Dangerous Galaxy Review

Dangerous Galaxy is a roguelite space shooter developed and published by Rogue Plankton. With a demo that was released back in March 2024, it’s now ready for release. Please do note that I am playing a pre-release version about a month prior for the review, so some of the things I talk about are subject to change.

The game doesn’t have a story to go off of; it’s just a straightforward adventure through space, battling giant spaceships and (hopefully) avoiding all the asteroids in your way… and, let me tell you, there are a lot of asteroids! I do like the art style used here; there is a good bit of variety in the backgrounds despite it mostly being set in space, with planets and starships looming out in the distance. It also helps to contrast with all the grey rocks you’ll be crashing into.

Now, onto the gameplay: you’ll be travelling along a map, taking on encounters, and slowly levelling up your ship to become strong enough to face the final boss at the end of it all. It’s a fairly standard roguelike affair that doesn't really need to change. Actually, choosing which level to take on is sort of like FTL: Faster Than Light, where only certain points connect to each other, so you’ll need to map out your route beforehand. There are also special fights that will grant you a permanent bonus. Like FTL, you shouldn’t be taking on every single one — The more encounters you do, the harder your enemies become.

As for the encounters themselves, they’re pretty simple: all you have to do is survive until the end or beat the boss. After every fight, you’ll be able to purchase upgrades, using the gold that you earned to repair and modify your ship, and go to the galaxy map to do it all again. Repeat until you win. It’s not a complex gameplay loop, but it works. The real trouble is what happens within it.

Levels play out with you moving your ship around to aim with your auto-fire weapon at enemies and avoid whatever obstacles are in your way. All the debris and enemy ships have physics too, so the force of your weapons can cause some unintentional chaos. It’s actually pretty fun dodging and blasting your way through stages… when there isn’t an entire wall of rocks hurdling towards you.

Have I mentioned there are a lot of space rocks yet? Because there are so many! They tend to fill the screen and block your way forward. It’s genuinely a problem, and you’ll rarely come out of these levels without having your ship getting hit by a stray boulder. I was a little bothered that, at times, damage was guaranteed, and I had to keep spending gold to repair my ship.

I also had some issues actually playing the game. The controls when playing on a gamepad had to be changed via Steam Input, as the game had trouble recognising my interactions. Also, the confirm button was on the right bumper, which felt weird.

Anyways, you won’t last long with only your basic weapon, so as mentioned before, you can upgrade your ship to become more powerful, which is done using a grid system. They can either be passive buffs that only increase your stats, or active abilities that add to your arsenal of weapons like lasers, rockets, and shields (though only four can be active at a time).

This is all well and good, but upgrades must have connecting sides, and with only a 5x5 grid, you’ll be thinking hard about how to properly lay out your equipment for maximum efficiency. Here’s a tip: if there are two matching upgrades, you can combine them to level up that upgrade. If you have a connector piece, you can add it to an upgrade to add another side you can connect to. It’s sort of a fun puzzle to figure out after every stage.

After finishing a run, you’ll receive EXP based on how well you did, and levelling up will grant you points you can spend on meta upgrades to make your base ship a little better. They certainly help, but I didn’t notice much of a difference until they were halfway maxed out. However, if you complete certain conditions, you’ll unlock different basic weapons you can choose before you start a new run. Those feel really different and did make me change how I played the game.

And… that’s all I can say about the gameplay. I did find it fun by itself, but I’ve played similar games to Dangerous Galaxy, which offered a lot more excitement to me. It does feel good when you get a decent amount of upgrades, but I just felt a little underwhelmed with the overall experience. It’s simple in comparison to other roguelites, but that can be to its advantage or detriment. Ultimately, it’s a nice time, but not a great time.