Going Under | IDontBeatGames Indie Game Review
A colorful yet absolutely delightful game, Going Under happens to already be one of my favorite games to come out this year. Before I get any further into the video, I’m your host Justin otherwise known as IDontBeatGames and I’m here to bring that nerd culture content right to your monitors! I'd also like to disclose that the game's publisher, Team17, sent me a review copy for Going Under.
Not that this will change the review by any means, but I thought you, the viewer, should know. If you enjoy this review or interested in Going Under you can find all of Team17’s and Aggro Crab Games' links in the description below. Going Under is an addicting dungeon crawler game where you play as an unpaid intern whose name is Jackie.
Like a lot of us in recent times, Jackie was looking for an internship to attempt to start off her career. She ended up getting called in for a “Marketing Internship” at a soda company called Fizzle. Yes, you heard me correctly, the actual name of the company is Fizzle.
Now, Jackie thinks she’s getting a regular internship and well, it’s not exactly what she signed up for. She got called in because she was scouted by an employee named Marv, who picked her out because he thought she could help out with their demon problem.
So Jackie is getting set up for a lot more than she bargained for. Regarding the controls, I’ve been playing Going Under on my PC so I can only really report on that platform. Basically, you use the X and C keys to swap through three item slots Jackie has, you use WASD to move around, you press space for the game’s dodge roll, and you use the mouse for two things:moving the camera angle around and you left click your mouse to hit enemies repeatedly with whatever items you have or if duking it out with Jackie’s hands to 1HP is your thing, you can do that, too.
Running dungeons in Going Under is so addicting. They’re constant learning curves whether it’s because you’re dying due to missing a hit or because your control of the camera was off when you die you constantly have that mentality of, “Nah, we need to run that back one more time” and we all know what happens when you say that.
One run turns into two, which turns into three, which turns into four and so on, you get the point. Going Under’s dungeons contain various setups for rooms. Some rooms have an acceptable mission, which is a job that typically spawns a bunch of enemies that you need to kill and after you do so, it gives you a crate that drops items.
Some rooms simply just have enemies in it already. One room might be the Shopkeeper who has perks and food for you to buy and so on. However, all of these rooms I’ve mentioned basically have so many items that you can pick up and destroy enemies with that it just feels like one big crash course.
For me, it didn’t become tiring at all, it never once made me feel bored. I literally was having an absolute blast even after the 10th, 11th or even 12th run of the first dungeon. If you wanna pick up a keyboard to hit enemies, by all means go ahead! If you wanna pick up a huge monitor that has the MacOS desktop on it, go ahead! Do you like the Mac way too much to bring yourself to use that monitor? Fine, use the monitor that has the basic coding for “Hello World” on it instead! Are monitors or keyboards too basic for you? Fine, pick up a mace, sword, plant, or whatever you want instead! Having so many options to use as weapons makes your dungeon runs feel both constantly fresh and fun at the same time.
It also helps that there’s perks in this game to make every single run feel different. There’s literally more than two pages worth of perk. On top of this, you can find them throughout the dungeon to level up these perks. The incentive for leveling up these perks is that there’s an “endorse a perk” mechanic.
The mechanic essentially lets you carry a perk into your dungeon runs, You can change your endorsed perk before a run, so don’t worry about it being a permanent option, but . So, if you want a perk that points out boxes with important items, a perk that gives you an extra heart, a perk that causes enemies to bounce back when you hit them, or even a perk that electrocutes enemies, you can carry whatever perk of your choosing into your dungeon runs.
By all means, go ahead choose your poison. At some point early on within Going Under, Jackie is given an employee phone. This phone allows you to pick up Apps in dungeons. You can view these apps as mini abilities given to you that can only be used so many times.
In example, it feels like there’s almost an app for everything. There’s an app to increase your weapon’s durability, there’s an app to heal, there’s an app to direct you in case you get lost, there’s an app to buff Jackie and more. These apps also help make every single run different and allows you to pick your various combos of apps that you can pick up, weapons, and endorsed skills that fit your playstyle.
For such a small title, Going Under happens to have such a unique spice to it that it still continuously brings me back and makes me want to keep playing. One of the more interesting recurring events in Going Under’s dungeon crawling is that there’s an NPC called The Hauntrepenuer that lives within the floors of the dungeon.
By the way, he’s a vampire. The basic idea of this is while going through a dungeon, you can find him in one of the levels. He’s willing to give you items in exchange for giving you a curse. A curse basically does something to make your life just a little more difficult plus it adds some sort of spice to your current floor of that dungeon.
To give you guys An example of a curse that I’ve gotten in a run is for three combat encounters, I had to leave behind valuable opportunities. In exchange for that, I got food to heal myself and a perk that makes move both faster and attack quicker. When you reach the end of the current floor, the Hauntrepeneur’s curse lifts so you begin the next floor curse free.
No, you don’t have to do this, it's optional, but I thought I'd let you guys know because it's a fun thing to do every now and then. As you make progress within the dungeon and do more runs, you gain a currency called “Cubits” which are, basically, usable in Fizzle’s headquarters.
There’s always bunch of new skills that you can purchase with them that sit on a desk. These skills that you can purchase for Jackie will be found within the dungeon runs that you can potentially pick up as a part of your run. As the game tells us, basically spend cubits and unlock more skills.
Now, with all of these good things I’ve mentioned, there’s only two things that really brought down my experience and technically, it doesn’t even have to do with the game’s content. Simply put, I ended up experiencing a few bugs while recording footage for this video.
And trust me, I get it, I know it's an indie game so it's not gonna be perfect. And, I've every sent over the footage to the devs I just wanted to point it out in the video so that you guys were aware that there might be a few bugs here or there. Going Under has rapidly grown to become one of my new favorite indie games to release this year.
There’s a huge part of me that wants to keep on playing this even after this video is live. I thoroughly enjoy not only the aesthetic of this game but the gameplay, too. There’s so much to love when it comes to Going Under that it feels special. Going Under is another reminder for me as to why I specifically love and appreciate indie games.
Seeing this much love poured into a game that manages to also be addicting, fun and a real good time will always put a smile on my face while playing it. Hopefully, Aggro Crab Games, end up working on expanding Going Under to have some sort of DLC because I’m 100% down to keep having reasons to come back to this game.
Going Under is available for PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4 and Xbox One for an absolutely amazing price of $19.99. I highly recommend checking this game out. If you enjoy this video hit that like that button! If you really enjoyed this video, hit that sub button! If you have any questions about Going Under, hit that comment section I got you! I'll answer any question.
