Dungreed (PS4) Review

 

Dungreed (PS4) Review

Release Date: 14 February 2018

Date Played: 13 May 2022

Dungreed is a cute, fun, addictive, but faily flawed rogue-lite dungeon crawler.  It certainly came out during the rogue-lite craze that was taking over the indie game scene in the late 2010s and is still going strong.  It draws heavily from the games that influenced it and seems to mainly take its queues from other rogue-lite darlings, Rogue Legacy and Enter the Gungeon.  While it isn't as well designed, expansive, and well... good as either of those, it's still a nice game that can get it's hooks into you for at least a dozen hours or more before you're able to wriggle free.

You play as an unnamed adventurer who visits a town that's been swallowed by the gaping maw of the anthropomorphized dungeon gate. As you explore deeper and deeper into the dungeon, you'll rescue the town's inhabitants and build new homes for them as you rebuild the world above.  Of course, your goal is to venture further and further into the dungeon to stop whatever great evil is hidden there. It's a basic story without much lore going on.  It really only serves as a vehicle to get you into the gameplay, and that's totally fine with me.  If you're one of those gamers that likes to delve into subtle clues and hints about the game's world, you're not going to find much of that here.   

The gameplay loop is the same as most rogue-lites and consists of two parts.  There's the main gameplay element of exploring randomized dungeons that are full of randomized weapons and upgrades.  You're supposed to "build" your run around the strengths of the items dealt to you in order to string something together to conquer the dungeon.  You'll collect gold, unlock new items, rescue town members, and defeat bosses as you work your way deeper and deeper.  When you die, you lose all of the items you've collected on the current run and are only able to carry back a fraction of your gold before attempting the dungeon again.

The second half of the gameplay loop is the "meta" game that occurs in the overworld between your attempts in the dungeon.  As you progress you'll earn experience that will help you level up your character and make him a little stronger for the next run (up to level 30).  Depending on which skills you decide to improve as you level up, you'll gain new abilities like a double jump, and damage bonus, and extra dash, etc..  Since you have a maximum level, it won't take long until you realize that you can't put skill points into everything and you'll have to pick and choose how to best build your character for your playstyle.  Luckily, you can rearrange your skill points at will with no penalty.  In addition to this, you can unlock new costumes (which are actually new characters) that have different strengths and weaknesses to take into account.  Finally, the town members you've rescued can provide you with randomized gear to help you get started on your next run. This is supposed to give you a sense of progression in the game in those moments where you fail miserably in your dungeon crawling attempts.  Unfortunately, the "meta" game isn't very expansive and you'll soon exhaust that sense of progression and will be stuck trying the dungeon over and over again without any changes or improvements to aid you.

The gameplay itself is just a sidescrolling hack and slash platformer almost exactly like Rogue Legacy.  You run around, and avoid enemies and their projectiles while killing them for their loot as you explore the dungeon.  Each room serves as a battle arena that has to be cleared before you can move onto the next room.  There are a couple of tweaks to the formula to help Dungreed stand out from Rogue Legacy.  The first is that you have access to guns in addition to melee weapons.  This is where the game draws its inspiration from Enter the Gungeon.  Often times, these guns are very powerful as they let you keep your distance from the hordes of monsters.  To balance this, they have to be reloaded when they run out of ammunition thus leaving you vulnerable to enemy attack.  Luckily, unlike Enter the Gungeon, you have unlimited ammo for your guns and don't have to worry about running out of it.  The second tweak that sets the game apart is the hunger system.  Near the entrance of each floor of the dungeon is an tavern keeper who sells a randomized assortment of food.  This food is used to strengthen your character and make them more powerful during each run.  The food also comes with a fullness level that will fill your character's hunger meter.  As you continue to find and clear new rooms of the dungeon, your hunger meter will deplete and allow you to purchase more food.  Thus, it behooves you to find the tavern keeper as soon as possible on each floor and then to fully clear all of the rooms of the dungeon to build up more hunger so you can eat all of the food you possibly can.  If you're able to manage your hunger meter well, you'll soon find yourself absolutely wrecking all of the enemies you come in contact with.  This is by far the most interesting mechanic of the game, and I wish they had expanded on it more because there is some real potential there.

You'll also run into shop keepers, treasure chests, challenges, and other various non-combat rooms as you work your way downward.  Hopefully, you'll find some equipment to help synergize with your current build.  You have two weapon slops and 4 accessories you can equip to make a loadout and you'll often be tinkering around with the items you've collected while trying to make your character as strong as you can.  After you've explored sufficiently, you'll find the entrance to the boss fight for that floor.  There is only one boss per floor and they are always exactly the same.  So, once you learn their patterns, they become more of annoyance rather than a challenge.  When you take them down, you'll be rewarded with a boat load of gold, a healing item, and your choice of 1 of 3 items (or upgrades) to help you along your way.  With enough min/maxing, skill, lucky upgrades, and awesome items, you should be able to build a run that will take you all the way to the end.

