When I first heard about Enter the Gungeon I had no idea that it was going to be my favorite rouge-like game ever. I played it once with a friend of mine (until seven in the morning) and that was about it for a long while. When the game hit the Nintendo Switch I figured I'd give it a shot; and then I gave it another one... and another one... and another... and I kept shooting until I ran out of patience for bullets. I played the game semi-regularly for two years and only recently beat it. So, time for my thoughts...
To start, the core gameplay is incredibly simple, but it has so much replayability. All you do is run, dodge shoot, and use items. You'd think this would get boring, but the varying enemy types, different characters, and a seemingly unending amount of guns hold up the combat all on their own. Random generation, unlockables, secrets, and difficulty also mesh well with the controls. This mix of simplistic controls and complicated/ difficult additions leads to fast-paced combat that is fun as hell. Whether you die or not is always dependent on your skill. Yes, RNG plays a fairly large roll in this game but it all comes back to how good the player is. You could have the worst gun in the game and still win, or lose with the best build ever if you make too many mistakes. In my time with the game, I died 346 times and played at least 110 hours. I have accepted all of these deaths as my own fault. The game never makes you feel bad when you lose, it just encourages you to do better. When I finally won, the only thing that was different was a simple "congratulations", but because I had earned it I was still very happy. The magic of "the gungeon" is that it rewards the player for getting better, not directly, but through progress. How far you get in each run of the game is its own reward. The thing that really lets Enter the Gungeon stand out however, is its charm. The game maintains a cute and quirky art style, has characters with fun personalities, and is absolutely loaded with gun puns. Everything in the game is gun oriented, but its not in a way that is upsetting or pandering. There's a simple gimmick and it's too it no matter what. Even the melee weapons have gun-oriented names and all of them are branded with a curse effect. The game even has its own fun lore revolving around the weapon. Combine the aforementioned with a slew of pop-culture references, some so remote that you would never notice them the first time around, and you got yourself an experience that's a blast to play again and again. Enter the Gungeon is one of my favorite games of all time, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who's craving a shot full of adrenaline!
1 Comment
11/25/2019 08:34:54 am
I personally find myself getting frustrated with the game between runs mostly do to the lack of impact characters and items have on the gameplay (early on) in my opinion. I'm not very skilled at the game and the core gameplay loop isn't enough to keep me interested for long, so i end up just getting antsy to just good start with a good item after just a few short runs and then I lose interest in the game. I feel the synergy system was a good solution to make items have more immediate impact. I think the best thing they can do though is to just vary-ify the characters, sense none of the starting characters have enough going on to really feel like trying one over the other. I feel a lot the same about this game as a I do with Isaac. Anyways, I'm the Nostalgia critic, and I don't have to, so you remember it.
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AuthorMcRae Walker, an 20-year-old writer and lover of many dorky topics. Archives
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