SP Review: Enter The Gungeon (XB1 - PS4 - Switch - PC)

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Sturmvogel Prime
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SP Review: Enter The Gungeon (XB1 - PS4 - Switch - PC)

Post by Sturmvogel Prime »

Here I go again with my reviews.
This time is Enter the Gungeon.

Reviewing bad games is just like Leliel told to Shinji in the 16th episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion: "No one can justify their existence by linking their happiest moments into a kind of rosary". If we apply that to gaming, we can't justify the existence of videogame reviews by only talking about the good ones and dodging the bad games. That's where I have to write about these disasters, and Enter the Gungeon is an example of how a tower of good ideas fall because of a few bad decisions.



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And the next contestant is: "Jane Doe" the Convict.

This is where the journey begins: Picking a character. Each character has unique features. For instance, The Pilot carries logpicks that help him to open some chests without a key, the Soldier has an Armor Point, and the Convict starts with two guns instead of one and a Molotov cocktail as a bomb.



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They don't give you a chance of reading a book to relax for a while. Damn.

Enter the Gungeon can best be described as an Arena shooter pretty much in the style of the arcade classic Smash T.V., but blended with dungeon exploration like in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but with the procedural generation of Chambers making each session different for the sake of exploration and you'll end up exploring the chambers. Each time you enter a room, the only way to advance is by taking down the enemies there. Like in Zelda, the defeated enemies will drop Rupees, er, Bullet Shells which are the cash of this game. Shells will be the most common thing they're gonna drop and that becomes a problem since you might need a half Heart-Bullet to recover health or ammo. ¿Guess what?, That's dropped by pure luck, and so the Keys to open chests, and trust me, most of the times you won't be able to open all of the chests in a Chamber and sometimes it's open a lock in a room or use the key for the treasure chest. Fortunately, you can shoot the chest and destroy it, but if you do that, the game will give you "Junk" telling you "You should used a key". Also, trying to use the Pilot's "Trusty Logpicks" is a random matter because there's time when they work and others don't, and when they don't they are perma-blocked and they will never open even if you have a key, resulting on a potential useful item lost forever due to an arbitrary decision. Speaking of items, you can left them until you need them. For instance, if you have full health and you're given a Heart-Bullet or Half Heart-Bullet and you leave the room, once you return, it will be gone because a rat called "R.R." has stole your item.

Now, your guns. They have a large variety of weapons from middle to long range and charge-only with their respective amount of pain to deal, and really there's a MASSIVE arsenal that increases the replay value as you get them randomly from either the treasure chests or in the stores, along with other upgrade items like the Heart Containters that add one more heart to your life bar and Backpacks that increase your special item capacity by +1, so you don't have to discard an item. Another feature in your favor is that you can use the tables (both wood and stone) as temporary shields by flipping them, along with a jump/roll that allows you to jump bottomless pits and for move through tight bullet patterns, this second aspect of the Jump-Roll is vital since the game relies on bullet hells and pattern memorization, which is unique for an arena shooter since you'll be facing from the Toaplan grade to Psikyo-styled bullet rains and even enemy sniping. One final detail is that you can also use the tables to slide fast, this is once in a while used to cross a pit in a room. With bullet hells on you and without a shield to protect you, you can at least dissipate the enemy fire using a Blank which is the "Bomb" of the game, although it doesn't damage the enemy it is somewhat helpful for the later bosses in the game, especially in Chambers 4 and 5.

Ocasionally you'll be exploring a room where an imprisoned character is waiting to be rescued and your regular keys are useless. To free them you'll have to find a Gold Key which can be found either randomly on the stage or by killing the boss or mid-boss in the area. Once you've freed the character, he/she will be on the Breach waiting to provide you items or even a shortcut to a lower level of the Gungeon, for instance Chamber 2, But to activate that elevator you'll have to bring them a specific item, for instance 3 Armor Points. But you can't "pay in parts", the repair has to be done "Paid in full", and this is a pain since you'll probably end up losing 1 or 2 AP and sometimes the store doesn't have it for sale.

