It’s becoming incredibly hard for a rogue-like/lite to stand out these days, especially when the genre has exploded in popularity over the past few years, with some incredible titles that serve as benchmarks in their dedicated sub-genres. You are bound to make comparisons, and that’s why the smarter approach to getting some attention is by mixing genres, and ensuring that your core mechanics are polished, and fun to engage with. This is precisely what AMPLITUDE Studios has done with Endless Dungeon, and it’s one of the best releases of the year.
Gameplay
Endless Dungeon’s blend of multiple genres could appear complicated at first, but they’re not, which ultimately works in its favor. Essentially, your job is to go room to room in a massive space station with different districts and make your way to the core. On the way, you’ll place turrets, and other defensive structures to make your journey easier, as swarms of enemies do their best to overwhelm you after certain intervals. You’ll find different weapons, loot, and resources to upgrade your characters, and their weapons while earning passive bonuses.
To capture a region, and make actual progress though, you’ll need to escort a cute little spider bot from one room to another in the same region. This core loop is pretty simple, and all the mechanical parts of the gameplay complement each other and feel easy to engage with.
Combat is similar to other twin-stick shooters, and each character has their style of play and abilities. While there aren’t a lot of characters, the ones available feel unique, which is always preferable to overly similar options that many roguelikes are guilty of. Weapons have a decent amount of range, and the game rewards skill-based play as you balance out the tower-defense aspects and active combat.
Weapons can behave differently according to their stats, and I enjoyed the general feedback of each. The combat is arguably the strongest part of the game, and you’ll often see the screen filled with explosions, shock, fire, and all sorts of effects coming together for a chaotic presentation that feels satisfying to witness and partake in.
The controls are responsive, there is no delay or slugginess and a wider perspective allows you to not only see everything in a room, but the minimap’s alert notification points you in the right direction as well.
You can also instantly teleport to where your spider bot currently is, and you’ll often have to go back and forth as you take out threats in different rooms during the escort process.
Exploring the space station doesn’t just mean you’re waiting for a surprise on the other side of the door, but there’s a resource tied to opening each door. You have three types of resources that continue to fill up every time you open a door. These are Food, Industry, and Science, which all serve different purposes, and you can actually prioritize a particular type by deploying generators.
Do you want more turrets or better turrets? Do you want the security of getting more health packs? These are the choices you’ll make as you open each door, and move forward.
Personally, I enjoyed this aspect quite a bit, and it made me actually think about how I wanted to take on a certain region. This layer of choice certainly pushes you to build your character, and playstyle in a certain way, and that’s the type of risk/reward approach I love interacting with in this genre.
Audio and Visuals
Endless Dungeon is a gorgeous game, and there is a lot to appreciate here. The character models are highly detailed with little touches to make them stand out from each other, and the game doesn’t play it safe by making every playable character a boring human. The portraits remind me of Hades, and the way those pop up for dialogue feel snappy and never slow down the pacing. Though the game isn’t fully voice-acted, it doesn’t matter as much because while the narrative is certainly a part of the game, it isn’t as dominant.
There’s some nice visual variety when it comes to the different districts, but you won’t see too many different rooms while exploring the same region. That does sometimes make things a bit less exciting, but it’s not too bad because the overall art direction and the way your screen is filled with all sorts of crazy enemies make up for it.
I really enjoyed the soundtrack as well. It escalates appropriately when you’re taking down a swarm, and I already have a few tracks on my rotation for when I work. Overall, the environments, characters, and effects on-screen add up to a high-quality presentation that does a great job of making Endless Dungeon stand out.
Feedback
Look, despite all the polish, and excellent art, this is not a rogue-lite you should expect to keep playing for dozens upon dozens of hours. The gameplay loop simply doesn’t meaningfully evolve in a way to add more depth to the combat or progression. Sure, things get harder, but you’re essentially doing the same thing over and over again, without really shaking things up during or after a run.
I think the repetition is the biggest offender for this title at the moment, and while I do like it when games come to an end, I don’t think I’ll have enough motivation to even seek out that ending. This is more of an arcade title that you come back to after a few weeks and play enough to the point you’re bored again. It’s why maybe some modifiers for combat encounters can change could certainly shake things up a bit.
Verdict
Endless Dungeon is a fantastic action title with tight controls, impactful combat that packs a punch, and excellent art direction that encompasses every aspect of its presentation. The only downer is the eventual repetition that sets in, but there’s a lot to like here despite the minor issues.
