Epoch is quite like Infinity Blade. It plays similarly (With simple swipes and touches), has similar mechanics (you level up and buy things to get better) and kinda also looks like it (interface-wise), but I like it all the same! It has some issues that I'm going to get into later on, but is a neat way to spend a few hours getting good stuff and reading about the story.
The core gameplay is simple and easy to pick up
You get into a level and there are enemies on the other side of the screen. You have a few options, move left, right, get into cover, shoot enemies (by taping on them) and using special powers (missiles that hit everything on-screen, some boost that you can equip such as regeneration, slowing down time, shooting faster, and grenades with various effects such as stuns and slowing enemies). You usually have three places to stand on and moving from either side can be done by jumping when you're on the far left or the far right. That's pretty much it, if you get it, you take damage and enemies are all the same. There is no hitscan so sometimes you might be frustrated because you miss a shot (the enemy dodges the actual bullet)
You then get loot, story bits, experience and credits, get you spend some to buy better things and onward to the next level! There's also an arena if you want to complete little missions to burn some time. Problem is, the game is a bit shallow. There are only four enemy types (one that shoots at you, one that lobs time-delayed grenades, one with a sweeping laser and one with charged shots), one boss (a robot that alternates between sweeping lasers, grenades, charged shots, etc.) and a few weapon types (rapid fire, chain lighting, damage over time, area of effect, slow but powerful) so after a while, you've seen and did everything. The difficulty ramps up (enemies fire more often basically and you take more damage)
It's a really neat game for a few hours but otherwise I got a bit frustrated on the higher difficulties because there's no invincibility period when you take damage (worse, some enemies inflict damage over time to you) so you can just get wrecked if you don't pay attention to what's on the screen. Enemies have various patterns, the basic shooty enemies will loosely lock on your location and shoot there, the grenade throwing enemies always aim for your location but you can move away, it's easy to jump over lasers, but when all of these things are happening at the same time, things get hectic and using grenades/missiles/buffs all while dodging and shooting gets kinda crazy. The sad part is how levels are built in two-three stages and if you die on stage two or three, you need to replay the level.
Even with solid gameplay and neat systems surrounding it, it's hard for me to keep playing Epoch because it just gets crazy and even tho I want to see the rest of the story, I'm not ready to replay these levels until I get them right. Giving the player some amount of money and experience even when you lose would've helped a long way because then you didn't do that level for nothing. Having more than a few weapon/boost types would've been nice and the missiles are kinda pointless because they just increase in strength. Maybe weaker missiles that automatically launch? Stronger missiles that have a delayed effect?