with enormous physical strength, or by escaping.

Enemies not only approach slowly, but also enemies that run away from their aircraft and fire bullets, enemies that periodically charge at you with no knockback, and enemies that strengthen nearby enemies. There are various options, and the player can not only move and attack automatically, but also have the option to manually aim only when clicking the mouse in the settings, allowing them to concentrate fire on one point depending on the situation. The game is not boring even in terms of action, as you can overcome the challenges.

There are a total of 44 characters at the time of official release, and each character is good at something completely different, making the game a different game every time you play with a new character. It’s a huge game that you wouldn’t expect from this price.

In addition, there is a mode called Infinite Mode as the end content, and you can challenge yourself to the limit to see how far you can go beyond wave 20.

(Currently, rankings within Steam are not implemented, but there is a category called Endless% on the page for this game on speedrun.com, a site that posts time attack records. If you upload a play video and apply for a record, it will be ranked. (You can compete with people around the world to see how many waves you can reach)

Those are the good things about this game. There are other good points, but they are too detailed so I will omit them.
There are almost no bad points.
If I had to say it strongly, there are several types of mid-boss-like elites that appear when you raise the difficulty level, but some of the elites are stronger than the final boss, and if you pull them out, it’s pretty tough if you’re half-heartedly strengthened. The only thing is that you are forced to fight.
(Also, some of the translations don’t make sense at first glance. The word “individual” means the status of the weapon in that genre.)

The shopping phase is very fun and it’s a game you can play for quite a while. If you like shopping, I think there’s a high probability you’ll get hooked on it. I highly recommend it.