Game review: Enter the Gungeon

The game that I am going to be reviewing today is one that I only discovered in recent times, it's called Enter the Gungeon. This game was something I stumbled across during a Steam sale, and I had heard nothing about it before I purchased it, which honestly surprised me upon playing it. It was developed by Dodge Roll using the Unity engine and was published by Devolver Digital. It was a worldwide release back in April of 2016 for the Steam platform, Linux, and Playstation 4. It later on saw a release for the Xbox One in April 2017, and just recently was released on the 14th of this month for the Nintendo Switch. The version of the game that I will be reviewing is the PC version on Steam. 

The genre of Enter the Gungeon is labeled as a bullet hell, rogue like shooter. So, if you're interested in these kinds of games, then I'll just tell you now you should definitely buy this as this game will certainly be for you. I personally found myself interested in this game as I very much enjoyed the Binding of Isaac when I played that beast, and figured from the reviews on Steam and screenshots that this game had to be at the very least moderately decent. Boy, I'll tell you now it's a lot more than just "decent". I was so pleasantly surprised with this game, and I'm really glad I found it for so many reasons. 

Enter the Gungeon uses a bit of an oddball story for its narrative, placing you on a distant planet in the universe which is inhabited by living bullets and other bizarre types of lifeforms. Within this strange planet is a large, dark fortress that harbors a gun within that can be used to kill your own past. Eventually a destructive force besieged the fortress and decimated it leaving only ashes behind once everything settled. After some time the fortress was rebuilt using the highest of possible security measures, leaving quite a few challenges behind for the player to deal with.

The game gives you the option of playing as 4 different adventurers, each with their own unique backstory and regrets that they seek to kill using the gun hidden within the dungeon. Besides having their own backstories, they also each have their own unique loadout and abilities. You'll be using these loadouts and abilities of course to enter and explore the Gungeon. Along the way of exploring this strange place you'll find yourself rescuing non combatants which have their own dialogue and information, as well as items which you can purchase usually. So, as you can probably tell the story of this game isn't anything super emotional or gripping, so if you're interested in that look elsewhere. The real fun of this game comes from the way it plays and its challenges. 

The controls for this game are absolutely solid, whether you're using a gamepad or the keyboard to play. I tried both, and though I prefer the gamepad I found that the mouse/keyboard works quite well on it's own and nothing ever feels clunky. If the controls weren't solid, there there's no way this game would be able to stand on it's own legs, considering that while shooting in one direction you'll have to be evading and dodging in another direction to stay alive. The evading and dodge rolling in this game is especially important, and really doesn't allow for overly aggressive players to triumph on top through the levels. Between using the roll feature to cross pits, you'll also have to use it to leap over bullets so you don't take damage. This means it's pretty much a key feature of the game that you must dodge and evade while fighting constantly, otherwise the swarm of bullets on screen will be your undoing. 

You'll have plenty of chances to meet the somewhat adorable enemies of the game and engage them in combat, since the game sports rogue like features. By this I mean that you'll be repeatedly entering the Gungeon over and over to unlock new firearms to use as well as new abilities for your character. Thankfully the game never gets to be too tiring or boring while doing this, as each dungeon is randomly generated giving you a new experience with each entry down into the Gungeon, not to mention the hundreds of different guns you can find and use and all of the numerous amounts of different bosses in the game. With all of this in the game, there's quite a bit of content to keeps things fresh in between all of the chaotic fighting you'll be doing. 

Now, most of the guns in the game are ones that you have to buy with the money which drops upon clearing a boss creature out. And, as I previously mentioned you'll be doing a fair bit of rescuing while inside of the Gungeon, and these people often times are the ones who will be selling you the items you've been thirsting after. Some of these characters even give you special tasks for you to clear, such as killing a certain amount of creatures within the Gungeon, clearing specific levels using only one specific firearm, or even the occasional mini game which can lighten the mood up a bit for you. 

Again, with all of these little additions of content there is so much stuff to be done and found in the game. After dozens of hours of playtime, you'll probably feel that you have only really delved into the start of the game due to how much stuff there is to find and do. This isn't even touching upon the secrets that are hidden in the game, which is another thing you can search for as you run around blasting things from room to room. I've got about 30-32 hours of playtime with this game, and I don't even feel like I have done all that much with everything considered. This game definitely seems like you can get hundreds of hours of entertainment out of it, which makes it well worth the $15 it costs. 

There are a few things that I think could drive off the occasional player, or even the interest in the game itself. I'm sure considering the type of game this is, you'd expect there to be a multiplayer of some sort but alas, there isn't. I don't personally think this is an issue, as I don't think it would work with this type of game but I have seen some people complain about it before after reading others opinion on it, so I figured I should mention it here. While there isn't a multiplayer to the game, there is however a co-op mode which will allow you to run and gun with a buddy, something that I very much appreciate. It's especially useful as the second player has the ability to bring the first player back to life should they die, saving your buns when things get really insane. 

Maybe the only other thing that could scare people away from the game is the difficulty of the game itself. The start of the game is fairly easy for the most part, with the first few floors not posing much of a risk to the player and allowing you to fall into a false sense of comfort and stability with your performance. After the first handful of levels though, things really take a sharp turn and the enemies and difficulty of the game go from 0-60 very quickly. You have the ability to spawn at the start of each chamber if you so wish, though you'll be better off doing a total start over as you build your character up as you progress from the start and respawning will have stripped you of all of your work up until then. 

You can generally clear the game in just around an hour or so, but of course you'll be continuously playing through it to unlock more and more things, and that hour is only taking into account if you have a perfect game where you don't die and have to restart. While the game isn't going to make you want to destroy your PC, you might find yourself a bit frustrated at times with it. I personally knew things were going to be difficult going in, as I haven't played a game like this that didn't present itself with a fair amount of difficulty, but I like that and think that it adds to the challenges of the game. 

Overall, I'd definitely recommend you check out Enter the Gungeon, especially if you're a huge fan of running and gunning style games with rogue like elements thrown in there as well. The amount of content and entertainment you get for the small price is probably one of the best bangs for your buck that you'll find in a video game. While it does get a bit tedious feeling at times due to the repetition of things, that feeling doesn't tend to last for too long before you're scrambling around trying to survive a barrage of bullets. I really think you're missing out if you don't at least check the game out. 

Thanks for stopping by to read my review! Hope you've enjoyed it!