

As true as that is, it rarely made me feel better, but it did keep me on my toes and was a pretty decent way to force me to play the game differently than I normally would have. I kept telling myself that if I continued to jump and dodge-roll out of harm’s way, then the gun in my hand didn’t matter. This was especially frustrating when a bad weapon popped up during a boss or an especially tough portion of the game. I know I received some great weapons when I was playing poorly and occasionally cycled through some terrible weapons while on a roll. The quality of the weapon you receive is supposed to be based on your current combo but it felt pretty random to me. This chaos is mostly born from the game’s decision to randomly change your weapon every thirty seconds. No matter which gunslinging sprite you choose, the way to safety is gonna be chaos. The route through the Gungeon is different for each of the five Gungeoneers, which managed to keep everything fresh and provide some replayability. The camera is mostly fixed and you’ll need to jump and dodge-roll the bullets that come at your from everywhere.

With no time to go back the way you came, you’ll need to fight off the last of the Gundead and a slew of bosses – new and old – as you ascend one crazy elevator after another. It turns out shooting off a gun that kills the past is hard on stuff, and now you need to pound sand on your way out of the Gungeon before the whole thing collapses, crushing you and your trigger happy friends. You and a band of Gungeoneers spend Enter the Gungeon blasting your way deep into the bowels of the Gungeon searching for a gun that can kill the past. The story takes over right where the first one left off. That may not seem like a big departure, but it changes everything. Exit the Gungeon still resides in bullet hell, but ditches the bird’s eye view for a 2-D side-scrolling version. If you missed it like me, Enter the Gungeon was a top-down twin-stick shooter in bullet hell. A mistake I was happy to rectify as soon as I was done with this fun spin-off. I somehow missed Enter the Gungeon – and after playing its spinoff, Exit the Gungeon – I now know that was a huge mistake.
