Blood Dungeon from Messhof brings us a 2D platforming Survivors-like experience with trippy visuals and fast-paced gameplay. Learn more in our Blood Dungeon review!
Blood Dungeon from Messhof brings us a 2D platforming Survivors-like experience with trippy visuals and fast-paced gameplay. You’ll be tasked with exploring many dungeons that are packed with monsters. There’s also blood there, which you must take to aid you on your mission. You must parkour your way through each area as you make the most of each run while trying to gather as much blood as possible, all while getting enough power-ups to extend your current run. You’ll also be rewarded with bones for each run based on your performance, which you can use at the Bone Shop to improve your character – more on this in a bit.
I’ve previously had a chance of working on a pair of reviews for some of the games that Messhof has previously released. First up was Flywrench on PlayStation 4 in early 2017, an interestingly weird platformer/puzzle game on PlayStation 4 in which you’re tasked with taking control of a small white line that must get from point A to point B in one piece. This was followed by a Nidhogg 2 review on PS4 later in 2017, and I definitely enjoyed its quirky action as I tried to stab, shoot, and slice my way to victory.
The game’s intro cutscene does a pretty good job of setting up the mood before the action begins. Once it’s over, you’ll be taking control of your character by using the left analog stick or the D-Pad, as your character automatically aims toward the nearest enemy. Jump by pressing the A button. You can also cling to walls, and then wall jump if needed. Oh, and you can also hang from ceilings and move around at a steady pace.
As you defeat enemies, they will leave behind some blood, which you should definitely collect. Once you’ve obtained enough blood to fill up the blood gauge at the top of the screen, you’ll get to level up. When this happens, you will get to pick a power-up from the random selection you’re presented with. Some of these include, for instance, Bounty Hunter, which earns you a coin for every 15 kills, a boost to your weapon so that it becomes better, a new weapon (may I suggest a rocket launcher?), Swordcery, which summons a sword that orbits around you, or More Money, which, as the name suggests, grants you 5% more money when you do get some money.
The starting Gun Man character offers a balanced experience for those new to the game, since he has a gun for a weapon and six health, but you can also take the Barbarian for a spin right away. The Barbarian uses a sword as his weapon and has 5 health in total. He can do 1% more damage per level, maxed out at 20%. You can unlock additional characters by doing things such as surviving for 2 minutes, killing 50 spiders, or remaining airborne for 5 seconds, to name some examples.
What’s different when comparing the Nintendo Switch version of Blood Dungeon with this Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game? As expected, the Nintendo Switch 2 version features enhanced graphics, with additional screen effects and particles, as well as an improved frame rate.
And what can you get at the Bone Shop with your hard-earned bones? You can purchase permanent upgrades for your characters, so that you can hopefully increase the duration of subsequent runs! You will use bones to boost the speed of your character, increase the damage dealt by each of your attacks, increase the range from which you can collect items, boost your weapon’s reloading speed, and more.
Blood Dungeon from Messhof brings us a 2D platforming Survivors-like experience with trippy visuals and fast-paced gameplay. You’ll be tasked with exploring many dungeons that are packed with monsters. There’s also blood there, which you must take to aid you on your mission. You must parkour your way through each area as you make the most of each run while trying to gather as much blood as possible, all while getting enough power-ups to extend your current run. You’ll also be rewarded with bones for each run based on your performance, which you can use at the Bone Shop to improve your character.
You’ll be fighting against 100+ enemy types as you work on unlocking 100+ weapons and upgrades, 9 additional characters that feature different traits and weapons, and 6 survival arenas. You will be working on completing 100+ quests to unlock the aforementioned content, all while listening to a dynamic “dungeon dnb” soundtrack from Thomas Hooey.
Blood Dungeon is out on Nintendo Switch 2 with a $9.99 price tag. There’s also a Nintendo Switch version of the game available for the same price. If you buy that version of Blood Dungeon, then you can go ahead and grab the Blood Dungeon – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Upgrade Pack at no extra cost, which will turn your Nintendo Switch version into the Nintendo Switch 2 version on Nintendo’s current-gen hybrid console.
Disclaimer
This Blood Dungeon review is based on a Nintendo Switch 2 copy provided by Messhof.
