I really enjoyed this game. It's the perfect "lay in bed and play for 20-30 mins before going to sleep game" it also scratches that itch I have of completing things, so mapping out all the floors and getting the satisfying pop-up when I did so really appealed to me.
I would say the only downsides were:
1: I quickly found out that using the accessory that adds to your phys attack & mg attack + full hp dmg and/or weary dmg boost just steam rolls everything mid to late game.
2: I was expecting the boss to be on floor 99 so finding them on floor 90 kinda threw me for a loop and I wasn't ready for the credits to start rolling lmao.
I really enjoyed this game, doesn't take much brain power, perfect for if you only have a short time to play every day or even just a few times a week.
If they ever did a sequel or similar style game I would definitely buy it. Just comfy overall, honestly.
I would say the only downsides were:
1: I quickly found out that using the accessory that adds to your phys attack & mg attack + full hp dmg and/or weary dmg boost just steam rolls everything mid to late game.
2: I was expecting the boss to be on floor 99 so finding them on floor 90 kinda threw me for a loop and I wasn't ready for the credits to start rolling lmao.
I really enjoyed this game, doesn't take much brain power, perfect for if you only have a short time to play every day or even just a few times a week.
If they ever did a sequel or similar style game I would definitely buy it. Just comfy overall, honestly.
A game made for a very, very particular kind of freak, and I happen to be one of those freaks. I love close to everything about it--its clean, minimalist aesthetic; the lack of story; the flavor text it gives its characters even though they all might as well be paper dolls; its oddball, playfully mean sense of humor. I'm not sure I'd necessarily call it deep, but there's a lot hidden underneath its seemingly simple surface, and the way its systems feed into each other...the intelligence and thoughtfulness of Hiroyuki Ito and his team really come through here.
To say it's not for everybody would be an understatement but I would call it equally suited for adventurous newcomers to dungeon crawlers and veterans alike: newcomers for its immediate accessibility and pick-up-and-play quality; veterans for the fun, interesting ways it toys around with genre conventions. Cannot believe something like this came from Square Enix.
To say it's not for everybody would be an understatement but I would call it equally suited for adventurous newcomers to dungeon crawlers and veterans alike: newcomers for its immediate accessibility and pick-up-and-play quality; veterans for the fun, interesting ways it toys around with genre conventions. Cannot believe something like this came from Square Enix.
Tough, fun, but a bit shallow
A minimalist, ATB-system dungeon-crawler. Some interesting features, but the barren presentation and padded-out campaign really kill its appeal after more than a few hours. I'm sure it's a good game, but I think I need more ambiance in my dungeon-crawlers.
Definitely one of the Games Of All Time. Bricked my save like a jackass, lol. Fun while it lasted!
- Didn’t like it, listen here for why:
https://anchor.fm/thethirstymage/episodes/Dungeon-Encounters---Good-or-Bad-e28pc14
https://anchor.fm/thethirstymage/episodes/Dungeon-Encounters---Good-or-Bad-e28pc14
Just one more level! DE somewhat satisfied my dungeon crawling cravings, but it's a very bare bones experience for both the price the game is asking and for the time investment required to beat it. Once you've ran though the first 10 floors get ready to experience almost the exact same thing over and over again for the next 89 floors. The story is about three sentences long, the music, weapons, magic, monster and so on are all repeated over and over. Kind of boring even for a dungeon crawler.
It's definitely not a game everyone will like, but I recommend taking a look at the negative reviews on Steam - chances are, if you're like me, all of the criticism will indicate that you want to play it.
Its just pure RPG with no fluff, with a hardcore Mystery Dungeon esque spin on things that means entire runs can be done for within the span of one battle that you didn't prepare for properly. Exploration starts out a bit annoying and slow, but I find that just as you start to get annoyed by certain mechanics the game introduces an ability to help combat that.
Despite how bare-bones and stripped down it is, its got some really nice and clean UI and is actually quite nice to play - there are a few annoying quirks that could have done with a bit more QoL though, like being able to see your characters on the tiles they were left on without having to open the menu, or unique weapons / accessories actually denoting that in their description.
Its just pure RPG with no fluff, with a hardcore Mystery Dungeon esque spin on things that means entire runs can be done for within the span of one battle that you didn't prepare for properly. Exploration starts out a bit annoying and slow, but I find that just as you start to get annoyed by certain mechanics the game introduces an ability to help combat that.
Despite how bare-bones and stripped down it is, its got some really nice and clean UI and is actually quite nice to play - there are a few annoying quirks that could have done with a bit more QoL though, like being able to see your characters on the tiles they were left on without having to open the menu, or unique weapons / accessories actually denoting that in their description.
