Enter the Gungeon | a Review
originally published on 11/01/2021;
Hello everyone, I am the entrant, G.E.M.Simov, a dodgy character here to let you know how good or bad the Enter The Gungeon is at dodge-rolling.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it. Also, I am a gameplay designer and a writer so I got the credentials to talk shit.
Gameplay
Enter The Gungeon, henceforth referred to as EtG, is a top-down roguelike game with a heavy emphasis on bullet hell elements. It has the player pick a character and then traverse through the Gungeon (Dungeon, but with Guns), killing enemies (by shooting them with guns) and avoiding being shot at by the guns of the enemies. To do that, the player has the dodge roll at their disposal, which provides them with some invulnerability frames.
Unlike other games that feature a mechanic that incorporates a dodge roll, or a roll in general, EtG has a proper manner of informing the player when they are actually invulnerable, and when they are, again, vulnerable. It is stated, in the mandatory tutorial (which can be skipped), that the dodge roll makes the player invulnerable for the first half of its duration, which is, more specifically, the amount of time the player spends in the air (because the dodge roll begins with a leap, having the player soar through the air, a measly step or two, and then they land and roll).
Knowing that allows the player to be better able to plan out their movements and to more adequately react, and also waste less time figuring out when the dodge roll keeps them safe and when it does not. That is good.
EtG is a game that benefits incredibly greatly from a thing called the skill ceiling. It is a game that is easy to pick up and can be enjoyed even by folks who are not really good at it, but it is one that allows for the players who invest time into it, and get really good at it, to enjoy it even more. In fact, it is possible to ignore everything that makes the player more powerful, use the starting weapon, and still beat the final boss - all the players needs is the skill to do so. That is a magnificent, wonderful thing.
However, this would be a challenge the player would want to take on once, and not bother dealing with it again, as it would be nerve wracking, at the very least. What were those things that make the player more powerful?
Items - be they passive, active, or weapons - are what makes the player more powerful… In theory. The player starts off with a certain gun (based on their character), which has infinite ammo, as well as, possibly, another gun (which has finite ammo), some passive items, and possibly some active items. One would assume that the player would be very strong by having that many starting items, but that is not the case. They are somewhat helpful, but the strength of the player actually comes in the form of having many, many items, or some of the good guns. Therein hides the issue.
There are bad guns. There are also bad items. Consider, then, this situation:
Player A starts off the game and finds a chest. Chests are how the player can obtain an item (if the player has a key). The player opens the chest and obtains a RANDOM item. It could be a weapon, it could be an active item, or it could be a passive item. It could be a good weapon, or it could be a bad weapon.
Strangely enough, instead of opting to make it so that all weapons and items are useful, or at least equal in power to, say, the baseline, starting gun (with infinite ammo), there are weapons which are incredibly weak. While the starting gun kills an ordinary enemy in 3 shots, some weapons, that can be found in a chest, might require more than 10 shots to kill an enemy. That’s not good, because the random chance suddenly gives the player an option to give them something utterly useless. That’s not conducive to fun or enjoyment.
In addition to that, there are some chests that are special - they give the player an item that synergizes with another item, meaning that something special happens when the player has both items. Well, supposedly, they do. It would appear that those chests, which also require a key to open, actually do not give the player something that their items would synergize with - at least, not 66% of the time. Instead of having that chest (which has a chance of spawning, and then there’s a random chance of the player having a key) be a 100% upgrade, in the form of a synergy, it is, instead, another bit of reduction on the overall chance that the player might become stronger and get something useful out of their investment.
The game has items that are purposefully bad, which lessen the chances of the player obtaining items that are good and will allow them to enjoy the experience, and has inconsistencies in itself already. But there are other issues.
While trudging through the Gungeon, the player collects money. That money can be used to buy items from stores (which can be found in the Gungeon) or obtain other services. Interestingly enough, however, the rate at which the player obtains money is… Random. There is no rule that makes sense when it comes to that. Even if the player clears a whole floor of the Gungeon without getting hit once, they can still end up with less money than they would need to buy an item from the shop.
