Quite possibly the only 3D 2D rogue-like on Switch.
One More Dungeon is a procedurally generated first person action game on the Switch. What sets it apart from other first person offerings on the system is the old school, 8-bit style visuals in a 3D space that harken back to the days of early first-person shooters on the PC. It is visually striking and has a silky smooth frame rate.
Players start out their adventure with nothing more than a small knife for melee combat and a magic staff that can shoot projectile attacks. Players are allowed to move in any direction (forward, back, side to side). As with the original Doom, players have limited ability to aim/look around with the right analog stick horizontally. The default speed for aiming was set to a little bit to high for my taste, but after I knocked it down a bit, I was speeding through the dungeons effortlessly.
Combat, on the other hand, can be a bit tricky. The magic staff always seemed to be the safest choice as it gives you some space between enemies. However, you are limited with how many times you can use it. Using the default knife is challenging. It is difficult to determine how close you’ll need to be to land successful hits or dodge incoming enemy attacks. Thankfully, there are upgrades to your melee weapon the deeper you get into the game. Still, this aspect of the gameplay felt a bit lacking.
With One More Dungeon being a rogue-like, you will die. Quite often, actually. After getting a game over, you can jump right back into the game. With the game being procedurally generated, each time you start over, the levels, enemy placements, traps and treasures will all be remixed. There are a total of eight levels in the game each of which has players searching for a boss character that needs to be defeated to progress to the next level. The more you play the game the more points you accrue over time. Players can use these points to give them perks the next time they go through the game. Some of these prove extremely useful, such as giving you more overall health or halving enemy health. Early on, having these make the game quite a bit easier to get through and are extremely welcome.
One More Dungeon’s offering of being one of (if not the only) pixel based shooters on the Switch is certainly enough to pull people in. The procedurally generated content keep things fresh and varied. On the flip side, one of the main pulls for me to games like the original Doom was being able to memorize levels and then blaze through the difficult experience. This is where the procedural elements fall a little bit flat for me. The ever-changing nature of the levels don’t quite do justice to similar games of yesteryear. If you can look past that, One More Dungeon on Switch is a competent game that has a lot to offer.
Final Score: 7.0
(Review code provided by the publisher)
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