This review contains spoilers
fun as hell; 100% gameplay, 0% bullshit. absolutely love that even by looking up and getting every single ability, you still don't really trivialize the rest of the game. secret final boss is pure RNG hell and every strategy to cheese everything but the supercomputer & black hole will not work—lucked out with RNG + all abilities + 2 address blades and shuffling it into as close to 99.99.99 as possible.
Enjoyable little dungeon-crawler with turn-based ATB combat. You navigate 99 floors of a dungeon represented by a no-frills grid so it's kinda like an interactive Excel spreadsheet designed by Hiroyuki Ito with Nobuo Uematsu music. It's pretty good!
Dungeon Encounters takes everything that is expected from a mainstream release and proves that almost all of it is superfluous. It was such an interesting experience that got me thinking, that lots games try to appeal to broader audiences by introducing more and more mechanics burying the good stuff underneath a ton of mediocre stuff, demotivating the player.
Would I be as engaged to keep descending the dungeon for as long as I was if it had more cinematic and narrative ambitions like almost every JRPG in existence? I dont think so. Likewise, would I keep going if the combat system was more complex? Probably not. Would prettier graphics improve the experience? Nope.
It was nice seeing something so focused coming from Square veterans.
The game is not perfect though. I think the music leaves a lot to be desired, specially the battle themes. Also the post credit content leans a little towards grinding.
Would I be as engaged to keep descending the dungeon for as long as I was if it had more cinematic and narrative ambitions like almost every JRPG in existence? I dont think so. Likewise, would I keep going if the combat system was more complex? Probably not. Would prettier graphics improve the experience? Nope.
It was nice seeing something so focused coming from Square veterans.
The game is not perfect though. I think the music leaves a lot to be desired, specially the battle themes. Also the post credit content leans a little towards grinding.
I can see the appeal of this game, but it’s totally not for me. The second I landed on a square that said MATH RIDDLE I gave up.
I like to imagine that somewhere, deep inside Square, someone was making a fully fledged JRPG. A big wig walked over and saw it on the screen and thought "You know, if we just scoop the characters, story, setting, music, art, and voice acting out, we'd have a really popular Visual Novel on our hands!"
So they did. They got one of those serrated spoons you get for scooping out pumpkin guts and SPLOOOSH... out it came.
But what to do with the shell? Pumpkin seeds are delicious, and it's insides can be made into pies, but what of the big, hard, kinda ugly left overs?
Dungeon Encounters is like carving a little face on a gourd, sticking a candle inside and going "There you go, fill in some squares"
It's good, basically.
So they did. They got one of those serrated spoons you get for scooping out pumpkin guts and SPLOOOSH... out it came.
But what to do with the shell? Pumpkin seeds are delicious, and it's insides can be made into pies, but what of the big, hard, kinda ugly left overs?
Dungeon Encounters is like carving a little face on a gourd, sticking a candle inside and going "There you go, fill in some squares"
It's good, basically.
Dungeon Encounters seems to have some interesting mechanics, but doesn't have enough depth or variety over its length. It leans heavily on my willingness to grind for levels and equipment, which doesn't sustain it for me.
The game is purposefully simplified in terms of graphics and world. It pulls it off well enough for what it is, but is definitely boring to look at while playing. The character portraits are well done, but static. Characters have short descriptions that hint at some deeper world building and the character's place within it, but don't ultimately seem to come to anything. Some of them have connections to other characters (some of which are trapped in the dungeon for you to find later), but this stuff seems tenuous and isn't very impactful overall.
Exploration in Dungeon Encounters involves walking through grid-based levels to find staircases to the next levels, enemies, treasures, and other special events like wandering heroes you can add to your roster. It plays very much like Etrian Odyssey or older, text-based, computer rpgs. There isn't a ton of interesting level design going on and exploring the dungeons quickly gets tedious.
There is also a mechanic that rewards you for stepping on every tile in a level, which is... pretty bad, since it encourages you to do the most boring part of the game in the most boring way. I really don't understand this, since there are many other non-destructive solutions for whatever behavior Dungeon Encounters is trying to encourage here.
Dungeon Encounters uses the ATB system invented for Final Fantasy IV, which is nostalgic, but doesn't do a lot to explore it much farther beyond speed stats that have a minor effect.
Characters in the game have magical defense and physical defense and weapons strike one or the other. When you wear down the defense of one type, you start dealing damage directly to their HP. I didn't find this to have that much depth, in practice. Most combats just ended up with me using whichever type of attack was strongest.