The graphics of the game are very cute and have a nice pixel-art aesthetic to them.  Once again, it's very heavily influenced by Rogue-Legacy and at first glance, it might be difficult to tell the games apart. Still, everything is nice and colorful and all of the areas feel very different from each other.  It really breaks up the flow of the game, which is desperately needed in a repetitive game like this where you're doing the same areas over, and over, and over.  The music on the first floor is an absolute banger and can hang in there with some of the best video game songs of the last decade or so.  Unfortunately, after this the music isn't quite as memorable or catchy.  It serves its purpose well enough, but it stands out in stark contrast to that awesome first track.  You'll be humming along to it while you play... the other songs, not so much.

On the technical side, the game plays fine.  However, as of the current date, the game's trophies are bugged and almost none of them unlock if you're playing the physical copy of the game.  Even after putting in a dozen hours I hadn't unlocked a single trophy in the game (some of which are just for killing the first boss in the game, etc.).  The only two trophies I was able to get to unlock were the one for eating 13 pieces of food in a single run and the one for finishing the game for the first time.  It looks like a lot of other people are having the same issues getting the trophies to unlock.  I messaged the publisher, Nicalis, and didn't receive a response. Oh well...   If you're a trophy hunter or completionist, you'll have to stay away from this one.

Conclusion:

Dungreed is fun, but just doesn't have the staying power as many of the best rogue-lites out there.  The overworld "meta" game hits a road block with only 9 town members to save and a cap at level 30.  It makes the vast majority of your runs feel like a waste of time.  There's not really anything to spend your gold on outside of buying food from the tavern keeper, so bringing it back to town when you die is pointless.  Not only that, the items the people in the town give you to help are usually garbage items that you don't even want to bother using.  Also, the vast majority of the items you pick up on your run don't do anything to help.  Most of the items are different weapons, and once you have the one that you've decided to use for your run, picking up another weapon that you're not going to use feels like another waste of time.  There's nothing like finding a legendary weapon that you built your run around, and then the next 25 chests you open are all common weapons that you'll never use.  Also, being limited to 4 accessory slots really inhibits how much fun you'll have in the game.  It prevents the ultra-zany builds you get in a lot of rogue-lites where you're so overpowered that the game becomes more of a spectacle than a challenge.  I think this is one of the best parts of any of the games in the genre and Dungreed really shoots itself in the foot by curtailing your ability to go out of control. It gives players an endorphin rush knowing that there's the possibility that they'll find some crazy combination of items that will allow them to get past the hurdle that they've stumbled over again and again.  In Dungreed, you never really feel that way.  There are extremely powerful items, but the same ones show up over and over while others never appear.  The game needs a bit more randomness and items that work together rather than replace each other.

In the end, Dungreed is just an average game.  It is more fun at first when you're leveling up, unlocking new items, and saving townfolk.  But, after a few hours of that, you've unlocked everything.  If you don't finish the entire dungeon, you've just wasted an hour of your life because your previous dungeon run was meaningless.  With only a few characters, a smallish weapon and item selection, and limited accessory slots, most runs start to feel the same.  This is not something you want to happen on a game that's meant to be played over and over in an endless manner.  If you've played some of the rogue-lite greats (Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, Enter the Gungeon, Hades, Slay the Spire, and Faster than Light, etc.) give this one a shot.  You might be able to kill a couple of dozen hours with it.  If you haven't played one of the aforementioned games, play one of those instead.

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score: 7/10

Rogue Legacy (PS4) Review

 

Rogue Legacy (PS4) Review

Release Date: 14 June 2013

Date Played: 16 December 2021

Introduction:

Rogue Legacy was one of the first big releases in the rogue-lite boom of the early 2010s.  Along with Spelunky, Faster than Light, and The Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy was on the tip of everyone's tongue when it came to what was going on in the gaming world.  The developer, Celler Door Games, took classic sidescrolling action platformer and mixing it with randomized elements that served to create addictive gameplay that is still as compelling and fun as it ever was.  Personally, I originally played and finished this game on PC back when it came out in 2013.  I was excited to crack open my PS4 copy and give it another go around almost a decade later. Since then, I've played my fair share of rogue-lites and would consider myself to be somewhat of a connoisseur of the genre and was hoping the game would remain fondly remembered in my mind. Would this game still be able to hold up after all these years and after so many great games came after it?  Unsurprisingly, the answer is still yes.

