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A promising twist on Brotato that dances to its own tune - Limbo Disco Quick First Impressions

303 View2023-03-11

PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Play this for sure, especially if you have any love for the Vampire Survivors and Brotato style of gameplay. As revealed by the developer in TapTap's interview earlier this week, Limbo Disco is heavily inspired by those addictive games, but it also definitely has a style all its own. And while it’s still early in development, what’s here already feels awesome.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve spent about four hours with an early build of Limbo Disco, unlocking most of the base game systems and hitting level 5 on my account. Each run in the game took me anywhere from five minutes to twenty, depending on how successful I actually was. As you might expect, runs get longer and more difficult as you progress through the game’s chapters, though I only made it through the prologue and first chapter thus far.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Art style. Though the characters are tiny, Limbo Disco has a ton of visual flair, with enemies and allies that look like they’ve just hopped out of a particularly creative high schooler’s notebook sketches. It’s a great style that sets it apart from both the pixel art of Vampire Survivors and the less detailed look of Brotato.

• Party building. In another shift from other games of this ilk, the randomness of Limbo Disco’s level-up rewards is tempered by your party composition. I was able to recruit characters using a gacha-style system and then set up a party of up to four allies to journey into the depths of hell alongside the main character, DJ. This system offers a little more control over how each run plays out and also provides plenty of opportunity for increasing power along multiple paths, since each character can be leveled up and equipped with runes individually.

• Progression. Speaking of increasing power, I’m already enthralled by the loop of improvements in Limbo Disco. Account-wide, universal permanent stat increases can be purchased with Soul Coins, which are earned throughout each run, but there’s also a system of runes, which can be combined to increase their power, and gear, which can be earned and enhanced via the same gacha system that gives out new characters. As the game continues development, I can see each of these systems expanding into places where I could sink an awful lot of time.

• Hellish chaos. Limbo Disco requires more environmental awareness and dodging than the average “bullet heaven” game. In some moments, I was reminded of The Binding of Isaac as I learned enemy patterns and dodged out of the way of screen-filling attacks. Between this design choice and the party building, Limbo Disco feels just a little more skill-testing than other games in this new genre, and I’ve enjoyed that challenge a lot.

• The music! Admittedly, there’s not enough of it yet, but the handful of tracks in Limbo Disco are fun, groovy little tunes that fit in well with the silly theme. I'm hoping the game will get a lot more musical variety in the future, but this is a great start.

WHAT SUCKS

• Virtual joystick placement. I’ll chalk this up to being pre-beta, but the virtual joystick that is used to move DJ around in Limbo Disco rests near the middle of the screen. It’s the big circle in the screenshot below, if you’d like to see for yourself. Presumably this choice was made so that the health bar at the bottom is not obscured, but as is, I kept finding my thumb and hand getting in the way of both the health bar and a third of playable field besides. I’d love to see the joystick moved lower or, even better, to have it automatically move to anywhere I place my thumb.

• Bugs and unfinished elements. This goes without saying for a game that is explicitly still in development, but I’ll say it nonetheless. Limbo Disco currently has some random bugs and performance issues that, though far from ruining the experience, definitely caused some annoyance. I got stuck on one of the main quest tasks that would not complete, which stalled my account level progress, the character selection screen for upgrading party members only worked about half of the time that I tapped into it, and for some reason I experienced insane levels of slowdown on, of all things, the menu screen for combining and equipping runes. This is all stuff that will almost certainly be fixed as the game updates, but if you’re planning to hop in early, just know that you might encounter some issues!

• The gacha system, maybe. In its current form, Limbo Disco’s approach to gacha feels totally fair. I've received lots of the premium currency that’s used for summons at a respectable rate, and the store for purchasing currency with real money isn’t even active yet. But if you’re wary of games that employ a gacha system in general, I can’t guarantee that this one won’t get more aggressive or frustrating as the game expands and heads toward its proper launch. I’m cautiously optimistic that will not be the case, but be forewarned.

💬 Will you be joining me in this dance party in Hell, or are you skipping Limbo Disco for now? Share a comment and let me know.

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