This game and its community I can't stand. Both insist that my problems are related to "it's a skill issue." The only skill issue here is the developer's attachment on the 1% of players. While the other 99% are complaining that the game is too hard. We aren't talking about "Souls like" levels here. Just border-line unbalance BS!

Bunny Hoping; Don't know what that is? Better learn, because that's required to play this game. Yes, it is a more *Interesting* way of moving around, but I don't want to deal with that the entire time I'm playing. Have to rebind basically every button on a controller in order to perform this annoying movement. The only time I feel like I can get away with not having to bunny hop, is when I have two items, being a Rare & Epic. Even then, the map gets bigger while moving on the next stage, so that's still becomes useless. If it's such a problem, just run the moment speed tome? Oh yes, the thing that takes up a spot for damage and becomes too much when leveled to 15/99. Great idea, lets make the game even harder on myself...

Stage 1; It's the most frustrating experience by far in this game. Getting any run going seems completely out of my hands. The top 1% feels like it's fine. All you need to do is keep rerolling until you get a good spawn on items and interactables. Wow thanks, a game that can only be played if you are willing to spend about 10m rolling for a playable map. Even when I do get that said map, I would now need to get lucky on finding my four weapons in time. For some reason after 1m into the stage, there's a chance for zombies to be your spawned monster of choice. If you don't have your weapons in time, you can't charge any shrines. Slowing down your scaling, in turn, killing your run. "But you can spend gold on rerolling your choices when leveled to get your four weapons on-line faster." Then WhyTF is there a skip button?! I would love to just pick up whatever I find, that makes the game have more variety. However, there are too many Tomes & Weapons that are so bad, just picking them up will end your run eventually.

You can Win Streak on Risk of Rain while being on the hardest difficulty. You can Win Streak on The Binding of Isaac using the hardest character. You can Win Streak on Vampire Survivors while game speed is 2x with enemies having 200%+ Max HP.
All of these games are hard and have RNG attached to them. Yet, for some reason this game can't be played while Win Steaking. And people tell me that both of theses things aren't a core problem with Megabonk. I don't want to hear opinions from someone who thinks sitting in the corner of the map for 30+ minutes watching your enemies defeated number go up, all while telling me this is a fun experience.

Feels weird not recommending this game when I've put a lot of hours into it, but man, I really wish there was more *strong* build variety. I've noticed a lot of stuff in the game feels annoying like the final swarm, early game RNG trying to find your tomes/weapons (a lot of the most mid weapons you can't turn off), and just how the early game just feels like an RNG fest. You tend to have to take 2 specific tomes (XP and Cursed) to have a strong run which kills build variety, and technically 3 (luck) to really scale well to then fight the slog that is the final boss. Many of the weapons you can't turn off also kinda suck. I'm glad Graveyard's final boss is slightly different from Forest and Desert's but, they're all so bleh to fight against. I've beaten them with bad, good, and broken builds, and I prefer getting broken builds just so I don't have to fight the damn things lmao unlike a game like RoR2 where fighting Mithrix is somewhat difficult, but fun (without looping).

If XP and Cursed tomes are removed/greatly reworked, the final boss is reworked, and early game RNG is mitigated better, I'll recommend this game, but until then I'm just not sure if I would. Can be fine if it's on sale to sink a few hours into, and many aspects of the game are fun, but the negatives are *really* annoying, and I don't play games to be annoyed. I dunno! Cool idea, could use work.

What I expect from a good Rogue-lite is solid gameplay, huge swarms, and permanent upgrades to make my constant death feel rewarding and worth it. This game delivers on solid gameplay and huge swarms, but the focus on leaderboards forcing everyone to be on the same playing field makes this game INCREDIBLY unrewarding. I gave this the best chance I could. But dear god. Being just as weak as before, with just a new character, tome, item, or weapon as a reward for my death, just makes me feel sad and empty inside. It's just the same RNG grind over and over.
I get it, leaderboards are fun, being the best at something is fun, and I don't want to take that away from the people that enjoy wrestling with RNG to get the best score. But, for those of us that don't care about being the best week after week, give us a campaign, something separate from the leaderboards, where we can slowly upgrade and improve our characters. I want to get epic builds, big numbers, and ridiculous stats through time, not sheer dumb luck. I want to be proud of my kill count without seeing an exponentially larger one killing my fun. This game has so much potential to be so much fun, but forcing players to rely on RNG alone and only providing items that bloat the RNG pool to spend the hard-earned silver on really kills the vibe for me.
You may still find this to be an enjoyable experience if you don't mind being on a level playing field in a big number contest, ridiculous reliance on RNG, and obnoxious leaderboards, and if you are able to enjoy something I can't, more power to you. And of course, I have to respect a developer that releases a native Linux version of their game, great job on that. But please, add a mode with permanent stat upgrades. That way everyone can be happy. I really like the gameplay, I really like the vibe this game has, I like the music and the visual style, but I just cannot tolerate how unrewarding this game feels.