Games I Love: Enter the Gungeon

Now when it comes to Rogue-lites I've always had a bit of a thing for them when they are done right, things like Everspace, FTL, Binding of Isaac, Risk of Rain to name a few of my favourite ones to date. Enter the Gungeon caught my eye in large part due to it's cartoony and colourful aesthetic as well as it taking the theme of firearms and running with it in every aspect of the game from puns to enemies. Literally everything in this game is a play on that from the enemies bullets with guns and so many I wouldn't want to spoil.

The breach, where you choose your character before a run and do a lot of other things!

As you can see in the screenshot above this is usually the first thing you will see, the so called 'breach' where you select your character and do a lot of other things I won't spoil too much save for one. All four characters have their own passive ability, starting items and default infinite ammo weapon for example the marine is more accurate with all weapons and starts with a point of armour and a single use ammo call-in. The hunter starts with a very useful crossbow and a pet corgi who has a chance of digging up extra items. The convict starts with a sawn-off shotgun, a molotov cocktail and a passive of doing more damage if hit. Finally the pilot, he gets a lockpick item which can be used in place of finding keys to open chests as well as cheaper items from the in-gungeon stores.

Once you have selected your character you get dropped quite literally into the gungeon proper with the task of basically reaching the end. As with many rogue-lites however that is far easier said than done and each death is permanent. I find the combat in this game to be one of it's greatest strengths it is by and large skill based, thanks to the dodge roll mechanics (Dodge Roll is also the name of the dev's.)

The dodge roll itself provides some immunity frames for it's first half which you would know if you played the tutorial (and you should.) It is frankly essential as especially in rooms with lots of enemies it can quite literally turn into bullet hell.

Another thing which helps the game is the variety on offer in a lot of it's aspects, weapon and item variety as well as enemy variety. Enemies all have their own behaviour and AI as well as their own attacks and bullet patterns you need to learn so you don't find yourself thrown back to the breach.

Even after the time I have sunk into it I have yet to see all the weapons (I know the death screen at the end shows 15 runs total but I reset my save a while ago.) There is pretty much everything you can think of and some you likely didn't. AK-47's, UZI's, Tommy Guns, Shotguns of every flavour, bows, crossbows and many more of the 200+ that I just won't spoil. That isn't even getting into the host of passive and active items like health upgrades and molotov cocktails.

Resource management is also a key aspect, from your limited health to your better weapons which have limited ammo and can only be replenished by various ammo boxes (though if you are lucky you can buy some at shops too.)

It's harder than I thought to get good action screenshots in this!

When you get on a good run the game can be insanely fun, when you find the perfect selection of passive items and weapons and plow through the hordes of gundead with ease. The environments and the way they react to battles also keeps the gunplay pretty interesting, fighting in what looks like a library? Then expect there to be books and pages flying about as you and your enemies exchange fire. Whilst luck will always be a big part of rogue-lite games Enter the Gungeon feels genuinely more about skill.

Most all the weapons are at the very least interesting to use and vary in effectiveness from godlike to junk (I am looking at you unfinished gun!)

Boss battles are always interesting and often pretty tense experiences and I haven't seen much less beaten them all yet but as with the enemies there is quite a variety of bosses and even some secret ones as I understand it.

It's not a perfect game by any stretch and the following would best sum up the flaws I think it has:

• Somewhat punishing difficulty level: Whilst this has been improved with the latest content update (Advanced Gungeons & Draguns) it can still stomp all over you but a lot of the difficulty is now centered on the next flaw. 
• The battle against the random: If you don't get a decent weapon on the first floor even beating that first boss can be a grueling affair. Also if you get no ammo drops your better weapons will eventually run dry. Though the latest update did increase the in-run currency drops (brass) so you can sometimes alleviate the RNG with the shop on each floor.
• Wiki syndrome: This isn't the only rogue-lite to fall into this trap and Enter the Gungeon's Ammonomicon (the in game encyclopedia) does explain what most things do. Some mechanics like the way the curse stat works are never explained in game which, genuinely makes little sense to me. Meaning if you want to understand the ins and outs of the game you'll have to search for it outside of the game. 

In conclusion out of the many rogue-lite action games to emerge over the years and the fact this has had two pretty hefty free content updates make this among my favourite games of the last few years. Despite how hard the game can be and the frustration when you get a bad run it is one of the better rogue-lites out there and I see myself getting many more hours out of this.