Still Alive: A Gamer's Commentary: Bit Dungeon II Review

Bit Dungeon 2 is a very short rogue-lite experience. It should take at most 3 - 4 hours to complete.

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Premise:

Slash your way through hordes of enemies and defeat numerous bosses to open the portal to the dark world and complete the final challenge!

Collect equipment and level up your character to meet this challenge!

Visuals:

A decent looking game. Character sprites are cute and colorful, and they pop very nicely from the backgrounds so you can clearly see objects during sometimes hectic combat.

I also enjoy that every piece of equipment that you pick up has a different look on your character. Definitely a nice touch to the armor and weapon system, and more games should do this.

Sound/Music:

Not the most incredible sound design ever, but sounds are all clear and convey what they need to.

Music is mostly entertaining and energetic, and at other times it's very moody. Good music choices overall, although some pieces are somewhat repetitive throughout the game.

Controls:

W, A, S, D to move, spacebar for everything else.
I usually say that simplified controls are a good thing, but in this case, I believe it has been over-simplified to the point where you don't have much control over combat abilities, and at times it becomes frustrating. You are given a mere single button to control your attacks and blocks. Its really hard to execute the ability you need when everything is mapped to the spacebar. Also, picking up items is mapped to spacebar, so make sure you don't pick up a new, less powerful item by accident.

Combat can be fun, but it could have been a lot better.

Gameplay:

Just run around to find dungeons and defeat enemies. You will find equipment along the way with unique qualities and abilities. Your generic RPG elements.

One thing I didn't exactly care for were the scaling enemies. Enemies do not have a fixed combat strength, and instead level up with the player. This progression system works alright, but it destroys any sense of achievement as the enemies remain relatively as easy or difficult to defeat as before, despite your character growing more powerful. I know this enemy levelling system lends itself to free exploration, such as in Skyrim, but this game doesn't really have much to explore in the first place.

Summary:

An alright game with some issues. Not terrible, but I'm not entirely sure it is worth the usual asking price.