Flamebreak

Didn't play a ton of this past finishing a run but I thought it was pretty fun with some unique build mechanics.

It's bad.
Extremely clunky characters, enemies, movements. This is like a flash game actually.

Flamebreak is an action roguelike room clear rinse and repeat style game in the mould of Enter the Gungeon or Binding of Isaac except the rooms are navigated one at a time via a sort of Slay the Spire overworld rather than a dungeon layout. You can pick a variety of different playstyle loadouts and game start in a manner very similar to "Hades" which I believe is Flamebreak's closest game play analogue if you're looking for a point of comparison to think about whether or not it will be a title for you.

I personally found that the basic ARPG style combat here was itself very fun. Although it did get a little bit repetitive, what was being repeated was engaging. The biggest strength of Flamebreak and something it has REALLY nailed is making its itemisation a rewarding process. Gear in this game really noticeably changes your power level in a way that is very satisfying which unlocks that sort of childlike escalating excitement from a power curve in a way that I've noticed is for whatever reason becoming a game design concept Devs are increasingly failing at these days, especially when and if the game's overall difficulty is fairly high which I would suggest is more the case here than not.

On the note of difficulty though let's not get carried away: we're not talking about Dark Souls here, it's just that I found the game had a surprising level of trickiness to it given its almost childlike aesthetic, a level of challenge that was not so much but a welcome surprise for being there at all I suppose you could say, especially since it was still playable and approachable, a balancing act that many Indie titles struggle with due to lack of resources to adequately playtest and lack of internal colleagues to question a vision that's gone rogue from what average players are likely looking for.

One very regrettable drawback to this title was that the entire game from start to finish is giving you way too much of a kick of the backside to rush through the zones. Similarly to titles like FTL and many others the overworld exploration has a creeping darkness mechanic that forceably boots you to the next zone and prevents farming. This is something that I am conceptually OK with - games do need a doom clock one way or another for game balance - but I was personally of the opinion that in Flame Break the timeline was kept TOO tight, so much so that your jumps in each zone became an insanely precious resource. I dunno I just felt it went beyond just nudging players to keep it moving into a different territory of making efficiency to selection of node visits pretty much the core optimization problem rather than the secondary one that by all intuition it definitely should be.

In terms of random misc notes, I would provide the feedback that the game's invuln frames are too short and as a result of this melee loadouts felt vastly inferior to their ranged counterparts. There were random abilities that charged you into enemies that felt to me totally useless since there was very little way to utilize them without taking damage and insofar as perhaps there was it was always just unreasonably more difficult than simply going with a ranged play style where you could keep yourself at arm's length from danger. I believe the melee loadouts still need a little work and that the game needs to re-balance itself around allowing the player a little bit more time to explore each zone. Reducing the base power level while giving the player the opportunity to visit 3 or 4 more nodes each region in my opinion would have been worth looking into but I'm not a long-term fan so maybe this is a thought that changes as you play the game more and more; for my part, a couple of completions was already enough and I think they perhaps expected more replayability than was realistic.

Overall, Flamebreak is a good game but in my view definitely not a great one chiefly because as I said I don't particularly foresee myself being interested in replaying the title again more than a few times having now completed it a few times already and reaching the realization there wasn't any more "there" there for subsequent runs. I think given how short it was that's a bit of a problem but not a dealbreaker. I'd say this title is a highly recommended on sale but I'm meh about it at full price unless you are a major fan of the particular format or actively really searching for new content.

Flamebreak

Flamebreak is a simple but well done game with a good challenge ahead and an achievements list 99% made to challenge you more than to assess your progress. It is not a rogue like though your death has zero effect on your character other than having to restart from zero. It is not an easy game but not too hard either. I play this only a few minutes here and there though, I'd be really surprised if I end up having clocked a hundred hours on this but it can go that far.

On discount nowadays you can get it under 3 euros so yea it is an easy recommendation if you like small but well done and challenging game. If feels like a flash or phone game though.

I bought this for 2$ CAD and that's what it's worth.

Incredibly repetitive and the items you buy don't really add anything to the play style.

I wouldn't recommend it full price.

A game where the goal is to slay myself:
Chapter 1: Kill the ego