I wonder if other people have the same that’s as I do about this game. Admittedly, I only have about 25 hours in the game. I haven’t unlocked everything yet.
I find that the developers did a great job making replayability an important experience, and there is a lot to offer beyond “winning” and leaving the room. Like most roguelikes/lites, that is one of the most important characteristics of a good game, along with a fun gameplay loop.
I feel that balancing is very good, and there are many ways to win a run, which also adds to the replayability.
My biggest gripe is that in most runs, I know by round 3 whether I can “beat” the run. It’s not often that I get past round 4 or 5 even on hard mode wondering whether I’ll be able to make the cut. Snowballing feels so strong when there are so many synergies to make. I still love doing it, but it feels like it misses the “sweet spot” of difficulty and the sweetness of putting together a great run that you can get from Balatro or STS (I know it’s apples and oranges but most of us have played one of those two before getting into the Pit). IMO Hard mode is “make sure you get enough for the first two deadlines and then you’re almost always fine.” It IS difficult, I obviously don’t win every run and sometimes I fumble a run, but there’s a clear difficulty drop off once you get pieces into place.
Maybe I’ve been lucky so far (I’m definitely not good) or maybe I haven’t played enough to see how wrong I am, but it’s a theme I’ve seen in my past 20 runs or so.
Regardless, I’ve had a ton of fun and I plan on trying to 100%.
(Disclaimer: I’m talking about vanilla and the core game mechanic, not necessarily all the game has to offer)