Enter the Gungeon

The humble burger is not my favourite food. This is the perfect execution on a concept that isn't my favourite. I like it quite a bit though.

Truly a fantastic roguelike - one of the best. Love the random weapons and the pixelated art style. It can be a challenge, but it's fair for the most part, and each run leaves me wanting more. It feels great, plays great, and looks great. Bravo

I'm fucking terrible at this game but I have a lot of fun whenever I play it

Enter The Gungeon is a Twinstick Rogue-like shooter with some bullet-hell influences. Your health is represented by bullets, the currency is bullets, and many of the enemies are bullets. You explore a dungeon, floor by floor, progressing down after you defeat that level's boss. The levels are procedurally generated so each time you play is different. There's a few bosses assigned to each floor and you are pitted against a random one.

There's no prerequisite for meeting the boss (don't need to find a key), but you will normally only find the entrance after clearing out several rooms. Although you can take the boss on with your starting weapon, it's advised that you locate a better weapon. On each floor there is at least one weapon to find, and by defeating enemies, you can earn currency which can be spent at a shop on each floor. There you can buy weapons, health, or other useful items. So you are encouraged to explore but it's a risk vs reward system, because you are risking your health points when health restoration is fairly limited. The amount of currency you get is fairly low too, only enough to buy a couple of items per run.

The dodge-roll is an important ability to use since it gives you some frames of invincibility which allows you to avoid a spread of bullets. It can also be used to leap over chasms. You also have an item which removes all bullets on screen.

Your starting gun has infinite ammo but isn't very powerful. It can get you through the first floor of the dungeon. Other weapons have limited ammo and have different projectiles, fire rates, capacities etc. The majority of guns were fairly similar, but some can be very gimmicky.

There's often a large element of luck in these games, but for the most part, I felt the game was pretty balanced. It was a rare occurrence I was left with a poor standard of guns, and it was also rare I felt the weapon was overpowered.

There's loads of destructible objects (like crates) but you don't get any rewards out of them. There's objects like tables that you can flip over to use as temporary cover; which is a nice touch.

Sometimes in these games, the pixel art can make it hard to see. For the most part, the art style worked well. Some places can look a bit dark and cluttered, and I'd often struggle to make out the chasms; thinking they were carpets.

When defeating the boss, you pick up a special type of currency which you keep after you die. This currency can be spent in the shop in the starting area to unlock new guns which can appear in the dungeon. This way, the more you play, the more variety of guns you will discover rather than seeing the same guns. This helps keep the gameplay fresh.

I also found that I was discovering new enemies even after several attempts. There are special enemies that are basically like mini-bosses that seem a rare occurrence. The guns and enemies are shown in a encyclopedia in the menu so you can see how much of the game you have discovered.

It can be frustrating to reach a new boss or new floor then die quickly. When you die, you have to start again, so going through the same floors can feel repetitive. Like stated previously, you can still discover new things and will often be taking them on with a different gun. However, the real challenge is the bosses or newly encountered enemies on the later floors, so working through a similar experience can be annoying.

You can perform tasks for a guy to fix the elevator which allows you to start the game on a later floor. However, the guns you are given are fairly poor which puts you at a disadvantage.

There's a few different characters you can choose which have a different starting weapon, starting item and some passive ability. I liked the Master-Chief looking character which started off with Armour that is essentially extra health.

I found the game quite addictive, so kept on coming back to it even when I planned on putting it down. The amount of fun you have will depend on your affinity with the rogue-like genre.

Its binding of isaac with guns. Really.

Awesome amount of weapons, cool bosses, really hard and secrets everywhere. It might be a bit too hard from me, particularly since i suck at bullet hell shooters. But that out of the way it offers all the fun and addiction i want out of a roguelike, and some of the frustration as well. The upgrades available are a cool addition, but ultimatly moving forward is always up to you as a player, as skill is the biggest deciding factor as to how far you can go.

There is coop, but still very basic, and the way its built into the game it essencially makes it harder for the two players involved.

Definitly a lot to enjoy in this one, and because of its focus on the actual gameplay, it goes a long way to make it the best roguelike out there as far as im concerned. It was really a struggle at the time to let this one go to try out other games.

Edit: reviewed in 2016. Since then the updates fixed a lot of the core issues in the gameplay and added a lot of variety to build potential, effectively making it one of, if not the very best roguelite out there now.