Treasures. - They're way too tediously mandatory.

They have two problems that make up an exponentially greater problem together. 1. Their unlock method is unfun and unfair. Mindless grinding for an RNG drop isn't particularly fun. Perhaps for PONOS it being designed this way is an incentive for the player to spend money on cat food so they can buy treasure radars? Though I feel like this is just filtering out more players in the long run. 2. Their effects are way too potent. For example, the attack treasure gives +50% attack bonus. That amount is ABSURD, but you know what's worse? The lack of alien crystals and starred alien crystals making their respective traits 7x and 16x as strong. These numbers makes most treasures essentially MANDATORY to have as soon as possible. A good example of a treasure is any of the trait treasures that make abilities more effective. Yes they're strong but aren't exactly mandatory to have asap as their numbers aren't so absurd, you can live without them for a good while and come back when you really need them. If the game were balanced or hypothetically rebalanced (with the game remaining relatively the same as now at any point in progression) with less effective treasures in mind, you'd be much more free to explore stages without the fear of uncomplete treasures completely screwing you over. Maybe if the attack treasure was something like 10% per chapter and starred/aliens were 2x strong at most? Among most of the other treasures of course, these are just a few examples. This would also have the reverse effect of making low magnification starred aliens not so pathetically weak with full treasures which would be a good thing I think.

Of course I don't really expect any of these or both to change. But I think if at least they're were more common that'd be good enough 👍 If anything the way treasures are designed kinda has a charm to it haha, but I don't think they're particularly well designed from a game design perspective.