izigame.me

TL;DR: RNG is not inherently bad design, but at this game's higher difficulties, there is physically no possible way to win at all without getting extremely good luck. You have virtually no ways to influence your luck, which makes the game less about fun, on-the-fly strategizing (like all good rogue-lites have) and more about painful RNG grinding (which poorly balanced rogue-lites force you through). This critique applies less to the lower difficulties where the balance is more fair and getting suboptimal shotgun shots, enemy moves, or black/white cards doesn't necessarily guarantee you lose. More details (and anger) below.
I like this game, and I want to like it even more. It should get a positive review. But in all honesty, its lazy overreliance on RNG for balancing and "risk assessment" gives an EXTREMELY sour aftertaste. It goes from a fun, engaging experience at the lower difficulties... to nigh impossible roulette spins at the higher difficulties. It has UNIRONICALLY driven me crazy and sleepless trying to win over and over and over again HOPING I get the right RNG. Let me explain in a not-so-organized rant.
The base difficulty (rank 1) is fine. You can easily 1-to-2 shot pieces from roughly 2 tiles away. There aren't as many non-pawn pieces (knights, bishops, rooks, queens) to start with, so you can reliably kill them one at a time without being put in checkmate. The completely RNG upgrade system wherein you get an upgrade (black card) and downgrade (white card) (note: the black cards can also hurt you and the white cards can also slightly help you) is generally fine because you do not NEED to build for extra turns and extreme damage to win the game. On the other hand...
The higher difficulties (especially rank 15) are practically nothing but RNG. No matter how how much strategy you employ, the sheer number of extra pieces and the extra HP they boast (plus the 25 extra degrees of spread on your shotgun) can make it nigh impossible to kill ANYTHING before they completely checkmate you in under 10 turns -- on FLOOR ONE! Assuming you are LUCKY and the pieces start with high times (as in, aren't all rearing to move instantly) and/or the pawns keep the non-pawns blocked in long enough, you MAY be ALLOWED to actually kill them before you get checkmated... before you inevitably let some pawns reach the bottom and promote (because you just don't have enough damage output to kill them all), at which point whatever non-pawn piece they become is completely RNG, so you might just get 2 queens and die or 2 knights and easily kite them. After floor 1, it just spirals downwards, because in order to possibly keep up with the white cards (that add or enhance enemies even further), you are FORCED to build for extremely high and fast damage output and/or mobility to escape checks/checkmates. You need a combination of high shotgun firepower, passives that give you extra turns, and/or high enough blade damage to one-shot almost anything, but you have virtually NO AGENCY over what you get for your build.
Trying to use Makeda for a Bushido build? The game may decide to never give you a single blade-enhancing card.
Oh, not using the Makeda this time? Better hope the game doesn't offer you the Ritual Dagger for the 50th time in a row -- the -2 king HP and the ONE blade damage is never worth lowering your range.
Using the Victoria where you only have one shot before you have to reload? The game is going to LOVE giving you passives that only apply so long as you don't reload.
Just cleared floor 1 and don't have any cards yet, let alone "backup" cards? Guess what, the game's still going to offer you Caltrops, despite the fact it will do LITERALLY nothing.
Are you half-way through a run where you've miraculously managed to make a build where you quickly and efficiently kill the king within 10 turns by shooting through and killing the pawns in the way? Well, the game has decided it's now time for you to choose (A) pawns can't attack you until you kill one (not helping!) and pawns have more HP and spears, or (B) lower your range and move backwards every time you shoot for 2 extra firepower (NOT HELPING!) and pawns not only have more HP, but there are 5 more of them (and one less rook that wouldn't have gotten out in front in the first place).
Now you're in the middle of a tricky match and you're sitting there and pondering over your strategy for the next three turns. Your shotgun spread, like always, is pretty wide, but you think you can land at least 2 of your 5 pellets into the queen that's just a couple of tiles away, preventing her from putting you in an up-close check next turn. Well, too bad -- the game can always decide to make EVERY SINGLE BULLET veer off to the very edges of your shotgun's arc, completely and totally missing what you wanted to actually kill and instead killing some random pawn that unleashes The Bishop/Rook From Hell from behind it that instantly kills you by discovering its check.
Overspecifics aside, as you climb in difficulty, the game feels less and less like you made actual mistakes like bad positioning, discovering check (by killing a piece you meant to actually kill...), or forgetting to use an ability you had. Instead, it's more like you just got put in yet another impossible-to-win scenario due to nothing but RNG. This is just artificial difficulty.
Give the player more agency over the game. I'm not saying the entire game needs to be deterministic -- it's a rogue-lite after all -- but when almost all of your attacks are RNG, your starting position is RNG, all of the pieces move based on RNG, all of the pawn promotions are RNG, all of your black and white cards are RNG, and many of those black and white cards' effects contain MORE FUCKING RNG elements within them, it's not so much about strategy and skill as it is bashing your head against the wall hoping the game lets you have fun after HOURS of getting your shit stomped in before you're even a third of the way into each run.
Oh yeah, the extra pieces introduced per floor in Endless Mode is RNG, too. Because of course it is.
It's a very creative game. The lower difficulties serve well for a couple hours of gameplay before you get tired of the game. I see why it won in Ludum Dare; it's not bad for a short indie title. But as a $10 Steam release... if you pay for it like I did, you're probably going to see as much of the game as you can, and you're going to regret it.