Yes, the "Shattered" in SPD refers to the intial start of rebalancing the original Pixel Dungeon & breaking it, but I'd also like to canonically take the Shattered Pixel part & apply it to an already broken Pixel device. As in a Pixel phone user has ragequit from the frustration of losing in SPD & shattered pers' device.
But seriously...
Current average : 6/10.
Though, in A11 running 2022 security patches, BGM behavior is inconsistent. For example, I got ArrowOS not playing most of the BGM while Jaguar & Lineage gets to play them. Not much of an issue since Kristjan has put the music up in his YouTube playlists (regular / deluxe) & you can play your own music files (or the linked BGMs, preferably downloaded) if you prefer it to his BGM, but a bit of a shame.
Nothing much to say about the sound effects - they serve their purpose well, and nothing else. As for dubbing, just dub the speeches yourself since there's none.
Final verdict : 7/10 - I somewhat liked the new BGM (particularly the Dwarven Metropolis ones), though I can't consistently hear it in A11. The sound effects, on the other hand, are serviceable.
For graphics, SPD is serviceable. Not the ultra-"realistic" bullcrap the big gaming corpos would shill, just some mostly 3d-ified pixel things. Whatever's there does convey most of their stuff well, for the most part. A certain eye left me wanting for an update, though only after 00-Evan shared some 10-year flashback which featured some interesting changes (more horrifying Yog-Dzewa, scarier mimics, more banged up DM300, Rogue consistently wearing a face mask).
Final verdict : 6/10 - For pixelified things, they are what they are, though some improvements could be easily made. With 00-Evan's new changes, it could spike to 8/10, excluding Goo with teeth.
In SPD, the lore feels somewhat bolted on. Not that it's bad, mind you (I occasionally made up some random story in my mind, sometimes even in games that dedicate themselves to their lore), but not much to do with, or build upon.
Though, based on what's currently available in-game, here's what I summarized (SPOILER ALERT - skip if you don't want to know the inbuilt lore) :
Final verdict : 5/10 - neutral. What's there was a prologue, what will be here would be what you play.
First off, unlike basically the majority of games nowadays, Shattered Pixel Dungeon is open source under the GPLv3 license. All commits are dumped in one go whenever SPD gets updated, which sounds like how I update my site. Anyway, while this is overall neat, this generally won't matter to end-users who can only be bothered to just play the game.
As for bugs & any signs of lack of polish, I haven't really encountered them for now. Then again, I didn't bother doing much with SPD other than disabling its internet connections & normally playing the game, sometimes with personal music (not just because some 2022 Android security patch cockblocked me from the BGMs).
With all these, it comes as no surprise that SPD gets 10/10 on this front as well, even with GitHub being ripe to nitpick.
Straight from GitHub Releases, where SPD tends to be officially released gratis :
And for the alternate places in addition to GitHub - not that I recommend them, but if you wanted to...
All of the assets are included in the apps / installers.
SPD predictably gets a perfect 10/10 for this one. Sure, I could nitpick GitHub to hell, but as a whole you don't need any online accounts to download any of SPD's installers (other than iPhone); making SPD automatically better than most games nowadays on this front.
For those reading this part for the first time, this section is for the online connections the application makes outside of the "necessary" connection required to download the installer.
10/10 for offline-only, though I'd rate its online stuff 9.9/10. Of course, if I put in the -Gplay .apk build it gets 6/10 - which I believe is surprisingly high for a Goolag-ridden game.
SPD has news & updates checking enabled by default, with beta updates disabled by default. Also enabled by default is "Only check on WiFi" which prevents mobile data users (and mobile hotspot too) from unneccesary checkings unless toggled off. While the defaults are not ideal, they don;t affect gameplay at all. Therefore, this section gets an almost perfect 9.9/10.
For updates & news checking, the app connects to shatteredpixel.com & api.github.com. Tested version is 2.5.2-Android.apk, the latest at the moment of writing (3/10/2024).
shatteredpixel.com is cuckflared.
Final verdict : 5/10. While it connects to big corpo stuff these connections are optional, albeit opt-out.
Linked privacy policy for the app seems to only cover the mobile app store builds.
As for the non-app-store-build (such as the -Android.apk), there doesn't seem to be any data collections whatsoever. For this one, SPD gets 10/10.
Briefly speaking, here's how SPD is usually played :
TL;DR : Every class is Warrior
; as said by the retard who played the way he described it.
In a nutshell, every class in SPD seems to be Warrior with various gimmicks, which gets further extended by armor ability & subclass.
