Endless Dungeon Review

ign.com:

There’s a reason our cars aren’t also boats. It’s often as hard as it is risky to combine two very different functions into one package, especially when designing a system to do one thing well can be hard enough. That’s why, as I sat in front of my computer taking stock of the 20+ hours I spent playing Endless Dungeon, I couldn't help but smile at the sheer audacity on display. There’s no other way to describe the daring it must have taken to create this hybrid twin-stick shooting, tower defending, science fiction roguelite. Those are three very different genres all their own, so to take them all on simultaneously and make the result work so well is borderline miraculous.

Endless Dungeon is set aboard The Station, a massive, multi-leveled space station that belonged to an enigmatic race known as the Endless. Now it is abandoned, save for the monsters on each floor and the small cast of colorful heroes trapped aboard with them. Their only hope is that reaching the Station's Core and powering on the Reactor will reactivate the station, and allow everyone to escape. It's a simple setup, with just enough mystery to be intriguing, told in a really attractive, colorful, comic book-esque art style.

At first glance, Endless Dungeon looks and plays like a solid, cyberpunk infused twin-stick shooter akin to something like The Ascent. Aiming and shooting while in motion is a breeze on keyboard or gamepad, and how you approach combat varies widely depending on which of the eight playable characters you control. Sweeper, for example, is an in-over-his-head janitor who carries light weapons like pistols, but can control the flow of battle using his Slippery When Wet ability to slow enemies trapped in soapy waters. Meanwhile, Zed is a