Title: Dungeon of the Endless
Platform: Nintendo Switch eShop
Developer: Amplitude Studios/Playdigious (Switch version)
Publisher: Playdigious
Release Date: May 15th, 2020 (NA)
File Size: 2GB
Review copy provided by Playdigious
This review is actually massively overdue. I’ve tried for months to just play it adequately but only managed to do so a bit. It’s not the game’s fault (well, aside from the difficulty) but mine for just not being good enough to play it as well as I wish I could. However I will do my best to review it. I do have good things to say about it, so don’t for a second that I will act poorly against it because of my own faults,
The character select screen.
Dungeon of the Endless has an interesting bit of history. It may not look like it, but it’s actually a Sega IP now. That’s because Sega recently bought the developer of the game, Amplitude Studios, along with their IPs. Amplitude right now are busy making their big new game directly with Sega; Humankind (sadly not coming to Switch). Here though is one of their recent pre-Sega titles. Which in comparison to the high-end-looking Humankind, is instead a much simpler-looking sprite-based game. Make no mistake though, there’s A LOT under the hood in this one.
The game is I suppose can be best described as a tower-defense meets a rogue-like? You start by picking two difficulties; Easy and Too easy. As you may have figured out by now, both aren’t exactly easy… if at all (maybe to those who breeze through this game I guess). Anyway, you then pick two characters from a modest beginning selection of characters of different classes and you’re on your way.
The first random room in a dungeon. You can see the crystal, and a playable Pug!
You then start in a room with a big golden diamond-shaped crystal. This crystal is what you’re protecting, but it’s also got to be taken somewhere. Your task is to first open doors you’re faced with which open one room at a time. Each floor is randomly-generated, so obviously that means you’re never in the same floor and room arrangement twice. Another factor is the enemies that come out of the woodwork to start working their way towards the crystal. But luckily you can defend in various ways.
The most handy method are these sorts of turret guns you can build in each room you’re able to (seemingly most of them). These cost a small amount of currency that you start with but gain more as you open more rooms. These guns automatically shoot enemies without relenting. However each gun of course is only so powerful, and if too many enemies show up, then some will slip through the cracks. That’s why you need to try and build more turrets in rooms leading towards the crystal.
Buying a Prisoner Prod III upgrade (the aforementioned turret gun).
In certain rooms, you may be able to buy upgrades, armor, and whatnot. Upgrades include more powerful turret guns. Another simple way to defend is of course, with your characters. They automatically fight enemies that they encounter, but kind of don’t hold a candle to the turret guns, so you’re encouraged to hit and run back to the crystal when possible, as you auto-heal there.
Eventually you’ll find the last door leading to the next floor, that’s when hell will begin to break loose. More and more enemies will begin coming towards the crystal, eventually so many will show up that you’ll have little hope of completing the main objective; carrying the crystal to said exit. You must have one character carry the crystal and pray that the other can help defend you and the crystal. Naturally if the crystal or both players are killed, then it’s game over. Also you’ll want to have both characters make it to the end or the other will get left behind.
A couple pieces of artwork you can unlock.
Visually it looks perfectly fine. It’s colorful, yet simple with the deliberately low-res pixel art-style. What’s actually a shame is that upon starting a new game, you’re treated to a brief cutscene featuring a 3D spaceship being destroyed. Like you get a brief bit of 3D graphics (very Star Fox SNES-looking actually), yet the gameplay itself is 2D. Oh well. The performance is rock solid at 60fps, and after a few patches, the game seems to load much faster now than it did in the beginning.
Audio-wise there’s a bit of music but it’s more atmosphere than anything catchy. Sound effects work nicely, with lots of “pew-pew” from the guns and such. No complaints here. No voice-acting that I ever noticed. Actually there’s barely any dialog, just when you clear a floor and are riding the elevator you get a bit of a voiceless text box comment from the survivors.
“I believe in miracles!”
That’s about the best I can say about the game, but I think it works very well for what it does. The game demands a lot of multi-tasking and consideration of resources, like there’s food and other things you need to worry about. It’s a hell of a lot to take in. You’re not encouraged to just sit around and just let the turrets kill enemies over and over again as you don’t gain experience or anything. But despite all of this, I can absolutely praise it for the depth there is. It’s clearly well-made. I just can’t recommend this for beginners. This is one I PLEAD that you watch a video of first. Frankly I wish I didn’t ask for the review copy, but you reap what you sow as they say. I hope I did good enough.
You’ll Love:
+ It’s very in depth. You’ll have to be on your toes keeping track of everything.
+ You want a challenge? Then do I have the game for you!
+ Visuals while a low-res pixel style that looks appealing and colorful with a nice sci-fi theme.
+ You can play as a Pug. What more could you ask for?
+ You can unlock artwork in the game.
+ Has screenshot and video capture support.
You’ll Hate:
– Again, the excruciating difficulty just was NOT for me and was the cause of this LONG delayed review.
– NO d-pad support of any kind. You can’t even use the Switch’s button re-map option to swap the stick with the d-pad, I checked. Very awkward in a game with such selection-based gameplay.
Score: 8/10