History VideoGame / EnterTheGungeon

** Ser Junkan, hands down. First, you have to be lucky enough to get him (which is REALLY hard after you "unlock" him as a standard chest drop, the spawn rate drops to 1%) instead of a regular piece of junk from a broken chest. Then, you have to destroy further chests to get even more junk to increase his level, which means that all your usual drops from treasure chests are replaced with otherwise useless junk, or a random supply like health bullets, or even an exploded chest containing nothing. You can get free junk from the Ser Junkan shrine if you have him, but good luck finding it. You need 6 pieces of junk to unlock Ser Junkan's archangel form, which makes him extremely powerful AND will sacrifice his life to fully heal you if you die, and if you get one more piece of junk, he loses his healing ability, but it becomes quite clear who the real star of the playthrough is.

[[caption-width-right:350:''Kill your past; you've already damned your future.''[[note]]Clockwise, from top: [[{{Oculothorax}} The Beholster]], [[ASpaceMarineisYou The Marine]], [[BoxedCrook The Convict]], [[TheCharmer The Pilot]] and [[TheGunslinger The Hunter]]. Not shown are [[CoopMultiplayer The]] [[YoungGun Cultist]], [[TheHeretic The Bullet,]] and [[AIIsACrapshoot The Robot]].[[/note]]]]

* SituationalSword: The Spurn is a passive item in form of a green orb familiar that otherwise does nothing but follow you around, but when you fulfill a specific random condition, it transforms into an extremely powerful Windgunner weapon with rapid fire, infinite ammo and a huge clip you probably won't realistically empty out without firing it constantly, but the weapon only lasts for around 30 seconds and to use it again, you need to fulfill the condition again: they range from something as common and easily controllable as flipping a table to something as inconvenient as being reduced to half a heart or losing all your blanks or ammo

* CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption: The only feasible way to unlock the Drill and Clown Mask and alliw them to be found in chests is, befitting [[VideoGame/Payday2 the game they're referencing]], to steal them from under the Shopkeeper's nose because they otherwise cost more casings than you can actually have in an average run.

* FantasticFirearms: The game has a weapon that's a bundle of magic wands on a pistol grip, and its big brother which uses wizard staves on a rifle receiver.

** Another is the [[TotallyRadical Rad Gun]], a gun with a baseball cap and a skateboard. It starts out very weak, but enables active reloads (each reload can be made faster with [[ActionCommands a quick time event]]) and each successful active reload increases the damage of the weapon. After four successful reloads, your bullets will have sunglasses and be absolutely deadly, able to one- or two-shot many enemies, even in the late-game. The catch? Each time you do a successful active reload, the reload time gets faster, making it harder to pull off an active reload. If you mess up, the counter resets and the gun goes back to weak bullets and a really slow reload.

->''Throughout the galaxy, a legend is told. On a distant planet, a grim fortress stood, until a deadly force parted the heavens and descended upon the keep. Though brought to ruin, the ashes of that place hold an artifact of impossible power. [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong A gun that can kill the past]]. Over time, the fortress was rebuilt, and some who hear the legend would risk everything for another shot. To claim their prize and make what was done, undone, they must...'' ''(cue TitleDrop)''

!This game provides examples of:

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Do rocket-powered bullets sound like another ridiculous Gungeonism? For a brief moment in the '60s, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet they were real.]]

** The Quad Laser, which has the slowest projectile speed in the game, but one-shots enemies and tears bosses' health apart when it finally makes contact. When the flavor text states that it cannot be halted, they ''mean'' it.

** Contributing to the repair of elevators (which allow you start a run at later floors) is a quest that can be accomplished over several, even unsuccessful, playthroughs.

** The Convict: [[spoiler:Getting sold out by her "business partner", [[SleazyPolitician Blackstache]]. The Gungeon gives her the chance to properly fight him off and escape arrest when he and Hegemony troops stormed her nightclub to apprehend her.]]

** The Crown of Guns, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysontheTin a crown with a bunch of guns strapped to it]] that wildly sprays semi-homing bullets in all directions.

** The [[Film/KungFuHustle Gunzheng]], a Chinese string instrument that fire arrows with machine gun-like speed.

* NeverBringAKnifeToAGunFight: The Gungeon and Cult of the Gundead call this heresy, to a point that carrying melee weapons increases your curse. The Bullet's starting sword is even called Blasphemy[[note]]Which ironically doesn't increase your curse, likely because it's a starting weapon[[/note]], in case the point wasn't obvious enough.

