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Hours of mindless one-handed fun | Full Review - Brotato Premium (Full Release)

2K View2023-04-01

Brotato is a survival roguelite wave shooter playable with one hand. Originally released for PCs as an early access, it has now been recently released on Android and iOS as a full title, after going into an open beta just recently. This mobile release brings the game closer to feature parity with the existing PC version.

🟩Pros

+Surprisingly addicting gameplay loop

+action-packed and fast paced gameplay

+Mindless fun, can play with just one hand

+A plethora of weapons and items to experiment with

+One of the best alternatives to Vampire Survivors

🟥Cons

-No cons

One handed gameplay, increasingly difficult waves of enemies. Six weapons all at once, all attacking simultaneously. That’s the basic gist of Brotato. For those familiar with the game Vampire Survivors, Brotato is essentially a welcome clone. Both are in the same genre of bullet-hell survival one handed roguelite games, but the two games couldn’t be more different from each other that Brotato stands well out on its own —- Brotato has its own set of weapons, rules, mechanics, and progression design that make it a compelling alternative, or perhaps an even better game than Vampire Survivors.

In contrast to Vampire Survivors’ pixelated retro art design, the visuals of Brotato overall are charming and appealing, despite being in 2D as well. It reminded me of these old flash games with its cartoonish graphics and clean looking color palettes, and it serves its purpose well by providing a clean look to the player and helping shift the main focus into the gameplay.

Gameplay Analysis

Brotato is a gameplay first, ask questions later type of game. There is no story, no tutorials, but the game is relatively easy to pick up. Players select a Potato-looking character class out of the starting five (with more unlockable via progression), a starting weapon, and then unleashed upon the rectangular combat arena where they need to fend off alien monsters for a limited time and survive the wave.

Get upgrades in-between waves of alien monsters

After each wave ends, there is a short break, with the possibility of getting randomly upgraded by way of leveling to increase stats and purchasing to acquire weapons and items. This is as long as players have the resources — both obtainable by killing alien monsters — to level up or do purchases. Starting from one, up to six weapons can be held at the same time and everything attacks automatically with no buttons required. (the Potato has six hands apparently).

These character classes each have different attributes and starting weapons to them that can cater to many different playstyles and can provide some flavor to the game. One character may be hyper focused on melee gameplay, while one gets bonuses with ranged weapons. Another character may prefer elemental damage weapons, and another will have a massive XP bonus at the expense of more expensive items.

Weapons for every occassion

For the weapons, these range from the typical modern guns like Pistols, SMGs, and Sci-fi guns like Laser and Healing guns, to more absurd concepts like Fists, Wands, Swords, and Sticks. Almost every weapon archetype is present, no matter the genre or time period, which gives Brotato a highly varied selection of weapons for players to consider.

You can also upgrade these weapons by either acquiring a better one from the shop, or combining two same color rarities to form a higher colored one. If you’ve played the open beta last month, there are a lot of weapons added and many of them have been rebalanced to provide a much smoother experience.

This potato has six hands

Brotato is an action-packed game top to bottom. As mentioned before, it boasts up to six weapons all firing and attacking simultaneously. That means SMGs, Rocket Launchers, Swords, Wands, can all be equipped by the character and used all at the same time. It results in a highly satisfying monster killing display that never gets boring. In addition, The sound effects are potent and the impacts are visually appealing, especially when you have hordes of alie monsters coming at you getting squashed, sliced, shot, and exploded by your unconventional combination of weapons.

Easy to kill, easy to die

In a rogue-lite manner, everything is reset upon dying, with the exception of unlocked characters and higher difficulty settings. and it’s not a very easy game to master. While killing aliens is simple enough to be done in one hand, dying is just as easy too, only requiring a few surprising hits and before you know it, you’re dead. I can’t count the times that I’ve unexpectedly died in this game due to one overconfident move or a careless misstep.

However, deaths does not stop this game from becoming incredibly addicting, in fact it even makes it much more so. The gameplay loop of wanting to conquer more waves and higher difficulties, trying out other builds and weapon combos, makes for a very highly attractive gameplay experience.

At wave 20, there is a health spongey boss fight that you must beat to clear the run, there are random alien monsters appearing too, so by wave 20, the player character must be well prepared by then. All in all, expect runs to last around 15 to 30 minutes at a time. Perfect for playing on the go and on mobile phones more so than on PCs.

Conclusion:

Brotato is a fun one-handed arena shooter with a gameplay that just fits perfectly for mobile devices. At $5 it’s not asking much for potentially hours of mindless fun and entertainment. A game I would highly recommend to all mobile gamers, no matter their preferred genre.

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