Endless Dungeon seamlessly blends multiple genres to give a game that is fresh and not your run-of-the-mill roguelike.
Gaming is at a very odd place; it seems like every small indie studio is trying their hardest to get people to try their take on the Metroidvania cozy life-sim Soulsborne roguelike. While this creates competitive and repetitive gameplay, developers need to get more and more creative with their games if they want to snag any attention.
One excellent example of this is Endless Dungeon, a dungeon-crawling Roguelike that throws in Tower-Defense and a bit of Horde-based survival, then mixes it together with some good old witty comedy.
Now, Endless Dungeon is a bit of a wild mishmash of different genres, which is not easy to get them to work together, especially if a game like this is coming from an indie studio, but that’s the thing, the people behind Endless Dungeon are no ordinary indie studio.
Amplitude Studios is a video game development studio that was first formed in 2011 by none other than the former employees of the infamous gaming giant Ubisoft. The studio is based in Paris, France, and was formed by Romain de Waubert de Genlis and Mathieu Girard.
Since its formation, the studio has successfully pumped out quite a few games with them, releasing Endless Space in 2012, which was a space exploration mixed with a turn-based strategy. Then there was Endless Legend in 2014, which, much like their previous title, was a brilliant turn-based strategy game.
Then there was Endless Space 2 in 2017, which, as you would have guessed, continued where its predecessor left off and would continue the studio’s running gag of adding “Endless” to the front of their games. Sadly, this trend would stop after the release of HUMANKIND, but as you could probably tell from the start of this review, this trend would return once more with Endless Dungeon.
As mentioned earlier, Endless Dungeon is quite an interesting blend of multiple genres. At first glance, you may just look at Endless Dungeon as nothing more than a simple dungeon crawler, but that’s where you would be wrong. You see, Endless Dungeon combines dungeon crawler, RPG, tower defense, and horde survival, making it a roguelike, well, more of a roguelite.
You begin Endless Dungeon with a stunning opening cinematic. Two space-faring bounty hunters, gloating about past glories, find themselves fast approaching a mysterious space station, expecting the worst as they arm themselves while the Sweeper hides. Sadly, these two don’t get to see much action as one is hit face first with a metal beam, and the Sweeper crushes the other; yes, you play as said Sweeper.
Armed with a mop and an “acquired” gun, Sweeper heads off to discover what the station has in store, and soon, he will meet the first of your many teammates, Zed. As with other roguelites, this first level is meant to act as a tutorial, meaning you are bound to fail so that the game can explain the Respawn mechanic. However, this tutorial covers most of what you will need to know throughout the game, such as resources.
Endless Dungeon has three main resources – Science, Industry, and Food. You will use these various resources to fulfill the necessary tasks on levels such as getting Health Kits, setting up generators.
And getting science to research new turrets to protect both yourself and your Crystal Bot. You get these resources by exploring and opening doors, but if you have a generator going, you will get a bonus of a certain resource.
In Endless Dungeon, you are given many things to do with the very vital goal of protecting the Crystal Bot. This nifty little robot is incredibly important as it is your lifeline and occasional weapon against bosses. If your Crystal Bot ever gets destroyed, then sorry for you; back to base you go. The biggest danger to your Crystal Bot will be the waves of enemies that are seemingly dead on destroying the poor thing, and you can prevent its destruction by building turrets.
Turrets come in a wide variety and serve different purposes, and there’s your standard Sharp Shooter Turret, which deals neutral damage. Elemental Turrets come in a wide range of shapes and sizes and are meant to exploit enemy elemental weaknesses.
Last but certainly not least, Support Turrets do a variety of different things, from slowing enemies down to repairing other turrets. In the beginning, you will only have access to Sharp Shooters and some Support Turrets, but if you use your science resource, you can unlock others.
Aside from keeping your Crystal Bot alive, resource management is the next most important thing, but not really. There’s a lot of emphasis on being careful about what you use your resources for, but in all honesty, you will never run low on any resources. Occasionally, you might run low on industry and science, but that’s nothing a generator can’t fix.
That’s not to say Endless Dungeon is an easy game; it is far from easy. In fact, you will frequently find yourself in the safety of the Saloon, your home base. The Saloon acts as your typical home base in other roguelikes, and you can buy hero upgrades, accept quests, and, of course, glorious weapon upgrades too. Each hero has their own unique set of upgrades; on top of that, so do their guns.
However, do keep in mind that there’s no guarantee what guns you’ll get during your runs, so upgrade accordingly, and don’t just dump upgrades on one gun and leave the rest. As with everything in life, there is a price to all these tasty upgrades. On top of having to pay for them, you also need to meet certain requirements beforehand. Even with all that, your heroes can only have more than one upgrade after you’ve completed certain quests for them.
Speaking of heroes, starting in Endless Dungeon, you will first only be able to play as Sweeper, but after successfully finishing the tutorial, you will gain the ability to play as the brash battle-ready Zed and the thicker-than-a-snicker robot enforcer, Bunker.
These three characters offer a pretty balanced and varied play style, and the three of them cover each other’s weaknesses. Depending on who you pair together with, it will either make your run far easier or more difficult. You will unlock more characters after meeting their requirements, and it’s always nice to see some new faces in the Saloon.
During your runs, players will also have a chance to choose a second character along with their playable character. This secondary character will be AI-controlled and also demonstrates that in order to fully enjoy Endless Dungeon, you need to bring a friend.
Endless Dungeon is an absolute joy to play co-op, and it makes planning out a strategy even more enjoyable. If you want to play it solo, by all means, do so, but you will be missing out on one of the game’s best features.
Another one of Endless Dungeon’s best features is its sound design because it is simply phenomenal. Most of the game’s dungeons consist of wide-open rooms, which means there’s going to be an echo, which there is, but if you have a keen ear, you will also notice that the echo effect disappears when you’re in a confined space.
This little detail, though many would consider insignificant, actually plays a vital role in the game’s immersion and just shows how much effort went into the game. The sound effects are punchy and impactful, and the explosions are loud.
But the footsteps are quiet and distant; everything is so well-balanced. That’s not to mention voice acting, which is filled with charm and shows that the voice actors had a ton of fun bringing these characters to life.
The art design of Endless Dungeon is also phenomenal. The game uses color in a way that helps both differentiate levels from one another and make the player characters stand out. While the characters you play work well with the setting, their colours are notably brighter and more vibrant than the environments.
The environments themselves are far from dull, and they just use a far more muted color spectrum than the characters. The game knows when and when not to use colors, and this once again shows how much thought was put into this.
Overall, Endless Dungeon is packed with a ton of things that just make the game an absolute joy to play. The game has snappy and responsive combat, fun and varied gameplay that never feels grindy or repetitive, and just a great cast of characters. Though the single-player experience isn’t the game at its peak, it is definitely worth your time, and you won’t regret it.