** The Busted Television's only real use is [[spoiler:for you to take it to the Blacksmith which unlocks The Robot]], as it's otherwise a huge liability as you can only throw it, after which it just sits on the floor and doesn't affect anything, and it drops on the floor when you dodge roll, so you must toss it across pits first. However, after you throw it, the game considers the item active for a couple seconds. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ3LG2Xo-Qo Now, there's another item that shoots a ring of bullets whenever you use an active item...]]

* OneHitKill: Some of the magic-themed weapons (e.g. Bundle of Wands, Hexagun, Witch Pistol) come with a chance to transmogrify enemies into harmless chickens. This won't work on bosses, of course, but is quite effective at quickly dispatching dangerous DemonicSpiders and [[GiantMook Giant Mooks]].
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The player character are all known simply by their titles. [[spoiler:The Convict was once known as "Laser Lily" back when she was a crime boss, though that too is likely just a nickname.]]

** A common passive item is the "Rocket-Propelled Bullet," which increases the projectile velocity of non-hitscan weaponry. It stacks with all other such bullet upgrades, but does not explode by itself (only if you also have Explosive Bullets or Flak Bullets items as well).

* PlayerDeathIsDramatic: If your gungeoneer dies, the entire Gungeon's color is drained and they fall to their knees in pain (or if you're playing as the cultist, they collapse to the ground outright). The Gungeon's clock then rewinds time to the moment that the run was started, and a gunshot is heard as the gungeoneer finally falls to the ground and dies (of if playing as the cultist, their body fades away).
* PlayerTic: One player hobby will be to run into the clutter in the dungeon, even after the room is clear. Things like books and clay pots won't actually do anything — they block one bullet during combat but they're often positioned on the walls so they won't even be good cover — but players may feel the need to walk over or shoot them anyway just to watch them break. Or flip a table that has items on it just to watch them fly off.

** There's also a small chance pots that will contain a [[TheFairFolk fairy]]... that will aggressively attack the player.

** [[spoiler:The Gunslinger]]. His starting gun alone is better than half the C-tier guns and his starting item is [[spoiler:The Lich's Eye Bullets, which gives synergy bonus to ''all'' of your guns]]. Unlocking him is a hassle, though, which requires [[spoiler:beating Bullet Hell with the Paradox, and then beating the Gunslinger's past in the run that immediately follows the Paradox in order for him to be playable from the start, meaning that if you die as the Gunslinger, you need to start the entire process all over again and beat the Bullet Hell as the Paradox for another try]], plus he requires ''seven'' Hegemony Credits to start a run as.
* RandomEffectSpell: The Chancebulon, a [=d20=]-shaped Blobulon that fires projectiles that emulate the other varieties of Blobulon. Its strongest attack shoots terrain-altering bullets in all directions that bounce off of walls; its weakest just results in its own death.

* RealTimeWeaponChange: You can change your weapon using the mouse wheel on PC or by pressing a face button on console versions. However, given the BulletHell nature of the game, you can dramatically slow down time while changing weapons by holding the Left Control key (or holding the same face button) if you need a moment to asses the situation.

* ResourcefulRodent: The aptly-named Resourceful Rat is an anthropomorphic giant rat that managed to adapt himself to the life in the Gungeon. He uses the ever-changing layout of the Gungeon to construct a giant maze to serve as his lair, he hoards a lot of Gungeon's treasures, and he has great expertise in scavenging and stealing stuff left by Gungeoneers, and even managed to construct a mecha out of scavenged stuff. It's stated that his resourcefulness would've let him reach The Gun That Can Kill The Past with ease, and the reason he didn't do so is that he's more interested in frustrating the Gungeoneers.

* RobotBuddy: The Robot, an unlockable player character. An adorable bot whose overall design is evocative of big, bulky CRT monitors and can attack with an arm blaster, or by leaking electrified coolant on enemies. [[spoiler:The fact that its from a race of robots who aim to [[KillerRobot exterminate humanity]] is [[SubvertedTrope considerably less cute]] however, though Robot itself seems happy to cooperate with them in the present day]].

* SeriousBusiness: Guns, of course, to an absurd degree (even for something that is fairly serious in RealLife.) Every aspect of the setting revolves around guns. The one weapon that is unambiguously in no way a gun is even called "Blasphemy."
* SetAMookToKillAMook: If you have any weapons or items able to charm enemies (such as the Charmed Bow or the Charm Horn), you can temporarily make enemies fight among themselves.