One of the biggest flaws of the game is that you have to reload constantly and it takes time. By natural instinct I keep holding the fire button hoping for the character to reload automatically, but you have to do that manually by pressing the button again or the reload button. According to the developers they wanted to implement a Gears of War-like reload feature where if you press the button on a certain moment will grant you a more powerful load of bullets, but it was scrapped, leaving this useless reload time. This one is kinda unfair since the enemy doesn't seem to reload during their attacks, leaving you like a sitting duck prone to damage or death.



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Like a vast, predatory bird...

Each Chamber has a boss battle, and like the maze layout, the game randomly selects who's going to be the area guardian. For instance, Chamber 1 has the Trigger Twins (two bullets), Gatling Gull or Bullet King, giving probabilities of 33% or so of fighting the same boss in multiple sessions. The Trigger Twins are somewhat of a cheaterheads because when one dies, the other will enrage and partially refill his health. However, killing a boss without getting hit results in a "Round" item which adds one extra heart.
Before advancing to the next stage, you're given the option to save your game. Just talk to the red button and choose "Save". My only complaint here is that the game only has Save and Quit, sending you to the title screen unlike Zelda or Super Metroid which have a Save and Continue option that allows you to save and resume your game as normal.



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No, It's because I'm the third.

The game features an Item Shop where you can buy items and like the mazes, the inventory is also randomly selected, and you might find useless items like 2 keys, Half Heart, and weapons which have somewhat expensive prices at the point of swallowing up all your Bullet Shells or being virtually unaccessible like a couple of special items that costs 9,999 Shells. Rarely you might find a good item like a Heart Container for an extra heart of life. Also, you cannot shoot around the store because the vendor will take measures against you, starting with a warning, then firing and double the prices and finally banning you from the store by leaving and taking the items with him, and that ban goes on all the floors of the Gungeon.

This Item randomess was unnecessary and it could be more accessible if the option of buying two or more keys could be like "Select the Key, then choose how many you want to buy" like Xenosaga and CrossCode, the same applies to the layout of the store which could be solved by talking to the seller and then have a menu showing the available items, simple yet functional. If the store mechanic they used worked well on Zelda it was because they only needed to sell you health, arrows and bombs, but not in this game.



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Failures of Stupidity.

If the reloading, random item dropping, store banning, high prices and shop structure were bad enough, the most downright, unfair move from Enter the Gungeon is when you die. You are actually given two options: Quick Restart and Back to Breach. While "Back to Breach" is returning to the character select screen and go back to Chamber 1, "Quick Restart", is basically go back to Chamber 1 with your selected character rather than a Continue. If you had a saved game, then say goodbye to it. Like Fission Superstar X, this game deletes your saved game if you die forcing you to reset to nothing. I mean if both options are basically the same thing, why they just didn't send me the [EXPLETIVE] back to the god-damned character select screen? ¿Why they had to "play stupid" instead? ¿For the sake of "False Hope"?, that's not funny or challenging, that's being hostile, cruel and sadistic.

You've might be thinking, is there a way to trick the game and keep the saved game if I close the game before that "Clock-sight" gives me the Coup de grâce?, In No Man's Sky, if you die in Permadeath mode, you can close the game as soon as the random Sci-Fi quote appears and then re-open the game and restart where you last saved, granting you a second chance to progress further. By the way, I found that trick myself when I was playing Permadeath mode during the "Beyond" update. If you're thinking on pulling that stunt on Enter the Gungeon, the game has a final surprise for you.



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Trying the "Emergency Shutdown" trick? Well, nice try.
Now start from scratch like you deserve.


That's right, if you had the idea of pulling the trick of "Closing the game before the "You Died" message appears" in order to save your saved game from being deleted, ¿Guess the hell what?: It is deleted as soon as you take the final hit, effectively FORCING YOU to start from the beginning. In other words, saving the game is useless. Also, there's no option to disable the permadeath, extra lives or "Reserve Tanks" to lift you back one last time for a slight chance of survive. You can increase the heart capacity, but that might not be enough to win. Better get used to that first room with a statue, 'cos you're gonna see it for a long, long time.

