Enter the Gungeon

Those who know my specific gaming predilections will be well aware that the roguelike (or roguelite) genre is probably the one genre guaranteed to immediately grab my attention as soon as a new game in that category is released. Just last year three of the games in my game of the year list were roguelikes, and in 2012 I even deemed Spelunky to be my favourite game out of everything released that year. So yes, it’s a genre I seem to quite enjoy. I’ve never been averse to the dual-joystick shooter genre either, so needless to say, it wasn’t going to be long before this roguelike dual-joystick shooter appeared on my radar.

Enter the Gungeon starts with a brief intro sequence setting out the story of a fortress on a faraway planet, that was one day destroyed by a gigantic bullet that struck from the sky. The fortress was rebuilt over time, and is said to contain an artifact of great power – a gun that can kill the past. Adventurers from all over the galaxy are drawn to this place in search of the artifact, and this is where the game begins for you the player. If you think this all sounds like complete nonsense so far, that’s because it pretty much is, and it only gets sillier as you play further.

After completing a short tutorial sequence, you’re given the opportunity to enter the eponymous Gungeon with one of four starting heroes (known as “Gungeoneers”), and immediately you’ll see the extreme level to which this game takes its fetishisation of guns. The elevator you descend to the first floor in is essentially a giant bullet casing, the halls are decorated with what could best be described as a very “bullet-like” motif, and then of course there’s the slew of enemies you’ll be facing – a lot of whom are basically anthropomorphic bullets. If you haven’t worked it out by now, this game is pretty much all about guns, bullets, bullets, guns and more guns (and bullets).

So it would be only natural that a game so heavily about guns would have a lot of, you know, guns in it, right? Well if that’s what you’ve come for then you won’t be disappointed, as there are over 180 different guns and projectile weapons available to be found throughout the Gungeon. These can range from reliable classics like simple handguns and shotguns, to more powerful assault rifles and laser beams, right up to completely weird and wonderful weapons like the Stinger missile launcher – which launches a missile which does explosion damage, but also releases a swarm of bees to sting any enemies that are left. Or perhaps The Barrel, which shoots fish out of it which can momentarily stun your enemies. Or why not the Magic Lamp, which if you shoot an enemy with three times, a genie will then appear to punch them. I could go on for a long time like this, but won’t because a big part of the fun of Enter the Gungeon is discovering all of this crazy crap for yourself. And every time you come across a chest is an opportunity to potentially try out a new weapon or item.

Aside from the fun factor of having such a diverse range of weaponry at your disposal, you’ll need as many of these guns as possible to take on the ever increasing range of baddies, known as the Gundead. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of these enemies are literally big, walking bullets of varying shape, size and strength, whose weaponry reflects their very clear personality traits (shotgun shells will come at you with a shotgun, rifle bullets will be armed with sniper rifles). But beyond those, there are suicidal grenades which if not killed quickly from a distance, will hurl themselves at you and explode. There’s the magical bullet wizards, who can conjure up formations of bullets to hurl at you, and birds that will regurgitate eggs that explode into – you guessed it – a whole lot of bullets. And this is just a sample of the first floor. It’s not just the weapons that are plentiful, Enter the Gungeon is replete with a wide and creative range of enemy types.

Once you’ve managed to fight your way through the halls of the current floor, your final challenge will be to defeat the boss of that level. There is a different pool of potential bosses for each floor of the Gungeon, and these are randomly chosen every time you start a new game (and are all named with some form of gun or bullet wordplay). But regardless of whether you’re facing the Gatling Gull, the Trigger Twins or the Bullet King (to name but a few), you can be guaranteed you’re going to be up against an enemy that will flood the screen with bullets, forcing you to make full use of your dodge roll and whatever cover is available. Should you survive this onslaught and slay the boss, you’ll be rewarded with a shiny new weapon or item, as well as some currency for unlocking other weapons for future playthroughs. And true to the roguelike formula, there will be many, many future playthroughs.

More than being just an absurd variety of weapon, item and enemy types, Enter the Gungeon plays very well too. The controls are tight, which is essential for bullet hell games like this one, and as a result it rarely feels like you’re being “screwed” by the game when you take damage, rather that you messed up yourself. The random nature of how weapons and items are obtained will sometimes make runs arbitrarily easier or harder, which might be frustrating to some. I personally enjoy the feeling of the unknown, and that the next item you find might be the one that changes your fortune.

Probably one of the most noticeable problems with how the game plays is the camera, which will “lean” in direction you’re currently aiming your weapon. This is fine the majority of the time, but once you start getting to crowded rooms, and particularly in boss fights, you might find that enemies are sneaking up on you from outside of the screen while you’ve got it pointed towards the other end of the room, which is frustrating to say the least. The lack of online multiplayer is also disappointing, and local co-op is limited to only two players and forces the second player to take the role of a generic, cloaked character called “The Cultist”. This character’s starting items really drive home the fact that it is very much a secondary character, and sort of makes it feel like that player is just along for the ride rather than equally contributing. I can see how the developers would have felt too many characters would have made the game too easy, too crowded or both, but I feel like they could have just re-balanced the enemies to account for the second player using one of the original four characters. On top of this, the camera issues mentioned above are amplified ten-fold when playing local co-op, which makes the lack of online co-op all the more painful. As a result, Enter the Gungeon plays best as a single-player experience.

I’ve put in about 25 to 30 hours myself so far, and I'm still having a blast with it. The randomly generated levels ensure you’re always on your toes exploring the Gungeon, and there are plenty unlockables to obtain and hopefully make it easier to make progress in future runs. Even once you’ve made it to the end, there’s still work to do to try and put together the “gun that can kill the past”, as well as Enter the Gungeon’s own version of Spelunky’s “hell run”, providing an extra challenge to players once they’ve mastered the basic playthrough. Basically this has all the hallmarks you’re looking for in a good roguelike, and if you’re in the market for a good pick-up-and-play game with heaps of replay value, you could do a lot worse than giving Enter the Gungeon a look.

Enter the Gungeon is available now for USD $14.99 (AUD $22.95, GBP £10.99) from the PSN store for PS4, and on Steam for PC, MacOS and Linux.


Thanks for reading! If you liked this review you can check out some of my others here on Giant Bomb, or over at my personal blog - Deadpan Gaming.