That’s bad game design - you present the player with something that they can have, but then do not give them the opportunity to get it. The worst offender is the first floor of the Gungeon - the player has no means of obtaining money, other than killing the enemies on the floor and hoping they give out some money. There’s a chance for money to drop, but it isn’t certain. This is not good, because it takes away the fun of the player, and it does not reward good playing.
Another issue is that the player, if they play well, might get something - the chance that something happens increases little by little, if the player cleans out rooms without taking damage. If they take damage, the chance of that good thing happening is reset, down to 1%, and thus the potential for a reward is removed, but, get this, ladies and gents, the reward is a chest… That is locked.
Why is that a problem? Well, firstly, there is a whole slew of chest types - there are brown, green, blue, red, black, rainbow and upgrade chests. If the player gets lucky, and they chance upon getting a reward, there is a chance that it might be a chest that’s likely to contain bad items - the brown chest, for example, is notorious for containing the lowest tier of guns and items.
Not only that, but the player might not have a key. The way to obtain keys is to either get lucky and have one drop when the player clears a room, or the player can buy a key from the store, which means that the player can no longer afford the other items in the store, because they spent their money on a key. The issue is that there are at least 2 chests per floor, each locked. Whenever the player is “rewarded” with an additional chest, they need to procure 3 keys, if they are to be able to get all the items they can get from the floor.
However, that chance of having enough keys is just that - a chance, and a small one at that. As it turns out, the “reward” for playing well, that the player can get, is actually not a reward. It’s just another thing that taunts the player, whispering in their ear of a potential timeline in which the player got lucky and got enough keys to open all the locks and get all the items (which, remember, could be bad).
This thing, this chance of getting things, equates to a CHANCE of having fun. The player COULD end up having fun, if they are lucky, or they can be unlucky, and they’ll be miserable. “Well, there's that black chest, but I don’t have a key, and the SUPER good item that’ll probably drop from it will remain unobtainable.” The player ends up thinking to themselves how they wish they had done something differently (even though there is nothing they could have done, it’s all chance), and that diminishes the quality of the experience.
Another GRIEVOUS issue is that this game has a mechanic that LIMITS the amount of fun a player can have, by lowering the chance of obtaining high tier items, based on the number of high tier items that have already been obtained. The worst thing is that high tier items are not necessarily good items, and thus the player might find a high tier item, and it turns out to be worse than something else they already have, but that still lowers the chance of new high tier items from appearing by a large %.
If the player has 1 high tier item, which would mean they were already quite lucky, the chance of the next high tier item that they get (after being lucky again) being downgraded and made a lower-tier item is 80%, meaning that the more good things the player has, the less likely they are to get more good things. Already, the chance of getting an A or S tier item are, in total, 13%, but, if the player has 1 A or S tier item, that 13% suddenly becomes less than 3%. If they have MORE than 1 A or S tier item, however… The chances of an A or S tier item remaining an A or S tier item become LESS than 5%. That 13% chance? It’s less than 1% now.
The player cannot get SUPER lucky and just get all the good items and have an unfathomable experience of just CRUSHING the Gungeon and enjoying it tremendously, because that would be… Too Fun? There is literally no reason, other than to limit the enjoyment the player can derive from the game. This is bad game design.
After all those things that I have pointed out, all these grievances, all the issues with this game, one being that it’s based on chance and no matter how good you are you are not guaranteed to have fun, because it is not fun to spend 5 minutes shooting at a boss, only to then get the equivalent of a pair of socks for Christmas, is it going to be relentlessly destroyed?