(Sigh), The best way to describe the fun factor of this is like being nailed on a wall while everyone else is having fun on a pool party. There's nothing you can do but to watch how those sexy girls wearing bikinis are striking a pose, sunbathing and have fun in the water while you can see how the blood runs from your nailed palms and feet and leave you there once the party is over and probably abandoned to your death if you're nailed on a wall where the sun hits you badly. Sorry if I said something grotesque, but really, I had no choice but to crack an acid humorous rant or else I'll go insane. It might sound stupid, but the cold fact is that the game is even more stupid than the things I've said already. It's videogame idiocy on its worst. But to put it in terms that you can understand, If you apply this to modern RPG's like Final Fantasy XV, CrossCode, Hyperdimension Neptunia or Mass Effect, they'll be commercial failures because they'll become unplayable since they're long games and the saving function is essential for make progress and retry if you die in a battle.



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This creature's scientific name is "Deinoarmamentus Megistus".

Well, this boss is as far as you can get. If you've reached this part of the game, then I applaud you 'cos it actually is as far as you can get in the game. If the game and the stages were Toaplan-like bullet hells, then you'll be facing Touhou Project-esque hell combined with 3 forms and too much health, and keep in mind, if you die it's go back to Chamber 1 and there's nothing you can do about that.



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The "VS Boss" previews are very well made.
We've got to admit that.


Graphically, it looks pretty well for an indie game, at the point of resembling The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Zombies Ate my Neighbors in the dungeon design which is admirable as it stands out from other indie games which most of the times cue the NES and this one goes all 16-bit. The use of bullets as theme is pretty unique for a dungeon-based game, despite having some Adventure Time-like looks and the characters are very 2000's Cartoon Network-like.



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Ghostbusted and about to be sent to the Afterlife.

Pop culture is constantly nodded in the game's weapons. Like Mercenary Kings where you can forge Lion-O's Sword of Omens and He-Man's Power Sword, Enter the Gungeon has Megaman's Mega Buster, the Ghostbusters Proton Pack and a weapon called "Raiden Coil" which is the Plasma from Raiden II, and the Alien Engine description "In the Dangerzone" nods Top Gun. This pop culture stuff also apply to the characters and enemies as well, since the Marine has a Master Chief look and the Gatling Gull boss is a clear reference to Vulcan Raven from Metal Gear Solid, there's even enemies that summon green triangles, red circles, blue crosses and purple squares nodding the PlayStation (even on the XB1 port), and bullet patterns shaped like the PS buttons.



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I am Agun, Gunprince of Gunternia and defender of the secrets of Castle Gunskull.
This is Cringun, my fearless friend...


The Gungeon on the title screen looks incredibly familiar and no, it's not Castle Grayskull, it's Ashtar's fortress from Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos.

The music itself is your basic epic-like soundtrack, as they start with a somewhat calm yet epic introduction proper of an epic film, but then its pace adds ambient and electronic beats when you enter a room filled with enemies, as if the music itself comes to life, but its the "Eeeeeeeen-ter the Gungeooooooon" title screen song the most catchy part of the game.


ENTER THE GUNFACTS
- Gungeon is a portmaneau of "Gun" and "Dungeon"
- This game is the first entry of the Gungeon series, followed by Exit the Gungeon and Enter the Gungeon: House of the Gundead.



In the end, Enter the Gungeon is the perfect example of how a tower of good ideas falls down due to a series of bad, imbecile decisions and harsh difficulty. I can only recommend this game to pain-loving gamers who want their games "Tough as nails" and for those who want to "recommend" a bad game for someone they really, Really, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hate.
It blows my mind that the game spawned a series of sequels and spin-offs with the exercise of cruelty that it is. Next time someone brings a stupidly hard game, it should come with a free memory from god-damned Rekall because we're gonna need one of those false implants from Total Recall to makes us believe we've cleared the game when in reality we didn't just for the sake of putting a smile on our faces.



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One tragedy after another.
Jeez, can't give Lea some time to have a break?
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it290
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Re: SP Review: Enter The Gungeon (XB1 - PS4 - Switch - PC)

Post by it290 »

Is this a joke post? Because the whole 'you died so your save is deleted' thing is a staple of literally every Roguelike game ever...
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We here shall not rest until we have made a drawing-room of your shaft, and if you do not all finally go down to your doom in patent-leather shoes, then you shall not go at all.
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