Beginner Tips And Tricks For Brotato

Key Takeaways

• Movement is crucial in Brotato, as standing still can be risky. Combining moving and attacking is key.
• Rerolling the shop is important for optimizing builds. Players should reroll to get the desired items.
• Learn enemy attack patterns, keep weapons optimized, and utilize utility options for better gameplay in Brotato.

Brotato is an indie rogue-lite arena shooter released in 2023. This game sees players in control of a fighter potato on an alien planet. Players can choose one of many playable Brotatos, all of which can wield up to six weapons simultaneously to annihilate hoards of enemies that stampede towards them, gunning them down with ease.

Despite its simplistic appearance and mechanics, Brotato can be hardcore. It features some frantic gameplay, too, as the player must fight to survive through several intense 60-second waves to make it to the final boss fight. New players may initially struggle with the intensity. For those struggling, here are some beginner tips and tricks for Brotato.

Updated November 7, 2024, by Huzaifa Haq: Brotato isn’t necessarily a unique experience, but it is certainly a polished one. The build variety found in the game is as astounding as it is easy to experience due to the short time required to complete runs. The 1.1 update of the game introduced new weapons, items, and a new DLC, Abyssal Terrors, which comes with a new biome and new characters. Additionally, the game also features a local co-op mode now, which is compatible with Steam Remote Play.

13 Never Stop Moving

You Snooze, You Lose

Like any game that involves combat, movement is a very important part of the gameplay in Brotato. As long as the player wants to stay alive and stay away from damage, they need to keep moving. Certain builds lend themselves well to the player staying stationary. However, these can take a while construct properly. Unless the player has specific items or character traits that need them to stay still to activate, they shouldn’t be standing in a single spot.

Additionally, these builds are hard to execute, as they require a certain balance between moving and not moving in order to avoid incoming projectiles while also dealing enough damage to the enemy to make the build worth it.

12 Don’t Be Afraid To Reroll

Rerolling Can Give Players Access To More Useful Tools

Perhaps one of the simplest mistakes that beginners make is not rerolling the shop. The amount of coin the players get in a single round exceeds the amount they can spend in the shop quite quickly. Pair that with the low cost of rerolling the shop, and it’s practically a requirement for players to do so.

In the latter parts of the run, players need to optimize their build. This requires gamers to reroll the shop as much as possible to get the exact type of item or weapon they were looking for. Unless they happen to be very lucky, they’ll be spending more on rolling than on buying.

11 High Priority Targets

Learn Military Tactics

At first glance, it might seem like the enemies in Brotato are spread everywhere without any rhyme or reason. While it is true that the enemies don’t use any particular strategies against the player, it is not true that they spawn randomly. At the beginning, players will encounter enemies that don’t have any abilities.

As the run progresses, enemies with some type of special ability will start to spawn. Some rush at the player, some fire projectiles, and others try to spear them. The key to surviving the onslaught is identifying which enemies are the most annoying to deal with and getting rid of them as soon as possible.

10 Recycle, Combine, And Lock

Use Utility Options

The utility options of the shop are easy to forget about, but they are extremely important. The main thing to keep in mind is that weapons are the most important part of a player’s arsenal. Items act as good supplements, but the core of any build is the weapons equipped by the player. This is why it is important to optimize the weapons in one’s arsenal. Though it might be painfully obvious to some, combining the same type and rarity of weapon to create a better rarity weapon of the same type is the best way to increase a player’s damage.

The higher tier weapons the player has, the better item selection they have, and the better synergy their weapons have with one another, the more powerful their build will be. For this purpose, it is prudent to switch out weapons for better ones in the shop using the recycling function. If the player encounters a must-have item or weapon in the shop while they don’t have the necessary funds to obtain them, locking them in place until the next turn is a good option.

9 Learn Attack Patterns

Knowing What To Expect From Enemies Can Make A Huge Difference

The enemies that the player faces in their runs are not the same faceless mob that attack them at a constant rate. They are ever-changing, with different varieties popping up every few rounds. These enemies have different attacks from the others, making it vital for one to know how they will attack if the player wants to come out alive at the end of the round.

Some enemies rush at the player at a certain angle. Others fire spears at them, while others still shoot slow moving projectiles that never seem to stop. Knowing how to react to each enemy is essential to having a successful run.

8 Activate Manual Aim

Allows For More Precise Aiming When Using A Cursor

Brotato is similar to Vampire Survivors in that they are both top-down arena shooter rogue-lite games. However, Brotato has one setting that differs from Vampire Survivors. If players glance through the menu options, they will see that they can toggle manual aim.

