Exit the Gungeon | a Review
originally published on 18/02/2021;
Hello everyone, I am the escapee G.E.M.Simov, an angry spastic fellow that’s really lacking in Dopamine hits because of his recent engagement in exiting the Gungeon. I’ll tell you all about that!
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
This one is not made by Dodge Roll, exclusively, and it feels, looks, and is DEFINITELY not made by Dodge Roll AT ALL. The fact of the matter is this game looks as if it was made for a phone, or tablet, and then someone decided to bring it over to the PC. The main concerns I had when I went into it was whether or not the spirit of the first game had been conserved, and then whether or not the game was good on its own.
It fails on both fronts. It is just an alright game, on its own, and, as a spin-off, as a continuation of Enter the Gungeon, it fails miserably. It is far worse in almost every aspect, and let me start listing them off:
For starters, completing the tutorial, while mashing the E key, to skip all the talking, lasts 5 minutes and 30 seconds. It feels as if it takes way too long to get done with it, and, the worst part is, the player is not allowed to challenge themselves, because the tutorial is BAD, compared to the tutorial of Enter the Gungeon. In his one, when the player is introduced to a Blank, and urged to use it, the amount of bullets that are fired, and made out to be impossible to dodge, is so small that the player CAN dodge them by using the Dodge Roll.
However, due to the fact the tutorial is bad, trying to Dodge Roll, at all, triggers some kind of fail safe, activities the Blank and has the text reprimand the player for trying to Dodge. This makes the player WORSE at the game because it sets a bad example. It tells the player that Blanks are only to be used in special cases, but then presents a case that is LAUGHABLY easy to dodge, impossible to compare to anything the Bosses of the game might have to throw at them. It feels as if the individuals in charge of making the tutorial purposefully made it bad so as to inflate engagement metrics by having the players learn how to play the game in a bad manner, and thus be worse at it from the get-go, which forces them to invest more time into it.
This is not even the cherry on top - Blanks do not remove all attacks, because now half the attacks bosses employ are some kind of appendage or limb, or they summon goons, which do contact damage, so a Blank is not even the end all be all of saving yourself. What’s worse is that due to the fact the game is a phone game, thus a pile of objective fecal matter, it does not let the player input too many commands at once, because that might be them doing it on accident, and so I can’t even use my Blanks when I want to, and the Blanks no longer leave the player with a breathing room of 1 or 2 seconds of no enemy projectiles being fired, they just keep going so it’s not even worth it to buy and use Blanks - just get a lot of Health and tank all the attacks.
Additionally, the game has been dumbed down significantly. There is no longer an option to steal from shops, there are no longer secret rooms, there are no longer keys, there are no longer active items, many of the guns and passive items have been cut down in quantity, and the characters all start with just one passive item, their starting gun being utterly worthless.
The shop has been made into a mockery, one that does not allow for the player to ever realistically buy 2, let alone 3 or 4 items per Chamber, and the pricing of items seems to have gone to hell, because, at Chamber 1, there are still items which cost 180 casings.
The unlocking of Non-Player-Characters (NPCs) has been made worse, as it is tied to the player DECIDING to buy a key, which is not always available, thus picking whether or not to sacrifice the current run’s success chance so as to get something new in the future. On top of that, the key merchant is not always present when there is an NPC that can be unlocked, unlike in the old game, where, if there was an NPC that was unlockable, if the player killed the appropriate enemy, they would 100% of the time get a key.
Not only is it more difficult to get a hold of items, it is far, far more inconsequential. The only thing worthwhile are items that increase the player’s health, because most of the other passive items can appear like temporary power ups, and then there are actual passive items that just allow the player to get pick ups without having to walk over to them, meaning that there are actually worthless items that do not help the player get stronger in any way, shape or form. Even with 4 items increasing the damage I was dealing, in a certain run, I still needed a whole magazine to kill some of the enemies who used to die in 3 hits in Enter the Gungeon, and I’m not talking about a Klobbe magazine, I’m talking about an SSA magazine.
The Guns that have been carried over into Exit the Gungeon, from Enter the Gungeon, have been tweaked a bit. That does not mean that they are good - in fact, it feels as if they have purposefully left out some of the cool weapons so that they could have some of the WORST weapons. Klobbe, that one with Helix bullets, Blunderbuss, Nailgun - they’re all in there, but, at least, the one with Helix bullets now has a projectile that goes and actually tries to hit the cursor.
