Everyone says that this game has no story and all the characters are the same and once you’ve played the first few levels, you’ve seen all the game can offer. But, everyone is wrong.
I’ve played for 50 hours and not seen all there is to see. I’ve gotten most of the trophies (I played on the PS5), but not all of them.
A man spent his life caring for his sickly brother. When his brother passed on, the man went to the Academy to find new meaning to his life. As he approached the Academy, he saw a dog waiting for him. When he looked into the dog’s eyes, he saw his brother looking back at him. Together, they entered the labyrinth.
His brother had become a Very Good Boy.
A warrior fought against her enemy. She had her enemy on the ground, life’s blood puddling from many wounds. She lifted her blade for the final cut, but then paused, stood up, and stated that her destiny lay over the horizon, under foreign stars. After he healed, her enemy took up a blade and followed her trail to the Labyrinth.
In the Labyrinth, they could find they had more in common than they ever expected.
There’s a story, but you have to piece it together. One of the adventurers came to this world from a world much like ours when he put on a special headset to play the game “Dungeon Encounters”. The game (in the game) is sold deep in the dungeon, but it has to be unlocked by destroying supercomputers.
Maybe you’d have to have remembered those old computerized dungeon crawls from the 70s, 80s and 90s to really enjoy Dungeon Encounters. So I’m not going to try and convince anyone to play — there’s a demo, see if it’s something you might enjoy.
Just some observations, for now:
- Are all the characters the same? No. While exploring the dungeon and solving the various riddles, you’ll find certain pieces of gear that nobody can equip. Paging through the characters with that item highlighted in the equip screen, you’ll often find a character, who inevitably starts out as a wanderer, who is the only one that can use that item. The Cutlery is found early; once you find Sir Cat, he can equip that to have a good chance of swallowing any normal enemy. All the characters in my final party had special abilities that were key to success.
- What is the Address Blade? This is given to you when you descend from floor 89 to 90, along with the hint as to Everethe’s fate. The name has a meaning; the damage the blade does is the floor times the Y coordinate times the X coordinate. Anyone can use this blade, and it’s vital to make sure your multiplier is high enough before taking on the final fights.
- Why can’t I find Everethe like I found everyone else? You will find clues talking about the monsters found in various encounters. One clue will reveal that Everethe has been enthralled by the Panopticoa, and you will have to fight him to release him.
- Why do I lose a ton of gold when I step on a crossed-out square? That is a toll square. You’ll find an ability that lets you avoid tolls.
- Why can’t I see some or all of the squares on this map? They’re secret! You’ll find an ability that lets you see them.
- Why can’t I descend any more? The last ten floors of the dungeon each have different quirks. One of the floors has just one square, and you’ll have to blind teleport to it. Some floors won’t let you climb back up when you climb down. One floor has over 800 squares, but they aren’t all connected to each other.
- I just used Greater Descension and fell into a pit, falling forever! AAAaaaaaaaaaaghhhhh…… Your characters are scattered over the lower few floors of the dungeon.
- This store won’t sell me something that I can afford and would like to buy! Items become available in the store when you have killed enough of the monster that can drop that item. If you want to buy the video game system, be prepared to kill a lot of Supercomputers first. The drops and store unlocks are shown in the Battle Log.
- This store has no inventory at all! Yeah, about that… I have no idea. I’m wondering what’s supposed to be sold there.
- I don’t have enough ability points to equip all the abilities I need! Completely explore more floors to earn ability points. In the end, for the hardest fight in the game, I had all the abilities I needed.
- These math riddles are too hard! I used the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences to solve some of the puzzles.
- These map riddles are too hard! The first few were easy, but even though I took screenshots, it was tough to keep them all in mind when exploring. Riddles need to be solved, though, as good stuff comes from them.
- Which stats are more important? I think there’s lots of potential builds — tank vs evasion, speed vs damage. For my run, I went with as much speed as I could take. I took a fair amount of damage as a result, but most fights ended before that became a problem, plus there are several heals that can be used.
When you get bugged about any particular dungeon mechanic, you can assume there’s going to be an ability that can alleviate it.
I won’t forget this game anytime real soon.
Here’s a video of the fight vs Everethe and Panopticoa. I used Houk Gau with his special katana, Sir Cat with his CutlerySet and the vital Address Blade, Valtoro with his Dragon Whisker, and K-2000 with his Excavator ability that does random percentage-based damage to all enemy stats.
Huh.
I still would prefer a little more base character differentiation, but you are very solidly tilting the scales back toward a purchase for me.
The game is still a really stripped down dungeon crawl, but there is story there if you are willing to meet it halfway 馃檪
I was struck by Everethe’s words — he found nothing in the game for him, but perhaps I found something for me. Those words were said by the developer, to me the player. I did find something for me in this game.
Wow you tore through this. I made it to level 10 (maybe 11) last night. I finally got everyone other than my party back to the surface and 00.
I wonder if the dungeon levels are randomized at all? Like if you started a new game would the maps be the same? Encounters are obviously random every time you enter a level but like if you find a Gorgon Shrine in one game, would it be in the same location in another game?
As far as I know, the maps, the riddles and their solutions are the same from game to game.
You probably haven’t spent fifty hours in the game, either — this game was like an obsession to me, just like those old games back in the day.
Leveling went a lot faster once I got a few key abilities that let me a) erase the physical defenses for everyone, and b) allow melee attacks to hit flying mobs. Those two abilities let me stop wasting PP on magic and focus on killing stuff fast. Houk Gao’s ability to directly attack HP, bypassing all defenses, was nice, too — but I only switched to him late in the game.
The Ghost shop that sells nothing buys the rare/unique drops for very high prices. The Painting sells for 5,000,000 gold…but by the time you get there, it’s likely that you no longer care about gold. 馃榾 The shop buys other things at very high prices, too.
Aha! Yeah, I had zero need of money by the end of the game. I did try using that painting as armor but it didn’t counter enough to be worth nerfing every other slot.