Written By: Patrick Orquia
Title: Bit Dungeon Plus
Developer: Dolores Entertainment
Publisher: Dolores Entertainment
Genre: RPG, arcade, action-adventure, roguelike
Number of Players: 4
Release Date: 08 May 2018
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Price: $8.99
Also Available On: 3DS, PS4, PSV, Steam, XB1
Bit Dungeon Plus is an action adventure RPG with roguelike elements. You play as a lowly knight, lowly at the beginning, that is, and you work your way through a dungeon full of enemies that range from zombies to skeleton archers to wizards to big monsters. You start with a basic sword, a shield, and a weak armor set and as you progress through each room, you get to equip new and better gears. Upon opening of treasure chests, you get to know the stats of the equipment therein, and it’s up to you if you want to swap your currently-equipped gears to the one on the treasure box. Rinse and repeat.
Your main goal in every room of the dungeon is to kill all the enemies in order for you to obtain a key that will open the door to the next room. Some rooms have different doors to open, and you can choose where to go next (the obtain key will open all the doors available in a given room).
You can use your equipped weapon to melee attack enemies or use your magic attack. You can also defend using a shield that will block any attacks. The shield has a gauge that depletes over time and the speed of depletion depends on how strong the attack you’re getting (the gauge also fills up over time when the shield is not in use). Once the shield gets depleted for using it often, the next attack will daze you, making you more vulnerable to attacks, leading to your demise (which will mean going back to the very start and losing all your progress, as all roguelike games do). Some enemies will drop loots, such as coins and gears or health/magic potions when killed.
Eventually, you will get to see a red door, which opens the room to a boss fight. You can either go ahead and open the door and battle the boss with whatever you are currently equipped with, or continue exploring other rooms in the dungeon to possibly find better gears and weapons and power ups. From time to time, you will also encounter a shop that sells treasure boxes with more powerful equipment. These treasures are quite pricey, so you better have lots of coins in order to buy one. Once you leave the shop, though, it disappears and you cannot go back to it again until you encounter again later.
If you backtrack to a previously-visited room, you’ll see that zombified rodents are already eating the carcasses of those that you killed (kudos to this nice touch of detail). These rodents can be killed, and some of them will drop loots such as potions or coins. Ghost can also be seen in these rooms, although they disappear almost right away. Killing them will make them drop potions.
Once you have cleared all the rooms and you are satisfied with what you have equipped, it’s time to fight the boss. The boss fight can be a walk in the park or a real pain in the ass, again, depending on how well you are prepared. If you win against the level boss, you get to save the game, obtain a new gear or power up, and you’re off to the next level. Rinse and repeat.
If ever you get tired of the main mode, you can go for other modes, such as the Boss Mode, where you only fight the toughest enemies in the game, or the Tower of Babel mode, which is a time attack mode that lets you complete a level with a set time. The game also offers up to 4 players of local multiplayer coop mode. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to try this out, but If you have friends with Switches and individual copies of the game (I miss download play on 3DS), share the fun!
Like all roguelike games, each room is procedurally generated, and each run is unique and therefore a new experience. Mix and matching different types of gears, power ups, and choosing which attributes to level (attack, health, or critical hit) makes this really fun. Add to that the presentation, with the game using retro 16-bit graphical art style with chiptune songs to make the experience more akin to the games from the 80s and 90s. And with the game being now on the Switch (it has been released to other platforms before), you can enjoy it on the go or docked. It’s up to you how to play it, but regardless of your choice, you will surely enjoy this game, especially if you are a fan of RPGs with dungeon exploration. And since the rooms are randomly generated, the fun is practically endless. So go ahead and go on a fun adventure. Be sure to stay alive and enjoy.
REPLAY VALUE: very high
PROS
- Excellent retro art style complemented by chiptune songs
- High level of customization from a wide variety of weapons, armors, and power ups.
- Each weapon and armor is illustrated and can be seen worn and used by the character
- The game run smoothly with no hiccups in framerate or audio, both docked and undocked
- You can play level after level infinitely, until your character dies, of course
CONS
- No online multiplayer options
- No option to choose other character classes, such as wizards or archers, etc.
- Cannot move fast while defending, making it quite tough defending from distant attackers that can hit you wherever you are in the room
RATING: 4/5 dungeons but no dragons
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