One of the most unpleasant things about the guns is that the fellas who made the game left a large number of weapons that require some time of just holding down the attack key, or moving, without rolling or falling, to get up to the point where they can fire. The player can’t weave singular shots in between dodging, because they need to stand still to do so. This is most noticeable with charge-up weapons, which no longer charge by holding them down (and said charging working while rolling), instead, they charge automatically, but it seems as if the player needs to spend at least 0.5 seconds without dodging, which, in this stupendously fast paced game, means taking damage and potentially dying.
Another ridiculously stupid thing is that every run is blessed - so the player has one gun only, and that gun is random, determined by a combo meter which increases as the player kills enemies and Dodge Rolls through bullets or enemies. The higher the combo, the more LIKELY the player is to get a high tier weapon, which does not always mean that the weapon will be good. Some S tier weapons are objectively trash, so the reward of playing well is not even worth it.
The silly thing is that the game tells the player that the weapons swap every few seconds, but they do not actually do that - they swap based on damage done, so I would urge the player to enjoy spending literally minutes with trash like Klobbe and less than 10 seconds with the AK-47. OR, you could get a single shot with the Makeshift Cannon. A SINGLE shot, if you’re lucky enough to even get it.
The worst part of it all is that everything is now on a platform, which is fine when the platform cannot be fallen off of and has no additional mechanics to watch out for, but, anything past Chamber 1 is a hellish abomination which features shaky camera, moving platforms, additional sources of damage that the player cannot do anything about, other than avoid, which overlap with enemies attacking the player, which creates far more chaos than Enter The Gungeon itself could ever hope to achieve.
Not only that, but enemies can spawn as either flying or normal versions of themselves, and the worst thing is that they can spawn beneath the platform, OFF SCREEN, and can still attack the player, without being visible. In fact, they are sometimes totally hidden, and the only thing the player can see is the bullet flying towards them.
The overall pace of the game has been doubled, if not tripled, and getting through a boss without getting hit is far harder, because of how chaotic everything is, how BAD telegraphing of attacks is, and how small the area for operation is. Everything is cramped, enemy bullets fly far faster than they did in Enter the Gungeon, there is almost no window of opportunity between Boss attacks, and the health of said Bosses is unreasonably high, and keeps increasing based on Chamber, but the player’s damage does NOT increase, unless they got lucky with a +1 Bullet.
The issue with the increased pace, higher health, moving platforms which offer no interesting gameplay and just serve as means to remove the potential of a player to get to 20 combo, or kill them altogether, as well as the opportunity to fall off of the platforms because the enemies all converge upon the player, and, in the later stages, when the player has no means of increasing their damage and some guns require two magazines to kill some of the ordinary enemies, forced upon them because contact damage is still a thing, serves to create a horrible, mangled mess that is based entirely around how lucky the player gets and how many heart containers they can obtain.
Dodge Rolling is not a thing bound by finesse or skill, no timing is needed. Just jump and roll, spend as much time rolling as possible, and the player will viably avoid a massive amount of damage. The few times when the player is incentivized to actually time their Dodge Rolls correctly are placed very inappropriately, right after sections that require that the player spams the space bar. The flow of the game is atrociously fast, and it is TOO fast.
The most horrible offender is the final boss - the Last Dragun - who moves sporadically, fires often, and his attacks have NO room to be dodged, unless the player is lucky and the projectiles that fly off in their direction are relatively sparse. The worst thing is that the Dragun has three or four attacks that make him invulnerable, and, due to the fact there are so many of them, he uses them quite often - at least once per engagement, if killed quickly, which just creates a horrible picture of unreasonable downtime for the player’s damage, which is forced upon them and disrupts their opportunity to do anything, other than just sporadically dodge in hopes of achieving something, anything.
There is an optional boss that LITERALLY has two times as much health as the Last Dragun and uses attacks that CANNOT be dodged. It feels as if the fellows who made this game took a look at Enter the Gungeon, without playing or understanding it, and figured - the way to make a sequel is to make it so there are so many bullets that it’s impossible to not take damage, multiple times! It’s reasonable and wonderful!
The game’s gameplay is not fun, and it’s honestly an example of bad game design that I did not expect to see from something associated with Devolver Digital, or Dodge Roll. 1/3
Presentation
Unexpectedly, the Presentation of this game was far more striking than the Gameplay. It is unfortunate, but it seems as if things all went downhill from Enter the Gungeon. The manner in which the text bubbles pop up and flow about is unpleasant, leaving the player with a sticky feeling, as if it is hard to get rid of them - that might be because there’s some artificial delay on how quickly the command to skip gets taken in (courtesy of it being a phone game and thus forced to put in some kind of limitation so as to avoid accidentally allowing the player to skip over stuff that might be important). Not only that, but the loading screens are this poison, Epilepsy inducing yellow that just strikes one in the face, hurting their eyes whenever they swap from the reasonably dim interiors of the game and end up in a loading screen.
