Going Under Game: First Impressions (Rogue-lite Game Review).

What happens when you take a dungeon crawler and add in the ability for the player to use whatever they want as a weapon? Stay tuned for more. Hey guys, welcome back to the channel! My name is Taiyri and I've got something a little bit different for you today. I was given the opportunity to test out a new rogue-lite game called Going Under. Going Under is developed by Aggro Crab Games and published by Team 17 Studios. It will be available for PC, Switch, Xbox 1, and PS4 and goes on sale on September 24th. Now, I don't play Roguelite games all that often. I have to be in the right mood to play them for long periods but, when I do get in that mood, I don't like searching for a good game to scratch that itch. So being able to try this game was a nice little surprise for me. So let's dive right in. Going Under is a lot like most other rogue-lite games. You pick up money from defeated monsters which allows you to buy weapons, health restorative items, and even sometimes skills to help you on your run. You acquire skills as drops in special rooms, and of course, if you die, the run is over and any skills you found are eventually added to your character for future use. That's about where the similarities end though and Going Under has a number of neat features that spice things up quite well. Almost any object can be used as a weapon. Yes almost anything. I used a thumb tack, a keyboard, a guitar, a club, a sword, a monitor, a chair, and even a potted cactus plant to help me destroy monsters. I gotta say, it was incredibly fun. I think my favorite weapons were the keyboard and the guitar. The keyboard did good damage and had good knockback and the guitar had some amazing area of effect damage that wasn't too shabby either. When you complete a miniboss or event to move to the next floor, you get a delivery box which contains some weapons, some money, and sometimes some health items or a skill. They also had a second type of shopkeeper that differed from the regular shopkeeper that took money. This second shopkeeper was a vampire that allowed you to have 3 items for free if you accepted a curse that hindered you in some way. The most common one I saw in the first dungeon was that I had to keep moving forward for 3 battles or I would take damage. If you can get through the curse without too much trouble, it seems to be always worth it to go into the Vampire's shop. The gameplay of the actual dungeon crawling was very smooth and enjoyable. Being able to quickly swap between weapons and pick up enemy weapons after they died was quick, intuitive, and responsive. I never felt like my button presses were unresponsive with one exception. The dodge roll felt good to use unless you were rolling multiple times. It felt as if there was a small animation lock that made it difficult for me to dodge roll twice in a row. Though it could just be me, but that's what it felt like. Something to keep in mind as you play. The graphic style is bright and whimsical and while the models are fairly simple in their design, they look really clean and sharp when moving through dungeons and the office. The only thing that was a little off was that during the cut scenes or dialogue scenes, the outlines of the characters were animated and fuzzy almost like static on an old TV. I think turning off the animation for the outlines would have been the better idea there but it definitely doesn't break the game. Most of your attention is focused on the dialogue boxes anyway. The story was surprisingly enjoyable and I didn't find myself cringing at the obvious corporate tropes in the interaction between characters. I actually chuckled quite regularly at the references and the memories of my own experiences in the work place as I played. The music fit quite well with the overall theme of the game. It didn't feel too serious in the main office and got a bit more intense as you enter the dungeons. It didn't feel jarring or out of place in any way and that helped with the immersion quite a bit. Like I said before, I don't often play rogue-lite games. I'm not a veteran in any sense of the word. So take my next few points with a grain of salt. These are my opinions, my 2 cents, if you will. The game felt a bit punishing right off the bat. Health restoration items were few and far between and as I played through the first dungeon it felt like I was going to need a perfect run in order to eventually beat it. I have 2 suggestions for this.

Option 1) A 10-20% increase in the amount of health restoration items in the first 2 dungeons, and then slowly scale it back throughout the game as the player gets better and more accustomed to the flow of gameplay.

Option 2) A difficulty control slider that the player can use to increase the amount of health drops in the game. Personally, I like option 2 better because it gives the player full control over how difficult they'd like the game to be. Die-hard rogue-lite fans can make it extremely challenging and more casual players can make it a bit easier for their first few games. Lastly, I'm a little disappointed that there was no voice acting for this game. I know Aggro Crab Games is a smaller indie developer and voice acting probably costs a lot of money but I feel like the story and interactions between the NPCs would have been given so much more life if they had been voice acted. Raymond, the owner of Fizzle , would have been hilarious to listen to if he had been voice acted and given the voice of some stereotypical college bro with too much money from his parents. Maybe if the game takes off, that's something they can add in the future! Overall, I think Going Under is an extremely fun rogue-lite dungeon crawler with extremely satisfying combat and gameplay. It's a game I will definitely revisit whenever I have the rogue-lite itch and I hope Aggro Crab Games continues to create games with interesting twists to classic genres. If you're interested in trying out Going Under, I've got a link to the game's steam store page below and they've also got a demo that's available for you to try out for free. If you enjoy the demo, check back on the steam page on September 24th for the release and have fun destroying monsters with anything and everything that you can find! Thank you so very much for watching and if you found the information in this video helpful, please hit the like button, it does help the channel out quite a bit. If you want to stay up to date on all of my content, please hit the subscribe button and I will see you in the next video. Buh-bye!