My issue with Nodebuster-Likes.
To me Nodebuster-likes simply resemble terribly balanced metaprogression roguelites (Rogue Legacy, Dead Cells, Risk of Rain) more than traditional incremental games.
Everytime I open one and learn the system I expect how well I interact with the loop to effect the outcome, but The actual gameplay loop is literally just play the game, buy upgrades and eventually faceroll through the content,
They are arcade game that present enemies as a mechanical challenges, weapons that appear to offer tactical choices, movement/aiming/mechanics that appear to reward skill, however those elements don't actually determine wether you succeed. Once you have played enough any apparent challange simply dissapears.
In a well-designed roguelite, metaprogression shifts the odds into you favour. it does not replace the requirement to play well. In a Nodebuster-like, metaprogression eventually makes winning inevitable, sure skill may affect how quickly you get there, but time is the only factor that ultimately matters.
A traditional incremental game strips all of this away. It openly presents itself as a silly game about exponential progression/growth and your only objective is to make numbers go up quicker, it's not pretending you are mastering an arcade game while you are really just waiting for numbers to go up.