Brotato

Brotato is a masterpiece of elegant and focused game design. It takes a simple concept and layers an incredible amount of strategic depth and replayability onto it, all without losing its accessibility and charm. Every playthrough is different, every character is a unique challenge, and the feeling of a perfectly crafted build is indescribably satisfying. It’s pure, distilled fun in its purest form and an absolute must-play for any fan of action roguelikes. There’s just no added value here—nothing you haven’t experienced before. Sure, it’s potatoes, but seriously, don’t you sometimes just want to indulge in them?

It aims to do a single thing, which is being a deep and addictive round-based bullet heaven shooter, with a ludicrous amount of items, weapons and upgrades that allow for quite literally infinite builds. It may lack the variety of Vampire Survivors, the production values of Soulstone Survivors and so on, but Brotato’s short-burst rushes of adrenaline make it one hell of a game anyway.

It isn’t just veterans of the genre that’ll love this game either. Anyone interested and looking for their first foray into the genre should absolutely consider this as a first pick. The lack of meta progression means less grinding and more time spent on learning the mechanics that’ll translate into other games.

Combining dodge-em-up style with roguelike weapon and character variability makes it distinct, though in execution it’s merely middling

Despite the game not having much more than its single-player and endless mode, Brotato is capable of being can't-put-down fun. Thanks to quick rounds, accessible controls, and easy upgrade options, each run has the potential to be intense and memorable. Still, Brotato's adorably violent art style and characters are begging to be more thoroughly fleshed out with lore. The game would also be a blast on handheld or mobile devices, and with a multiplayer mode where friends could join their spuds together in chaotic cooperative combat. Still, Blobfish has proven itself with Brotato, a fun action game that stars a six-weapon-wielding potato who fights alien hordes.

Brotato makes up for its lacking depth, enemy variety, arena variety, and mash-up of mechanics seen elsewhere, by making the best of the combination to create an addictive title that fans of pure, arcade-like gameplay will love.

While it has all the hallmarks of the popular entries in the genre, Brotato fails to capture the same magic and overwhelming threat of previous action-roguelike titles. There are moments when the action is fun, unfortunately it largely becomes a bore when you spend too much time with it.