This is an odd game to judge. It's absolutely addicting, though for all the wrong reasons. There is interesting progression, though with a total lack of precedence or substantial automation. There is both base building and top down rogue-like gameplay. However, both become rather shallow once you're a few hours in. There's just far too much babysitting and needless padding for me to really sit down and genuinely enjoy this game. There isn't a way to absorb all of the surrounding essence, and the cap for devotion is far too low on the main totem. You have to manually instruct your followers to do the most obvious of things, such as laying in bed to fight off a sickness. And these things constantly progress while you're in the dungeon. There are good ideas surrounding this, but the time element here just feels off. Famine events are unique and a step in the right direction for this type of risk/reward to adventuring. However, I feel that you have to hand hold far too much for these events to feel worth while. Combined with the generic stupidity of the NPCs, it can be difficult to spend more time out and about completing the actual quests rather than tending to gardens, cooking meals, and doctoring the ill.

This is hopefully another Devolver title that improves substantially with time. Enter The Gungeon wasn't released in any form near the masterpiece it became after a few years of patches and content additions. There is a listed roadmap for this game in progress, and I think the "sex" update that is to be released soon addresses some of these concerns. Time will tell.

With this said, I can't tell if this game was intended to be speedran - quickly slaying through all 4-5 of the dungeons - just to finish the game, resetting with new doctrine decisions or if it was intended to be this long grind to build up an ensemble of a cult like following. It supports both options, but in all honesty this game is probably best enjoyed plowing through the main content rather than scaling up your base for improved weaponry, relics, and curses. It's essentially a casual and cute game that's pretty to look at, but shallow on deeper consumption. The progression ends far too soon, and exists more as horizontal damage progression rather than providing enough new and unique ways to enjoy and play the game. It's enjoyable and fun initially, however I wouldn't recommend this game in it's current form for those who are more interested in the traditional difficult/rewarding rogue-like game format (ala Hades, Gungeon, Issac, Nuclear Throne, etc) which stand to still be enjoyable 200-300 hours in.

This is an odd game to judge. It's absolutely addicting, though for all the wrong reasons. There is interesting progression, though with a total lack of precedence or substantial automation. There is both base building and top down rogue-like gameplay. However, both become rather shallow once you're a few hours in. There's just far too much babysitting and needless padding for me to really sit down and genuinely enjoy this game. There isn't a way to absorb all of the surrounding essence, and the cap for devotion is far too low on the main totem. You have to manually instruct your followers to do the most obvious of things, such as laying in bed to fight off a sickness. And these things constantly progress while you're in the dungeon. There are good ideas surrounding this, but the time element here just feels off. Famine events are unique and a step in the right direction for this type of risk/reward to adventuring. However, I feel that you have to hand hold far too much for these events to feel worth while. Combined with the generic stupidity of the NPCs, it can be difficult to spend more time out and about completing the actual quests rather than tending to gardens, cooking meals, and doctoring the ill. This is hopefully another Devolver title that improves substantially with time. Enter The Gungeon wasn't released in any form near the masterpiece it became after a few years of patches and content additions. There is a listed roadmap for this game in progress, and I think the "sex" update that is to be released soon addresses some of these concerns. Time will tell. With this said, I can't tell if this game was intended to be speedran - quickly slaying through all 4-5 of the dungeons - just to finish the game, resetting with new doctrine decisions or if it was intended to be this long grind to build up an ensemble of a cult like following. It supports both options, but in all honesty this game is probably best enjoyed plowing through the main content rather than scaling up your base for improved weaponry, relics, and curses. It's essentially a casual and cute game that's pretty to look at, but shallow on deeper consumption. The progression ends far too soon, and exists more as horizontal damage progression rather than providing enough new and unique ways to enjoy and play the game. It's enjoyable and fun initially, however I wouldn't recommend this game in it's current form for those who are more interested in the traditional difficult/rewarding rogue-like game format (ala Hades, Gungeon, Issac, Nuclear Throne, etc) which stand to still be enjoyable 200-300 hours in.