Story and Gameplay: 

The game begins with a valiant knight venturing into the castle to find and save the king who has been reputed to have fallen deathly ill after an injury. The word around the land is that the king has disappeared and no one has seen or heard from him in far too long. Not long after, as a double whammy,  you learn that this savior knight has not returned from the castle either and you must traverse the castle yourself to discover what terrible fate has befallen him. You play as the descendants of the missing knight and in typical rogue-lite fashion, when you die your run is all over.  You then begin the next run as one of the decedents of your previous character; and so on and so forth until you finish the game. It won't be long until you've seen countless generations pass in your attempts to conquer the castle.  Along the way, you'll discover journal entries from the very first knight to enter that sheds a little bit more light onto the story.  It's very basic, but intriguing, and does serve to help keep the player engaged over the dozens of attempts it will take them to conquer the castle. The game's resolution is pretty strong and makes the somewhat arduous and lengthy journey worth it. I won't spoil anything for you, but rest assured that the storyline of Rogue Legacy has some nice flavor and plot to it that is a real plus in an indie community more focused on novel gameplay ideas rather than narrative.

When you begin a new run, you select from one of three randomized characters who, as I previously mentioned, are the offspring of the character which you previously played.  These characters have various classes like barbarian, knight, wizard, hokage, and more.  They do have their strengths and weaknesses but mostly play the same way at first.  As you progress and unlock more classes, things start to feel more and more different between them and can certainly make different runs feel more unique. However, this "uniqueness" is definitely on a smaller scale and most of the time you'll just be jumping and slashing with your sword the same way in almost every run.  In addition to this, every character has randomized physical and psychological traits that add a spin to the game.  One character might have gigantism that makes them twice as large, or ADHD that makes them hyper fast; while another will have visual impairments like color blindness, nearsightedness, etc.  Alzheimer's makes your map disappear, OCD rewards you for destroying all items in a room, and many more give a lot of flavor and humor to the game. While a lot of these are only more for novelty than actual gameplay changes, they are still a nice touch and add to the already fantastic sense of comedic thoughtfulness that was clearly in the forefront of the developer's mind.

After this, you'll enter the castle properly and begin to explore it, gather wealth and collect items, slay enemies, and platform your way through its plethora of rooms as you uncover more and more of the map. Of course, everything is randomized in true rogue-lite fashion and every journey into the castle will have the rooms shift and change into a new configuration that is sure to keep you on your toes. You have a basic sword attack, a jump, and a sub-weapon/magic attack.  It is very reminiscent of Castlevania and even the sub-weapons are taken from that beloved franchise.  There's the dagger the shoots straight ahead, the axe that is lobbed out in an arc, a chakram that works like a boomerang, a circle of fire, and several more I won't spoil here.  Suffice it to say, if you're used to those sorts of games you'll feel right at home here. Keeping with this theme, there's the frustrating and difficult enemies, perilous platforming, knockback when hit, and spikes all over the place.  Luckily, the platforming is much, much better in this game and you have superb control over your character not only while on the ground but also when jumping and falling. Unlike the inspiration for this game, you're not committed once you press the jump button.  Maneuvering while in the air is integral to your success in this game and mastery of the tight and responsive controls is a must.  In addition to this, you're given a downward pogo stick attack like in the NES Ducktales game.  This is an essential technique and you'll need to employ it as you make your way through the castle's 4 main areas.

You'll travel through the stony castle, the surrounding forest, the haunted towers, and the caverns below.  As you go through these, you'll collect tons of gold, blueprints for new gear, and runes to help you out.  Eventually you'll come to a boss in each area that you'll need to destroy before unlocking the door to the final boss. This is nothing new and is a gameplay style as old as the genre itself. Of course, even getting to these bosses is easier said than done and even the most basic rooms can spell disaster if you're not ready.

Unlike most other rogue-lites, you don't really find any new items during a run to change up the gameplay.  Whatever you set out with when you enter the castle is going to be what you're going to be stuck with for the duration of that character's life.  While this keeps things simple, it does make a lot of runs feel the same and deprives the game from having those zany and fun item combinations that you find in so many other rogue-lites with randomized equipment. I was really longing for item synergies and crazy off-the-wall situations that can result from having this sort of randomized game progression during a run.  While it isn't game ruining, this is certainly my biggest complaint about Rogue Legacy and I wish there was more variability during an individual run; and even between the different runs themselves.  