Brotato‘s default will see the player firing with an auto-aim. This can be helpful in some situations, but more often than not, the player will end up aiming at a distant enemy or missing entirely. It may be better to toggle manual aiming to allow for more precision and direction when aiming at enemies with the cursor. However, this decision is entirely down to the player’s personal preference.

7 Avoid Corners

It’s Easy Too Get Trapped While Trying To Avoid The Chaos

All of Brotato‘s maps are square-shaped with four corners. As the waves become progressively harder, players may find it increasingly difficult to avoid the massive hoards of enemies swarming around their position. As a result, players are advised to kite around in circles to avoid getting too close.

That being said, while frantically moving around the small map and avoiding the bullet-hell-style elements, it can be easy for players to accidentally back themselves up into a corner with no escape. This will inevitably lead to death, so players should avoid staying in corners for too long and should keep moving to improve their survivability.

6 Save Any Fruit

A Reliable Healing Method When Facing Emergency Situations

Occasionally, an unappealing green fruit will drop from enemies or trees. These are called Life Fruits and are one of the few methods of self-healing in Brotato aside from the Life Steal and Health Regen stats. It can be tempting to pick these up at full health, but players should avoid them, as it will be a waste of resources.

If the player is injured, these Life Fruits will magnetize towards their position to heal them. It is best to gather and save these Fruits for emergencies, as they don’t provide much healing.

5 Pay Attention To Characters And Starting Weapons

Experiment With Different Playstyles To Decide What Works Best

There is an array of characters to play as in Brotato, with a small handful that players can choose from at the start. New characters can be unlocked by progressing through waves and beating runs, but players still have a few options to sift through when just starting out.

It’s important to study each character (or at the least give each of them a try) to see which one fits the best. What works for one player might not work as well for the next, so it’s vital to experiment with playstyles. The same goes for weapons, and players should be sure to check out each of them, studying their strengths and weaknesses before undergoing a run.

4 Look For Synergy In Items

Great Combos Can Be Created By Pairing Certain Items

There are a lot of random items to be found throughout each run of Brotato, but some of them synergize much better than others. New players should be sure to check each item available meticulously and seek out items in the shop that will synergize well with what they already have. While it may not seem like it on the surface, there are quite a few useful combos that can be created by pairing certain items together.

Although Brotato seems like a deceptively simple wave survival game from the fringe, it’s actually got quite a bit of depth to it, and it will reward those who are reading and focusing on each item, stat, and weapon.

3 Don’t Underestimate Turrets Or Landmines

Effective Tools That Can Be Used To Clear Battlefields

If players get turrets or landmines as one of their potential item choices, they should make sure to buy them. Both Turrets and Landmines will randomly spawn at the blue crosses at the start of a wave. Turrets are a bonus weapon in the players’ arsenal that can help clear the battlefield. Landmines are also an excellent zoning tool. If players are being chased by a massive group of enemies, they can easily kite them into a landmine.

Aside from the default, which is a useful weapon, there are other variations of the turret available to purchase. For example, a Medical Turret is extremely useful for keeping the player topped up with health if they get into serious trouble.

2 Pay Attention To Stats

Certain Stats Provide Valuable Advantages

Like most games of this ilk, stats are extremely important in Brotato. Players must pay attention to their stats and what they are building towards with each item upgrade. Some stats are self-explanatory, while others are harder to understand. For example, players may not realize that the Dodge stat gives them a chance to avoid taking some damage, even if they walk through a crowd of enemies. All weapons and items are one of four rarities: black (common), blue (rare), purple (epic), and red (legendary).

Each item will have specific positive stats for the player and sometimes a negative modifier to balance it out. Depending on the Brotato they have chosen, the player must consider their combat build carefully. Some characters are built for melee, while others are better with ranged weaponry. Certain stats will either hinder or help them in future waves. Regardless, Speed is always a good stat for maintaining distance from rampaging enemies.

1 Changeable Difficulty

Several Options Can Be Tweaked To Alter The Game’s Difficulty

Difficulty elitism is a problem many rogue-like games face. Some gamers who can tackle harder games display degrees of snobbery towards others who may struggle with difficult title. Luckily, that is not an issue in Brotato. This title features adaptive difficulty adjustments that can be altered to suit players of all calibers.

Many new players may not realize this, but the difficulty of Brotato can be tweaked in the settings — and it’s more complex than choosing between easy, medium, and hard. The settings feature options where players can change the enemy’s speed, health, and damage, so the experience can easily be adapted to suit the one’s individual needs. If the default settings aren’t enough, and the player wants more of a challenge, they can max out these settings at their own risk.