This is obviously some bad byproduct of this being a phone game, and I do not see why the cylinder spinning underneath a Bullet Kin could not be kept - it was far more appropriate. Even when the lights in my room are turned on, and even when the brightness of my screen is down to 25% of its total capability, it still leaves me feeling as if I’ve accidentally maximized the brightness and flashed myself. It’s unpleasant, very much so.
Another issue with the presentation is that it tries to follow the same direction as it did in Enter the Gungeon, and, commendably, everything looks almost like it does in Enter the Gungeon, with a few exceptions that are not that notable. The fact that the Last Dragun is a 3D model (at least looks very 3D, painfully sticking out) is one jarring example. However, the most noticeable thing is that, while almost perfectly emulating the sprite-work of Enter the Gungeon, when it comes to the full artwork for the characters, they have been changed considerably, given a cutesy appearance and made to look different, so much so that it almost invokes some kind of shell-shock.
Another minor gripe that just adds up to the rest, instead of allowing for a proper inventory screen, everything is jammed into the menu, and the more items the player has, the more they need to scroll to see what it is that they have. In addition, the credits, after beating the game, have a still image (that only serves to rile up the wrath caused by the different artwork for the characters), and the credits take three to four times longer to get through, even if the player is trying to skip. That’s just rude for the individual who’s grown tired of looking at them after the sixth or seventh time they’ve gone through a High Dragun kill.
The most GRIEVOUS issue is, however, a lack of consistency, which doubles over into the Gameplay section. Sometimes, the player can stand behind a bit of terrain and use it as cover. Other times, the player can stand behind a bit of terrain and try to use it as cover, only to find that it does not work as cover. There is no visual distinction between one and the other, which brings a very BAD game design practice of inconsistent visual language, because there is no distinction between things that do provide cover and things that do not. This is very, VERY bad.
Another instance of the Presentation being so bad that it gets in the way of play the game, the Player Character does not stick out. It is easy to lose track of one’s own character and then realize one has been hit by the time they manage to find their sprite again. That is owed up to the fact that the camera no longer makes an effort to follow the character (or keep them centered on the screen), there is no longer an outline between the character and the background, and there seem to be some overlaps with enemies, meaning that the player can end up behind an enemy sprite and not even know it.
The font is also different, but that’s forgivable and very minor. Unfortunately, the game does not hold up, due to the fact that the visual presentation directly interferes with Gameplay. 1/3
Story
It is the opposite of Enter the Gungeon. The Gungeoneers (Player Characters) did their thing, and now the Gungeon is falling apart. So, they need to Exit the Gungeon. The story is conveyed in much the same way as Enter the Gungeon, and if that was all there was to it, I would have given it the same rating as I did Enter the Gungeon, but there is an issue. Some characters behave so blatantly out of character that it is hurtful, in a sense. Some details of the story are actually completely botched.
Some characters blabber on about things that DID NOT HAPPEN in the previous game, as if they did, and it just keeps becoming more and more ridiculous as time goes on. SOMEHOW, the Resourceful Rat imprisoned EVERY SINGLE ONE of the NPCs, and put them in the Gungeon. Except that it was never shown that the Resourceful Rat went to the Breach, or even knew about the Breach, or that the NPCs in the Breach, as well as the guards in the Breach, would all just lie down and let themselves get captured.
Or why do the NPCs even stick around after the player frees them? The Gungeon is collapsing, it’s destroying itself, but NPCs willy nilly go down to the LOWEST level and open up shop. They’re not, at all, worried about the potential doom that awaits them? Interesting. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? No! This pile of steaming dog-poop does not get anything! In fact, it’s so unbelievably bad that I realized that going to university to learn how to make games, even if redundant for me, as everything they taught me was COMMON SENSE, is actually NEEDED for people, because this game was made, and it was paid for, and the people who made it were also hired and paid to make it. THIS IS BEYOND RIDICULOUS! Abominable, unfathomably bad! 0/1
Conclusion
3/10. This game is BAD. Do not play it. Do not even consider buying it, unless it is on a 50+% sale on Steam. This is a disgrace, not only for Enter the Gungeon itself, not only for Roguelikes, not only for Bullet Hell games, it’s a disgrace for ALL of Gaming.
I throw it onto the wall of shame and sigh. At least I still have Enter the Gungeon.