Judging by how I managed to get 97% progress on my very first try I believe that getting 20$ for making 3 plays is a psychological trick induced on the player to believe that he is super good at this game. Or maybe perhaps I beat Darkest Dungeon on stygian (you can see this on my Redeloper steam profile if you scroll achievements)?
If only I knew I had limited capacity I probably could make it on my first try to final boss (yea I purchased treasure chest). I also went close to said boss ater defeating him to get loot (I directly swimmed into ship) only to figure out she has one more phase. I somehow beat the game on second run without dying to this trap. I also decided to completely clear my save file and actually beat the game getting hit only once. Should I try no upgrade run now?
I also noticed that sometimes I get hit without actually getting hit. Like, seriously. There was no red bullet at all.
Controls are really well designed. The player can focus entirely on dodging attacks while always having a shop inside of himself.
I dislike how endless mode works. It's easy to heal yourself after having less than 4 hitpoints and it doesn't get harder at all. You just play until you get bored. For me it kinda kills challenge. The only boss you face is the final boss. Previous bosses are completely scrapped. I think submarine boss could be allowed to return with more hitpoints to keep up with player's firepower. Endless mode could get harder every time a boss is killed by a random factor. One could be disallowing healing at all, other could make bosses enter they're hardest phases right on start of battle.
If you are curious when I finally wanted to destroy my ship by tanking it into final boss (endless mode got boring) my invincibility lasted long enough to take only 2 damage while also moving said boss into phase 2. Phase 2 was more durable and I actually died to it.
Call me a heretic but lack of boss health bars could add more tension to bosses in this game, just like in Cuphead and Hollow Knight. Interface kinda makes dodging attacks harder in some parts of the screen.
Bosses have very repeatable patterns that completely remove element of surprise and just become monotonous.