In a day and age when it’s fairly easy to beat video games, Enter the Gungeon launches as a breath of frustrating, fresh air with its need for precision and high level of difficulty. Roguelike elements and huge weapon variation though, help prevent the game from becoming a tedious grind.

Players can spend countless hours running the same initial dungeon over and over again, but every time a player jumps down into the depths it is a different procedurally generated level. Because it’s a different layout every time, the gameplay remains fresh and exciting. A vendor and the last boss are generated every time, but other than that there’s no guarantee of what players might run across. Even the boss fights are varied as players will face off against one of three bosses at the early rounds. Every time I entered the first dungeon and saw the hatch close over me I knew there was no turning back and I had to press forward.

The ultimate goal in this game is to reach the fifth dungeon, defeat the last boss, and retrieve the gun that can kill the past which will give each character a chance to start over. One thing you learn quickly is there’s no way to save progress after starting runs, and even though players might get to the second or third dungeon, once they die they will have to start from the beginning again. This leaves players with the objective of fixing the elevator so that you can quick travel to the next floor. The difficulty to unlock the elevator on each floor is staggering, but once completed it brings a sense of accomplishment that few games manage.

Continue reading this review on Gamespresso.com.