Endless Dungeon (2023) [PC] review

“Huh, at least you’re armed.  Good start!”

-Zed

Endless Dungeon is the newest game by Amplitude Studios and is a roguelike that mixes twin-stick shooter and tower defense elements. Players are able to control a selection of up to three of the eight unique characters through a decrepit space station while guiding a robot carrying a super powerful but fragile crystal to the core of the station.

Once you look through the saloon that serves as the game hub during your attempts to get to the core of the space station, you step on an elevator pad to choose your starting location and characters. Then, it is time to start opening doors.  It is a big space station, there are a lot of doors between your party and the elevators to the next floor, and not all of them go quite where you need them to. Luckily, each opened door gives much-needed resources, the quantities of which can be increased by building generators on specific nodes dotted throughout each floor.  The doors can also hide useful research stations, upgrades, and shops. On the flip side of that, though, they can also hide rooms that serve as nests for a variety of monsters that REALLY like the taste of the crystal your little robot is carrying. And with each door the player opens, a powerful aspect of the game starts to show itself more and more, simplicity.

Now, the simplicity does affect some aspects of the game negatively, but there’s a caveat to most of the complaints that require a little backstory. See, Endless Dungeon, while not a sequel in a traditional sense, is not the first roguelike Amplitude has made. They have a very similar roguelike that follows the same door-opening tower defense formula called Dungeon of the Endless. This initial foray into the roguelike genre takes the form of a slower-paced, almost RTS style of gameplay, but it has a few extra mechanics such as operating generators, which meant you had to leave a character in a room to have them produce more resources from built generators. In addition to that, towers in that game can get a little more crazy with things like the KIP Cannon, which does damage based on the amount of science points you’ve hoarded. These extra mechanics create a deeper strategic potential to fit a slower game, but Endless Dungeon aims to prove that with its faster gameplay and constant action, it doesn’t need crazy levels of depth – and boy does it.

Right from the quick tutorial as the first run begins, fans of the genre will notice precise and simple controls for moving, shooting, placing turrets, and using abilities. Being walked through the interactions of both genres, combined with glossaries of enemy behavior and terminology, allows players who are new or experienced with the genres to give the game a shot without feeling too overwhelmed. Mid-run upgrades, aside from the weird use of the word ‘efficiency’ to mean the strength of a buff or debuff, all have clear wording and give impactful effects. Towers are all very clear about what they do, so you’re never left guessing what works or doesn’t work in certain spaces. Resource economy can be fairly consistent if you do things in similar ways, and it’s not too hard to get most of the same upgrades from one run to the next. Functionally, this means that this roguelike doesn’t rely super hard on luck to win a run. The enemy pool is small, but every enemy is threatening in a particular way. Hence, the challenge comes from being able to plan around each enemy to get around their unique attack method or defenses.

Despite all the good this game does, we can’t ignore some of the things that it does objectively do wrong, most of which take the form of glitches of various shapes and sizes. A good chunk of the issues are fairly benign, like pathfinding issues on the AI and certain collectibles not updating in the total screen correctly. There are, however, more critical issues such as certain achievements that are quite hard to go for simply don’t unlock properly, and sometimes there are invisible walls that lock you out of a part of the level required for progression, ending a run prematurely. With a runtime clocking a successful run anywhere from one and a half to three hours depending on how quickly someone is moving, losing that time unfairly can be a bit disheartening.

Aside from these hiccups, which Amplitude has acknowledged a good chunk of and is releasing hotfixes fairly often to fix the issues as they can, Endless Dungeon has a lot going for it and still is a blast to play solo or with friends. Its effective, yet simple design makes it an easy recommendation for fans of either genre.

PIXEL PERFECT

Recommended

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