izigame.me

Brotato is a roguelite SHMUP and it isn't a Vampire Survivors clone. The only considerable similarity is that it's extremely engaging, too. It looks tasteful, however, I'd argue it could use a more vibrant colour palette to stand out. But hey, look at the ratings! It has already accomplished that task with what little glamour there is. And it should tell you something. Or maybe I should tell you something, after all, that's what reviews are for. Before we solve this mystery, let's contemplate Brotato's inconspicuous rise to fame some more. How is it so well-received when you have to play in a brown-grey arena that barely changes? And with so few enemy types! Baffling. Some people choose to hyperfocus on these flaws and dismiss the game before tasting it.
Their loss. You don't throw away a good potato just because it's brown and covered in dirt. God, I hate it when shops wash potatoes before selling, cutting their shelf life short to please a bunch of misguided vegetable aesthetes. Anyway, the saving grace is that you have no time for sightseeing, being too busy fighting legions of slugs from Commander Keen 4 (Tom Hall stalks my mind forever), collecting valuable materials to level up and shop for goodies between the waves. There's one great thing about the visuals: the gear you acquire affects your potato's sprite, which is a neat touch in the vein of The Binding of Isaac. By the end of a run, no potato looks the same, giving each session even more personality. Still, the skin isn't where it's at.
Fun Shopping
You can concentrate your firepower manually, but I preferred to use autoaim, because it shoots your (normally) 6 guns in all directions at the same time, avoiding overkill. I guess it kinda resembles VS this way? But you might never use autoaim or use it interchangeably - the game won't stop you, it's rather democratic with its options. So, after a couple of minutes of murder and looting in the arena, you're in the shop. Drooling in anticipation because shopping is fun! Weapons and items are ranked by colour, reflecting their power. You may be lucky to buy a god-tier gun, but the usual way of upgrading your equipment is stacking duplicates of the same colour. It works differently for items, but you don't need these nuances.
Stacking things, and there's quite an assortment of them as it should be in a roguelite, is a satisfying task. The ability to lock and reroll the goodies makes it the most intense and controlled shopping experience ever. The sprees seldom leave you empty-handed, but these rerolls can burn a hole in your pocket if you get carried away. You're always deciding whether to save or to spend, always have something to add, thinking of another gun or stat to upgrade, a build to design. I know for a fact that the game provides you with a bigger chance to get weapons and items you already have so that you could reliably create any setup you want. Considerate, isn't it?
Flexible Progression
Consistently so! Brotato feels friendly and aims to please without coming off as smarmy. That "bro" is in the title for a good reason. It also keeps you well-informed with comprehensive descriptions. Besides, you can easily check how much damage a weapon managed to dish out or how many stat points an item provided you with. I wish more games that heavily rely on theory crafting did this. Now, said comprehensiveness supports a flexible progression system. It's a minmaxer's paradise. You have 16 stats to juggle! Yet, somehow the power creep doesn't feel incremental, you typically get noticeably stronger with each wave.
Upon beating a run, which takes no more than 20-30 minutes, you unlock items and characters. Characters are balanced in a way that makes every item and mechanic bear significance for at least some of them, depending on your current goals and benchmark data. These diverse potatoes are the main course that will make you want to stay for longer! It seems like the dev had a lot of fun designing a complex system and then going wild with it by creating an extremely gimmicky roster to test its limits. How about Bull who can't use weapons, exploding on getting hit instead? Or Lucky who kills with items that proc from luck? These aren't even the weirdest two.
Clever Game
There are 6 difficulty options or levels of Danger, from 0 to 5. I've beaten Brotato once on Danger 5 but then went back to 3, finding it a gentle mistress, allowing a modicum of mistakes. Then I kept popping in for a chill run since the game made it appealing to persist. If you're hardcore, you'll find the ceiling high enough. If you want to relax, Brotato will oblige. It's a clever game. It has nothing to say about the plights of society and all, but its non-maliciously addictive game design changes your brain's chemistry without uttering a word. One more run, one more wave, one more reroll. It's that simple. At the same time, there are plenty of strategies to sink your teeth in. I hope I made it easier for you to imagine what potential depths Brotato holds. This game doesn't try to do much, but it succeeds at everything it does.
My curator Big Bad Mutuh