Another quality mobile roguelite you should probably play! | Dungreed - Full Review

In the indie-games industry, production costs are limited. Usually, game creators cannot always afford to create photorealistic graphics and an expansive combination of story and gameplay. This usually leads to popular common denominators, such as retro art-style, and rogue-like gameplay, and Dungreed is one such example. The only difference now lies in the gameplay, does Dungreed have what it takes to get your attention?

🟩Pros

+High quality pixel-art

+Wide variety of weapons, including PLASMA RIFLES

+Quality fast travel system

+Controller Support

🟥Cons

-Starts off slow

-The town management aspect felt half-baked

It has the gameplay of Rogue Legacy and the charm of Terraria

Dungreed is a 2D rogue-lite side-scrolling dungeon crawler with pixel-art graphics. Enter the dungeon, explore room after room, battle enemies, gather loot, and die. Now repeat that again, but with slightly better skills, gold, and more experience. It’s a rogue-lite game because there is some persistence going on. The gameplay loop reminds me of the popular rogue-like game Rogue Legacy, while its charming nature also reminds me of Terraria’s art-style and combat.

A peaceful town is suddenly disturbed by a magic dungeon. Its mouth / entrance appearing out of nowhere and sucking almost everything from the town; villagers and entire houses. You are an unnamed adventurer, sent to investigate this town two weeks later. You meet a lone villager, who helps you and briefs you with what happened. Your main quest is to investigate the dungeon, find other villages, and maybe repair and restore the town.

Gameplay Analysis

You can immediately go dungeon crawling right from the get go, and die immediately as well. Each level layout is randomly generated with varying biomes such as caves, prison, jungle, volcanoes, including the rooms which are closed until you clear it of enemies. This means you cannot escape combat encounters and move to the next room.

Levels always culminate in a boss fight at the end, wherein you need to beat it before you can move to the next level. A pretty standard experience so far.

Aside from hostile levels, sometimes you will also run into shopkeepers as well such as an Innkeeper or a weapons dealer, a welcome reprieve from battling monsters.

The Innkeeper offers food, which, unconventionally, doesn’t do healing, instead it is turned into a stat bonus modifier. You need to select your meal to eat, each with their own bonuses to give to you. Taking up meals reduces your hunger and prevents you from taking too many bonuses, however, going dungeon crawling and clearing rooms will inevitably make your character hungry again. It's a novel way of subverting our expectations and provides a fresh way of playing rogue-lites.

Is it a town management game?

The previously mentioned town repairing and villager finding quest adds another layer of gameplay to Dungreed, you can immediately affect the town even in the early stages and see it gradually going back to normal.

There are minor bonuses in doing so like getting randomized gear from the villagers, or increasing the roster of weapons to be found on the dungeons. This is different to other rogue-likes where the only thing to do is to go on a dungeon crawling marathon, hoping to finally clear the game playthrough after playthrough.

Ultimately, the town management aspect felt half-baked still and could have been more expanded upon with more stuff to repair, build, and manage. They already got the Terarria vibes right, so it's half-way there. Perhaps in a sequel?

Literal otherworldly weapons

There are two weapon slots, usually assigned for a melee and a ranged weapon, and 4 accessories to equip. You will also encounter loot choices from time to time. Select a powerful weapon or item out of a random selection, to keep with you throughout the run.

What’s ridiculous though, is that aside from cool and powerful medieval weapons like magic scythes, the game abandons sanity as it also features guns. Yes, guns like plasma rifles and sniper rifles are present in the game.

Every run, the dungeon kicks you back out to the town and sucks all your items and gear so you will have to start from scratch.

A quality fast travel system

As for the traversal system, there are no checkpoints, but the game understands the players needs and provides us with a very generous fast travel system. You can fast travel between shops, and every single room in every level, completely eliminating the need for back and forth-ing, especially when reaching dead ends.

The controls, while it takes a while to get used to, are enjoyable and lively. The combat and the movements are cool and flashy, especially when you are dashing around enemies and while doing some platforming elements. You can play in touch control mode, or you can also use a physical controller. I’ve tested it with a Razer Kishi and it works out of the box.

Conclusion:

Dungreed is pretty good looking for an indie-game. It looks polished and the pixel art is undoubtedly high quality. The atmosphere is lighthearted — especially the characters — despite the ominous and imposing nature of the dungeon. It starts off slow, as with other rogue-lite games, but as you keep dying, gaining both character and meta experience, the game grows on you.  A quality mobile rogue-lite that you should probably play.