Blood Dungeon

Brilliantly addictive bullet hell game, with the surprising depth and charm found in Nidhogg. Music is great too, though a little sad he couldn't get Daedelus to score this one as well.

I was really hoping for Blood Dungeon to blow me away. When I saw the trailer and that it was from the makers of Nidhogg I got pretty excited. It appeared as really frenetic and like a higher energy version of a Vampire Survivor style of roguelike. And it is true that is what it is, but unfortunately it lacks the shine to really pop. It's basically a Survivor style rougelike that mixes in platforming elements that requires tighter and tighter execution as the difficulty scales up during a run. It's still fun, and I foresee myself continuing to throw in some runs every now and then, but it's not a revelation. Mostly pick this one up if you're looking for a roguelike that can be a good high energy change of pace.

is a game

I'm almost recommended this game but I have some real issues with it. I'd give it a 5/10, but for the first 4 hours it was more like an 8/10. The art style and soundtrack are amazing. But I really can't recommend it whole heartedly. I also started noticing the balancing issues people talked about over time. Why is one random tiny red bird able to tank so much damage? Why is bone snake dead in 2 seconds but the frog and tiger boss feel only killable by finding an exploit area they can't land on? For the most part I can forgive that stuff and still had a blast with this game... BUT... the one thing that I really dislike is that (from my experience, idk how it works exactly) I got almost 40% into the game before it decided to unlock the ability to buy extra weapon slots. That felt like a giant artificial grind was added for no reason and it feels cheap. Those runs you did where you got super far or had some clutch explosion trigger just at the right time are cheapened and were doomed from the start because the game withheld stuff from you for no reason other than to pad gameplay. Some stuff unlocking with time works great, jump heights, small perks like drop site related stuff, but gating things that are core to you having a successful run until you have more hours in the game really sucks. Ultimately I feel like this design decision contradicts the premise of a survivors like where platforming skills are important to your success if you just have to grind until your profile is fully upgraded. I would happily change my review to positive if just the grindy progress system was reworked.