Published by Sometimes You, Fusion Paradox is an action twin-stick roguelite with a gimmick. To defeat certain enemies, the playable character’s color needs to match. Colors can be cycled by tapping the color changing button but only increases this downloadable title’s biggest flaw – the unbalanced difficulty.
Describing this game as hard is an understatement. With each attempt, I was only able to make it through a few screens at most. The starting pistol is incredibly underpowered, takes forever to reload, and often won’t even damage the target because it wasn’t swapped to the correct color. Enemies also take way too many hits to defeat, their bullets can literally fill the screen at times, and players have no chance at unlocking any new weapons due to their high cost. During my stream embedded in this article, I managed to acquire about 20 gold but the next cheapest gun was about 300. Not even close.
Instead of making the game more fun, the color changing gimmick is annoying and slows the pace of play. Also, since this is a rogue, death means starting over from scratch each time. Circle strafing doesn’t work much either since enemy bullets can break apart and spawn more bullets. Some enemies even bust into new, smaller enemies like a game of Asteroids. With everything stacked against the play so severely, there is just no chance at survival or at having fun.
The blocky, neon glowing visuals are interesting though. Surprisingly, parts of the environment are interactive. For no reason at all, you can bump into furniture and push it as you walk. This doesn’t serve a purpose or tactical advantage but interesting that all this collision was programmed. It is just a shame all this was wasted with gameplay that is too impossibly difficult to enjoy.
SCORE: 4/10
Not As Good As: other roguelites
Better Than: some roguelites
Wait For It: the dozen other rogue titles that will be released next week
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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