* ShootOutTheLock: More like "shoot the thing the lock is placed on"; players can opt to shoot a chest instead of using a key to open it. This reduces the quality of the potential loot. You'll be lucky to get some health or a key for it; for low-quality chests, the result is generally junk, [[JokeItem a nearly useless passive effect reminding you "next time use a key".]][[note]]The only uses of junk are to boost the damage of a single gun, the Trashcannon, and to empower Ser Junkan, a companion. [[spoiler:The Robot]] gets an additive 5% damage buff for each Junk it carries.[[/note]]

* ShopliftAndDie: The shopkeeper does not tolerate guns being shot in the shop. The first time, you get a warning. The second time, he'll take out his shotgun and double the prices. Shoot again, and he'll start drowning the store in bullets and close the store in other floors. [[spoiler:At this point, if you're daring, you can steal items from him, which is the only readily-available way to get the [[VideoGame/Payday2 Payday themed items]], which cost 9,999 coins; far, far more than you can ever get in any run. They also won't begin appearing normally (or being sold at an affordable price) ''until'' you steal them at least once each, so yeah. [[EnforcedTrope Steal them]].]]

* StableTimeLoop: The Gungeon became the firearm-themed labyrinth it is today after a mysterious force from on high plowed into it in the form of a giant bullet. [[spoiler:A bullet you may have fired depending on how the ending is to be interpreted.]]

* StationaryBoss: The Wallmonger, The High Dragun, [[spoiler:HS Absolution]], and [[spoiler:The Lich's second phase]] do not move around like the other bosses do, but they make up for this by using more complex BulletHell patterns and limiting the amount of room the player has to dodge (well, technically, [[AdvancingBossOfDoom the Wallmonger]] ''[[AdvancingBossOfDoom does]]'' [[AdvancingBossOfDoom move]], but since the screen moves with it, it doesn't do much in effect besides give the fight a time limit).

* SuperPrototype: [[ZigzaggedTrope Zig-zagged]]. The RUBE-ADYNE Prototype is noticeably less powerful than the RUBE-ADYNE MK.II with its description even hammering the point home, while the Prototype Railgun, while lacking the refined Railgun's room-clearing super-ricochet properties, deals ''triple'' the normal Railgun's already-high damage, making which is better less clear. The Teleporter Prototype [[AvertedTrope averts]] it more than not, being active item that sends you to a random room upon use, and whose description calls it "unpredictable".

** The Microtransaction Gun is one to DLC and ExecutiveMeddling, specifically the developers' experience making the mobile ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'' at Creator/ElectronicArts. It's a gun that shoots [[TheMerch dolls of the Gungeoneers and other Gungeon-related merch]] at the cost of one of one casing per shot instead of ammo. While relatively powerful, using it at all really isn't worth it, and there are many guns that do an equally good job of killing stuff without taking away your precious money. In addition, it's the second-most expensive gun in Ox and Cadence's shop at 100 credits (the most expensive being 200 credits and the next most expensive being 30), [[{{Irony}} unless you buy the actual DLC in the form of the Enter the Gungeon Collector's Edition, which includes the gun with it.]] The gun's Ammonomicon entry drives the point home further:

There is a legend told throughout the galaxy - many years ago, a massive bullet fell from space and crashed somewhere on a distant planet called Gunymede. This bullet formed the Gungeon, a sprawling, shape-shifting fortress protected by the Cult of the Gundead. Within the Gungeon, say these legends, lies a weapon of unimaginable power: a gun that can kill the past. And so it is that adventurers, known as Gungeoneers, flock to the Gungeon, seeking to right the wrongs of their pasts... if they can make it past the Gungeon's many traps and terrors...

** To get into [[spoiler:The Oubliette, you need to find the fireplace that spawns in the Keep of the Lead Lord, extinguish the fire with a water barrel that can be found in a room somewhere on the floor, enter the fireplace and flip a switch that opens up a secret room in the level, and finally use two keys to open the grate in that secret room.]] There is absolutely no indication that you can do this, and you'll likely end up going in with hardly any weapons while facing enemies about as powerful as those in the third chamber, as well as a special boss.
*** Reaching [[spoiler:The Abbey of the True Gun is even worse, since it's ''dependent'' on getting into the Oubliette. Inside the Oubliette, there's a special armor item, the Old Crest (which may or may not spawn behind a locked door that you may or may not have a key for), which appears to act like a normal armor pickup. However, if you can get through the rest of the Oubliette ''and'' at least some of the Gungeon Proper following it without taking ''any'' damage and place the crest on the shrine in the Gungeon Proper, you can finally open up the Abbey.]] The level has you facing enemies from the fourth chamber (two up from the Gungeon Proper where you entered from), plus an absolutely ''ball-grindingly brutal'' BonusBoss, and since you likely spent most of your keys on entering [[spoiler:The Oubliette]], you'll be lucky to have one or two decent weapons to fight with.