No. It’s actually quite pleasant. The gameplay is smooth, most of the time, and there are some interesting and unique items that can completely change the manner in which the player plays the game. The bosses, found at the end of each floor, are interesting and pose a reasonable challenge (if the player has gotten lucky enough to get a good gun, otherwise the challenge is unreasonable if the boss is on any floor other than 1). The attacks of said bosses are well designed, some are reasonably telegraphed and can be anticipated, which allows for playing around them.
The normal enemies also have queues that allow the player to prepare and play around them right, they have behaviors, which, for the most part, are consistent and can be learned, allowing for a more knowledgeable approach to yield greater results. The gun-play is simple but pleasant, satisfying, even, and the fluidity of motion is also great.
As much as I despise the manner in which the game has been designed, and a limit on how much fun a player can have has been implemented, it is still a very good game to play, gameplay wise. 2/3
Presentation
EtG is, as mentioned, a top-down game. It is one that utilizes a more retro appearance, displaying everything in a 16-bit manner, heavily pixelated as a stylistic choice that is not at all bad, which also presents the player with a game that can run well on even low-end machines, which is good, when it comes to a game with gameplay such as the one observed in EtG.
In addition to that, EtG features a very pleasing for the eye lighting system, which really makes things pop and adds a vibrancy to the visuals of the game that is quite appealing. The sprite work is great, with each character being distinct from the rest and easily recognizable.
The music of EtG is not overwhelmingly great, or totally astonishing, but it is decent. It is not something I would go out of my way to obtain and listen to, while not playing the game, but it is not grating or irritating enough, to the point of making me mute it. The sound effects are great, with some guns sounding so good I’d rather use them just because they tickle my ears in a fancy manner. All in all, the presentation is stellar. 3/3
Story
EtG has a limited story. While one would assume that, seeing as it has a LARGE amount of inspiration taken from Dark Souls (in the form of NPCs, Items, approach to items and manner of NPC speech, as well as how NPCs are brought to the HUB), EtG would have a vast lore that makes the experience even more enthralling, it is not the case.
Truly, EtG HAS an interesting premise and a good execution, when it comes to its story, but the main manner in which lore is gotten is through conversation with NPCs, who have a few lines of dialogue that shed some light on the matter, revealing there is even more to it than one would expect, but then that’s it. There are some things that are present in the game that appear to contradict the lore, itself. Supposedly, the walls of the Gungeon shift constantly, but then there are areas which are always the same, without an explanation being provided as to why that is.
The descriptions of the items, one would hope, are going to be more helpful in revealing more of the story, and, as it seems, they are… But not consistently. There are some items which have joke descriptions, which are literally just some kind of reference to another thing, and do not build upon the lore or explain the world.
The premise, as I said, is interesting, but the good execution is undermined by certain inconsistencies and an inability, forced upon the player, to dive deep and find out things that satisfy their want to know more about the world of EtG. 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time?
Considering everything stated by yours truly (me) so far, I have to inform you that the game does not obtain the legendary point. While it is true that I enjoyed it, greatly, it must be noted that much of my pleasure with this game came before I had truly come to know its intricacies, while the game was new and unknown to me, while I was still struggling to learn its ways. After I got decently good, I lost the joy I got from playing, as I would constantly find myself missing the keys or the items needed to make my runs through the Gungeon more pleasant.
So I got a mod that allows me to access a console and input commands that do things, such as giving me items. I’d give myself an item or two at the start of a run, so that I’d have something good, and so that I could utilize it to enjoy the process. I needed to, theoretically, cheat, to have fun at the game again, because it IS, and felt, so, so unfair to me, the player.
As a result, the game does NOT get the Legendary Point. 0/1
Conclusion
7/10. Enter the Gungeon is not a bad game, at all. It is actually a very, VERY good game, if a bit too overwhelmingly praised by its players, though, when one considers what its competition is, one starts to see it in a different light. Alas, I review games based on themselves, and only themselves, thus EtG is just a very good game.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining achievement that I proudly display. It could have glimmered even more brightly, but that will do.