I agree with your post. I love Supergiant games, with Transistor being my favorite. The problem I see so far with this game is you kind of hit a brick wall with upgrades...Skill can overcome this, but unlike other great rogue like games like this you don't feel like you are progressing past a point and the joy of playing just sort of stops. Even Dead Cells had a point where you feel amazing, and the combination of skill and progression is perfectly matched. With this one it is 80 percent skill and 20 percent progression, which I guess plays to a more hardcore crowd, something none of the older Supergiant games ever really did. I hope they balance this so that extreme players can get their challenge and casual players can also feel amazing.
I am glad I bought it, but after maybe 8 hours or so I am not "feeling" it...and have to give it a thumbs down.
It is early access though...so maybe they will balance it.
I've gotten to the boss of the second area like 5 times now and died on every run -- the bad news? It's been (mostly) because of RNG. Like, I never seem to be able to get to him with the right build, and in the final phase I can't put down the damage I need to on his buddies to finish him off. It's really demoralizing, and stands in stark contrast to the sense of achievement I felt from getting used to enemy encounters, and letting some of the persistent abilities accentuate my play-style.
Right now, I'm guessing they just balanced this final boss to be a complete fucking dumpster fire of a boss, because there's not any accessible content after him. But fuck if it doesn't kind of put a damper on my initial impression of the game: relying on RNG is never fun, and right now I know I am "one good run" away from completing it, but I never seem to get it.