*** Thankfully, getting into [[spoiler:R&G Dept is less frustrating. You need to just find a hidden room with a Sell Creep in The Hollow and give it a Master Round and two other items or guns. This will cause the grate to break and you enter to get to the floor.]]
*** Finding the Forge's secret chamber, [[spoiler: Bullet Hell,]] is also quite easy, if not outright inevitable; [[spoiler:after successfully conquering The Past as the Convict, Marine, Hunter, and Pilot, you will be pulled into a portal to Bullet Hell when you walk over the platform with the chamber logo on it in the Aimless Void, the next time you go there]].
** The way to unlock Table Tech Rocket is bizarrely obtuse if you've [[InterfaceSpoiler not looked at the achievements.]] [[spoiler:Flip a table and push it into a pit.]]
** There's a LOT of secret interactions between items, mostly of the form "X is more effective if Y is in your inventory". These include logical interactions (ex. Junk boosting the Trash Cannon), {{Shout Out}}s to other media (reenacting the famous ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' pre-final-boss scene with the Pig companion and Samus' arm cannon enables a synergy), puns (the musical Metronome synergizes with the ammo-holding Drum Clip), and some that appear arbitrary (the teapot special ability isn't compatible with all companions, only a subset of them). The game indicates when synergies happen with a blue arrow graphic, but doesn't tell what that synergy does.

** Chamber 1, The Keep of the Lead Lord is full of [[BigFancyCastle armories, dining rooms, fireplaces, and moats]], along with the occasional [[MagicalLibrary library full of flying books and]] [[BlackMage bullet pattern-summoning Gunjurers]].

*** And the Knife Shield, an active item which generates a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin defensive ring of knives]] that can optionally be launched

* HubLevel: The Breach. [[https://enterthegungeon.fandom.com/wiki/The_Breach]]

** The [=AKEY47=], which you obtain by finishing all of the shortcut elevators. All the joy of the [=AK47=], plus its projectiles double as free keys? Yes, please. It even has a synergy that gives it ''infinite ammo'', because cleary, it wasn't good enough already.
** The Dragunfire, a weapon unlocked by beating the Dragun for the first time. High damage, good fire rate, decent spread, solid reload, projectiles that both pierce AND set enemies on fire. Its super-secret, super-rare upgraded form the High Dragunfire is also great (though sadly [[PowerupLetdown not quite as good as the regular version]]).

* InterfaceSpoiler: A read through the achievements can spoil several otherwise-hidden things about the game, such as [[spoiler:the existence of the Secret Levels, the Sixth Chamber, the Lich, the Bullet, and the Pit Lord's Amulet.]]

** The JK-47, a wet noodle of a gun that looks like a regular AK-47...until you pick it up and the barrel droops down. It's not as powerful and fires much more slowly than the regular AK, with the only unique point being that reloading it causes nearby enemies to briefly [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything back up in disgust]]. That being said, if you have the JK-47 and manage to find the ''actual'' AK-47 (or vice-versa), you get to dual-wield them for additional firepower; considering that the real AK is already BoringButPractical by itself, it's every bit as powerful as it sounds.

** [[spoiler:In every characters' past, you have the option to try and [[HistoryRepeats repeat the very action that ruined their lives in the first place]], but something always prevents you from going through with it, locking you to the main path. The Convict's plays this trope even more straight as the options are basically the same.]]