Where the game DOES vary from its peers is after you die in an attempt.  And, trust me, you will die... plenty.  Your next character inherits all the gold and items of your previous one.  You can use the gold to purchase upgrades, new abilities, new classes, weapons, armor, and runes to help you on your journey.  These are permanent upgrades that apply to every character you use from now on.  So, even though the game is tough as nails, no run is ever wasted and you will slowly become stronger and stronger over time.  I really like this system in that it allows you to tailor your characters' progression to the style that you prefer.  Want to focus on defense, go for it.  Melee, magic, critical chance, money farming, etc. ; go for what playstyle you like.  Over time you can max out everything if you want to put in the hours. Any gold you don't spend though, is forfeited when you enter back into the castle, so you'll need to use every last coin that you can before you dive into the next attempt.

Even if you're terrible at these games, you'll eventually become strong enough to succeed.  In addition to this, you'll soon realize that after you slay one of the area's bosses, it stays permanently dead.  That means you only have to kill each boss a single time during all of your attempts.  You'll also be able to unlock the Architect, an NPC that allows you to lock down the castle and prevent it from randomizing in between runs (for only a 60% cut of your future gold!).  This cuts way down on having to redo the same areas over and over again and can really help with the monotony that can tend to set in with this game after a while. This prevents the terrible situation of having to clear 75% of the game over and over again just to make a new attempt at the 3rd boss.  If you die on a boss fight, just have your child lock down the castle and you can teleport right to the boss room and give it another attempt. This certainly makes the game more manageable and forgiving. Without this, the game would wear thin far too quickly.

Presentation:

The best way I can describe the art style of Rogue Legacy is that it looks like a more cartoony version of Castlevania.  Everything is mostly bright, colorful, and while basic, is pretty nice to look at. There is a whimsical and campy charm to it that makes it memorable. It's not going to shatter your mind in the graphics department, but it has that early indie-game look to it that is pretty tasteful and nostalgic. There's a definite "from the early 2010s look" that, thankfully, never really ventures into the "Free Online Flash Game" territory that was so sadly extremely prevalent from the time period.

As for the music, that's another story.  The soundtrack to this game absolutely brings the talent.  There are no shortage of awesome hooks, creepy Halloween-pop bangers, and slick ambient and atmospheric songs to keep you humming along.  They are presented in a sort of psuedo-chiptune style that is very endearing and likable.  These songs are so good, in fact, that the developers put random little jukeboxes around the castle to allow you to change the music to your favorite track whenever you find one.  They knew they had something special on their hands in this regard, and they weren't wrong.  In addition to this, the sound effects are also amazing and fit with the game perfectly.  The weapon, enemy, combat, and item breaking sounds are charming and a pleasure to hear over and over. I would try to smash every item I came across when I played, and even if I didn't find any gold, I still felt rewarded with the sound design. Honestly, even sound of your character taking a hit or dying  sounds punchy and meaty. It will be branded into your mind not only from how often your hear it, but also from just how well it's done.  Honestly, I can't say enough about the sound design in this game and I have to give it up to Judson Cowan and Gordon McGladdery on their phenomenal work on this soundtrack.

Conclusion:

Rogue Legacy is still as fun today as it was when it came out 9 years ago.  Yes, there have been more innovations in the genre since then, but the fun and addictive gameplay is still there.  Upgrading your characters never gets old and it's a joy to see each generation becoming more and more powerful.  Clearing a boss in each area of the castle is still a challenge that makes you want to give it another shot when you fail and is all the more rewarding once you finally put them down for good. Many times, I would sit down to play for an hour or so and would find that 3 hours had passed in the blink of an eye. Like any good rogue-lite, you have that desire to do just one more run. Yes, the game can start to feel a little heavy on the grinding as you do run after run just trying to farm gold to upgrade your character for the next attempt, but it never gets too bad or kills your desire to play more.  I do wish each run itself had more variability after you entered the castle through item pickups or something similar.  Once you begin a run, there's no real sense of progression other than the gold you collect.  Still, it's always fun to explore the castle and its surrounding areas as your hack and slash your way through countless enemies, platform over perilous spikes, and avoid fireballs from all directions. I also really like the cavalier and blatant disregard for life that the game drives home as generation after generation of adventures die again and again in pursuit of conquering this castle. It's comical in a macabre sort of way that really hits on my twisted sense of humor.

This game is considered one of the classics in the genre for a reason and I would recommend it to any fan of 2D platformers. You can finish it in about 15-20 hours on your first playthrough, but you could put in more than 100 hours if you wanted to go for New Game + and beyond.  

Final Status: Beaten (Twice)

Final Score: 8/10