Ever been shot at by a shotgun shell with a shotgun, I have...
Welcome to the Gungeon
Now Bullet Hell games aren't really my thing, I'm more into tactical, taking my time, and planning style games. I don't mind the frenetic pace of a good shooter now and then, but I'm not into the Binding of Isaac or anything like that usually.
Gungeon is a game that's sort of warmed me to Bullet Hell, it's fun, and it's quirky. Most of all though, it's packed with tons of guns from the practical, to the downright bizzare. The Gungeon Ant, a gun that resembles a giant ant, and spits some kind of poisonous acid, then fire.
Now that's what I'm talking about!
If you're going to have guns, guns, guns in a game then having guns, and more guns that are radically different seems like a badass way to do it. So what is Enter the Gungeon, apart from having Bullet Hell DNA...
The Classes
You play a Gungeoneer, the name given to your adventurer picked from the ranks of the Marine, Pilot, Convict, and Hunter - with an additional co-op only support Gungeoneer, known as the Cultist.
Each one of these classes brings something new to the table in the Gungeon, tailored for a specific playstyle and given various loadouts.
The Marine: is a good all-rounder, he can call in an ammo drop, has a pretty good starting gun, and gains bonus armour which saves him from taking damage to health.
The Pilot: gets a discount for the shop, has a reasonable starting gun, and can pick locks. He's a pretty capable character, good for those players who want to get a bit more bang for their buck when they visit the shop. He also has a secret pocket so he can carry one extra active item, plus 10% magazine size for all weapons - BONUS!
The Convict: has two guns, her jam-prone revolver with a low clip size (5) and a shotgun, which is pretty solid for dealing damage up close and personal. She gets a damage boost when she takes damage, and has an AoE Molotov cocktail which comes in handy for clearing groups of smaller enemies.
The Hunter: With her trusty side-kick dog, oddly new-old revolver, crossbow, and nimble movement, the Hunter is a pretty good class. Especially since that crossbow can often one shot strong enemies in the Gungeon, though it takes some practise and a clip size of 1 means you need to be accurate with it or waste a shot.
The dog can sniff out mimics too, those nasty enemies which like to hide as chests.
The Cultist: A true co-op character, activated only in co-op, the Cultist is a support style character. Their dart gun is OK for a weapon, they have a Friendship Cookie which can bring back a fallen ally when used at the right time. They also have a stat booster for a passive item, this boosts the Cultist stats when an ally is dead so they can keep fighting long enough to use that cookie.
You know where you are, you're in the Gungeon Baby!
Enter the Gungeon has a tutorial, you can ignore it and just dive right on it, but I'd recommend playing it just so you can get to grips with some of the ideas in the game. Like you won't know your dodge roll (dive roll) has a few frames of invulnerability attached unless you play the tutorial, or bother to read this. Dodging though gunfire is a life saving technique in the Gungeon, and you'll need it.
Get the basics out of the way and you'll be well on the way to starting a Gungeon Run.
The Gungeon is broken down into floors, each floor belongs to an area, like the Keep and everything in that layout is randomly generated. Rooms are built of the same stuff, with varying enemy types, the layout of those rooms remains the same. These rooms have exits, some of these lead to corridors, and there's teleporters for fast travel, plus tables you can knock over and push around for impromptu cover.
Basically whilst the interiors aren't randomised, the layout of the Gungeon floor is, so you'll always have some kind of different labyrinth to explore. There's a host of Bullet Kin (the bad guys), and other enemies to deal with, and every floor has a boss room which guards the elevator down to the next. It's sort of Spelunky meets Bullet Hell. There's always a boss room, always a shop, always a certain number of interlinked rooms and so on.
The bosses are cool, Bullet King is a giant bullet which fires more bullets. Gatling Gull has a giant gatling gun, a gull's head, and a muscle-man body.
The bosses are also pretty tough, especially for someone like me, who's not into the whole 1000s of bullets screaming at them every second.
Sure there's blanks to counter that, but these little smart-bomb style pickups are rare, and you can only carry a few. Make them count since they stagger bosses, and make all bullets drop to the ground or vanish.
It's the random layout, loads of guns (in chests), and sheer fun of the game which brings you back for more. It's decidedly retro in design, hearkening back to the 8-bit days, only more polished. The animations, the reactive rooms (littered with debris after a firefight), the Ammonomicon (where all your information is stored, including details on bad guys and guns), the music, and everything is just packed with tons of charm.
It's really quite brilliant.
However, it might not be for everyone, especially those people who can't get their head around a twin-stick style, Bullet Hell shooter with so much going on at times it's quite overwhelming.
It's why we've not given this one a Must Buy, but for fans of Isaac, and other Bullet Hell style games, it should be a no brainer given the sheer wealth of great stuff to find and loot.
Now I'm going to go back to the Gungeon, there's a gun with my name on there waiting for me.