* ChestMonster: As of its final update, Enter the Gungeon has a large variety of mimics, though - unsurprisingly - the most common types disguise themselves as chests. Some items will warn you preemptively if a nearby chest is a mimic, like Junior II barking at them, and they can be told apart by seeing if the chest is "breathing". [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Or you can just shoot the chest once with a low-powered pistol]], which will cause it to reveal itself if it's a mimic or leave the chest undamaged enough to open if it's not. Other variants include the following:

* DifficultButAwesome: The Bullet. Not only they're immune to contact damage and their dodge roll deals more damage when they rolls into an enemy, their sword is the highest-damage starting weapon in the game, able to one or two-shot most enemies well into the late game and destroy projectiles. The catch is that, normally, the sword shoots powerful sword beams that can deal great damage, but can only do so at full health. Getting hit at all means resorting to melee to deal damage, and in a game where only a select few enemies ''don't'' shoot bullets (and [[BulletHell lots of them]]), it's very risky. (The sword ''can'' erase bullets that it strikes when swung[[note]]an ability shared by most melee weapons that don't [[AttackReflector reflect bullets instead]][[/note]], but it can't protect you from entire barrages by itself, especially in the late game, unless upgrade items are found that let it swing faster.)

** A co-op run has an alternate ending [[spoiler:if the Cultist is shot with the Gun that Can Kill the Past instead of player 1's character, where both players fight over who becomes the main character.]]

** [[spoiler:The Gunslinger's past]] is a fight against [[spoiler:the first form of the Lich with a ''jammed copy'' of the Lich.]]

* EpicFail: One of the Bullet's relatives tried to "aim and fire" their ancestral weapon, a sword... and ended up stabbing himself in the head. How exactly that happened is a good question. And how did he even try to "aim and fire" a sword, anyway?

* AKA47: Played with. Some real-world guns are present, including the AK-47, the Winchester Rifle, and the Colt 1851, while others are similar-looking guns [[WritingAroundTrademarks renamed to avoid trademark disputes.]] This even extends to one of the Joke Weapons; the Mega Douser appears to be molded after the original 1990 "Power Drencher", better known as the precursor to the Super Soaker. There's also a gun called the [[FunWithAcronyms JK-47]] that's really [[ThisBananaIsArmed an AK-47-shaped noodle]] with a slower fire rate than the real one, the [=AKey-47=],which shoots keys that can unlock chests, and the [[BadWithTheBone VertebraeK-47]], a weaponized spinal column that chain-fires ghosts which chase down enemies.

** Played straight with the Arrowkin, primeval forms of the Bullet Kin that are only seen when The Devolver of Devolver Rounds [[{{Pun}} devolve]] enemies. They shoot arrows instead of bullets, which hurt as much as bullets do but travel much slower, and are fired much less frequently.

** You will never have to use a key to open chests again if you wear the Mimic Tooth Necklace, ''because all chests are replaced with mimics.'' [[CursedWithAwesome This CAN be actually beneficial however,]] assuming you're good at fighting mimics.

There is a legend told throughout the galaxy: that many years ago, on the planet Gunymede, a massive bullet fell from space and embedded itself in the earth. This bullet formed the Gungeon, a sprawling, shape-shifting fortress protected by the Cult of the Gundead. Within the Gungeon, say these legends, lies a weapon of unimaginable power: a gun that can kill the past. And so it is that adventurers, known as Gungeoneers, flock to the Gungeon, seeking to right the wrongs of their pasts... if they can make it past the Gungeon's many traps and terrors...

*** The Huntsman, a shotgun with an [[AnAxeToGrind underbarrel axe-head]] that can knock bullets out of the air.

* WeaponOfChoice: Oh so many types of guns.

* AbnormalAmmo: Pretty much the entire premise of the game. Some examples include: A T-shirt cannon that fires poisonous shirts, a bullet that shoots pistols, a shotgun shell that shoots shotguns, a wooden gun that shoots explosive wooden grenades, a human spine that shoots ghosts, the letter r that shoots the word "bullet", a banana that explodes into more bananas on contact, an oxygen tank that shoots sharks, a pillow that shoots zippers, and a dinosaur skull that shoots oil (and breathes fire on reloading).

** Since the ''Supply Drop'' update, by talking to Daisuke in the Breach and paying 6 Hedgemony credits (1 if you beat the High Dragun in this mode or attempt the mode 30 times), you can enable the Challenge mode, where each room has 1-3 modifiers[[labelnote:Examples]]Killed enemies come back as Hollowpoints, enemies release suicide bullets when killed, etc.[[/labelnote]], and boss rooms have unique modifiers that modify their patterns as well. Beating the [[spoiler:High Dragun]] in Challenge Mode rewards you with Double Challenge mode, which doubles the amount of modifiers in each room, as well as [[spoiler:Chaos Bullets]].

* WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture: Hedgemony credits, specifically.