Hello,
As you already know, last weekend I streamed your game. Overall, I see a lot of potential in this game - it could definitely become something great, but as it is now, it's most definitely an early beta.
The dev has already addressed a lot of the points I am going to make, so rather than address this review towards the dev, this review is more intended for potential audience reading about the game build as of April, 2023. (be sure to check the "More Information" drop down on Itch to see if it's been updated since this review)
The first moment of impression, the title screen, set the stage pretty well of a lot of style, but maybe lacking functionality. It integrates itself well with the artstyle and themes of the game, but is also hiding important information, only becoming visible once the player hover overs the icons. In the grand scheme of things, this is pretty small potatoes, and if the game released with this never fixed, it most certainly wouldn't be the end of the world. However, it does seem to set a precedent going in about how there is often style over function.
The game begins with pre-rendered graphics that look nice, though maybe a bit xbox360 era. And after all of the introduction, we meet the main protagonist, who will then run to the far right side of the map, meet bargain bin Harley Quinn, and begin slowly walking and talking back to the left side of the map. This intro overall took about 30 minutes to get through (please read dev's response below, the following points still remain), and with the sporadic pacing of "talking" then "walking" then "talking" then "walking" it sort of became a maddening experience that resulted in me just rushing through the dialogue.
Due to the format of my stream, this unfortunately made it so that I wasn't able to experience much of the combat, so I can't provide much of a review on the combat itself, but what little bit I did get to experience was once again stylish but lacking functionality. It was a bland (and lengthy) hidden object hunt, looking for way too many cards in a dark map with enemies that spawn unpredictably - sometimes directly in front of the player - that then proceeded to move rather quickly. Coupled with your auto attack being rather slow, this first encounter felt a little unfair. Without any sort of tutorial, the player is left to their own devices and maybe some will learn neat tricks right away, while others - like myself - might not know what depth exists and just finds the experience boring.
That said, this dev is really great at being receptive towards feedback, and I think I and all of my chatters were rather impressed with the game, so we have hope that after some time spent polishing things up, this could actually be a pretty cool game.
Obligatory copy-paste:
If you'd like to watch my experience with your game, I've linked the archive below. You can click the timestamps to jump to when I start playing your game.
(p.s. I highly recommend watching the I See Red portion of the video too as it is also a top-down, twin-stick shooter and it seems to get the intro pacing perfectly.)