First off, the class I like to dislike, Mage but only because he's the only one whose fundamental playstyle differs from everyone else. His subclasses are either the staff-dependent Battlemage or the less-welded-to-staff Warlock who heals from physically damaging soul-marked enemies. And since I have major skill issues using Mage I cannot comment on his armor abilities. 1/10 for defying the meta, though please take with a salt factory's prosperous year of produce because the reviewer simply had too much skill issue to consistently reach Dwarf King using the Mage... let alone winning.
Next up, the more boring Warrior - Rogue. Also known as the easiest class to get high scores. His subclasses are either the Assassin or Freerunner, with the former focused on oneshotting a single opponent & the latter at running into and/or away from stuff. While his armor abilities fit Rogue as he is, it isn't that good if you're playing the way Warrior is played, which is basically the default. In fact, Rogue is the only class I can bother delaying my play to get Rat King's Ratmogrify. Rogue also has increased search radius by default (5x5, can be expanded to 7x7 with talent) which makes searching for hidden rooms without a scroll of magic mapping even easier. 4.5/10 - while offering more non-meta stuff he starts from an offensively stronger base than the Warrior, which kind of makes them less meaningful.
Then we come to the root of all classes, which gets unlocked simply by installing the game; Warrior. His subclasses are either the physically tanky (and boringly easy to use) Berserker or the somewhat technical Gladiator. Armor abilities are basic as well, though I find Shockwave useful against the campers that would otherwise have a good time against the Warrior. He also comes with a broken seal attached to his armor, which acts like a +1 armor upgrade (allowing you to immediately identify the scroll of upgrade). 5/10, for indirectly forming the SPD meta.
Now we come to one of my 2 liked classes, starting with Huntress. Her subclasses are either the dependent-on-projectiles Sniper or the Warden, which I mostly describe as Warrior but with better plant effects. Her Spectral Blade (armor ability 1) is basically your melee weapon acting like a projectile (which should be the strongest of all armor abilities considering Warrior-esque playstyle); Spirit Hawk can be occasionally useful to scout things, and Nature's Power is only useful for Sniper. 6/10, liked Warden & Spectral Blade, but meh everything else & weakest starting melee weapon, only crutched by spirit bow's infinite ammo which loses most relevance as soon as an enemy enters melee range.
And the last, latest (at least for now, while Cleric is still awaiting implementation), and most personally liked class (for me) - Duelist. Her gimmick is weapon abilities. Her subclasses are either the semi-dual-wielding Champion or the weapon-agnostic Monk. Her armor abilities, on the other hand, are a bit of a mixed bag. Elemental Strike highly depends on the equipped weapon's enchantment (ignoring your upgraded weapon level), Feint is only practical for 1v1, and Challenge is good for when you need to force a 1v1 against a horde of enemies. Easy 8/10 as your weapon of choice matters more, though her armor abilities felt more about supporting the Duelist herself.
Wait a moment... Why does it sound like you liked the female classes more than the male classes?
Funny how that works, but it's too easy to explain. Since the females are more fun to play as than the males. Though I'm also curious about the eventually-released Cleric class - whether he/she is another Mage or otherwise following the metagame (at least the way I see it), which can be described as "take tier 5 equipment, upgrade them, and ez win by stage 3". But seriously, I'd average the classes to 4.9/10 for now as we all wait for the Cleric.
Quite simple actually - with taps. Tap on empty tile to move to it, tap on tile with npc to interact with it, manually tap tile with item to pick it. Easy. Though I don't particularly like the action button that pops up on the bottom-left area of the display (and is always present for Champion to give her something to quickly swap primary weapons), which can never be disabled let alone moved somewhere less intrusive. Another issue I saw with these controls would be how it scales with different hardwares. On average, it should've got 4.66/10, but since that sounded too awkward so I'll just round them to 4/10, all because of those action buttons.
On phones on portrait mode (the default way Pixel Dungeon games tend to be played) the controls are fine enough as it is. Perhaps the only issue that could stem from this scale would be you not paying full attention to what's going on, leading to some questionable inputs (such as falling off a cliff when you should've avoided it). Though that issue can always be mitigated by staying focused at the game. I'd rate this one 6/10.
On phones running in landscape mode... I have nothing to say for this one yet. I haven't seriously played in this mode yet. Though I can say this mode is immediately more cumbersome than the portrait mode, not helped by just how wide my X3P's screen is in landscape. 5/10 for now.
On computers where you get a mouse (and/or a trackpad if laptop) & keyboard, the game pretty much slows to a grind. Sure, it can be nice to be really precise so you pay maximum attention at all times, but I'm not sure I like my own controls slowing my gameplay down to a halt. 3/10.
That I can't really put into their own points within this review.