Weapons also are of two different types, random damage and static damage. Static weapons have lower attack potential, but random weapons are truly random, doing as little as 1 damage to an enemy. I didn't feel like this was much of a choice since the randomness can be so punishing I favored static weapons 90% of the time.
Character development is entirely based on these weapons and though the game presents it as though it is complex and deep, it sort of just isn't. There simply aren't very many interesting choices to make. Physical vs. magical doesn't matter because it is easy to focus one or the other and random vs. static doesn't matter because having 2-3 characters with static weapons offsets any negatives the random weapons have.
I grew tired of this game pretty quickly. The combat felt VERY solved almost immediately, and I never really had to vary my strategy or make any real choices. Exploration quickly became tedious as well and while there are hints of interesting design, in 30 levels the game didn't do anything worth mentioning in this regard.
I think the idea of a stripped down, focused dungeon crawler that explores some interesting mechanics is a super cool idea, but Dungeon Encounters just doesn't do this for me.
The game is purposefully simplified in terms of graphics and world. It pulls it off well enough for what it is, but is definitely boring to look at while playing. The character portraits are well done, but static. Characters have short descriptions that hint at some deeper world building and the character's place within it, but don't ultimately seem to come to anything. Some of them have connections to other characters (some of which are trapped in the dungeon for you to find later), but this stuff seems tenuous and isn't very impactful overall.
Exploration in Dungeon Encounters involves walking through grid-based levels to find staircases to the next levels, enemies, treasures, and other special events like wandering heroes you can add to your roster. It plays very much like Etrian Odyssey or older, text-based, computer rpgs. There isn't a ton of interesting level design going on and exploring the dungeons quickly gets tedious.
There is also a mechanic that rewards you for stepping on every tile in a level, which is... pretty bad, since it encourages you to do the most boring part of the game in the most boring way. I really don't understand this, since there are many other non-destructive solutions for whatever behavior Dungeon Encounters is trying to encourage here.
Dungeon Encounters uses the ATB system invented for Final Fantasy IV, which is nostalgic, but doesn't do a lot to explore it much farther beyond speed stats that have a minor effect.
Characters in the game have magical defense and physical defense and weapons strike one or the other. When you wear down the defense of one type, you start dealing damage directly to their HP. I didn't find this to have that much depth, in practice. Most combats just ended up with me using whichever type of attack was strongest.
Weapons also are of two different types, random damage and static damage. Static weapons have lower attack potential, but random weapons are truly random, doing as little as 1 damage to an enemy. I didn't feel like this was much of a choice since the randomness can be so punishing I favored static weapons 90% of the time.
Character development is entirely based on these weapons and though the game presents it as though it is complex and deep, it sort of just isn't. There simply aren't very many interesting choices to make. Physical vs. magical doesn't matter because it is easy to focus one or the other and random vs. static doesn't matter because having 2-3 characters with static weapons offsets any negatives the random weapons have.
I grew tired of this game pretty quickly. The combat felt VERY solved almost immediately, and I never really had to vary my strategy or make any real choices. Exploration quickly became tedious as well and while there are hints of interesting design, in 30 levels the game didn't do anything worth mentioning in this regard.
I think the idea of a stripped down, focused dungeon crawler that explores some interesting mechanics is a super cool idea, but Dungeon Encounters just doesn't do this for me.
Dungeon Encounters reminds me of the early days of the internet, before the DMCA, when copyright status was merely a suggestion. With no guarantee of an official, licensed product, amateur programmers created digital versions of their favorite analog games (ie. Magic the Gathering), making applications that were difficult to use, often unstable, and immeasurably magical. That’s what Dungeon Encounters is to me: a Windows 95 application to play Dungeon & Dragons.
There’s a lot that’s good to say about the game. Its mechanics are simple, but immensely solid, and it always manages to feel tense and dangerous as you dive down into the dungeon, strata by strata. Those strata, while composed of little more than grid squares, combine the background colors, sounds, and even the general grid layouts to convey an impressive sense of location, really selling each different biome you come across as unique places with stories all their own.
On a surface level, though, it’s quite sparse, and it’s left to the player to come up with the details. Even the characters follow that philosophy, with the game having you assemble a strange, disparate cast of characters that range from standard adventures, to robots, to a cat, and to a nerd that’s been transported into that world. You only get the tiniest of snippets to explain who they are and why they’re there, and even then you might not get a clear picture. Your group’s reason for being and their dynamics together are entirely up to you, as is the story of what they encounter along the way.
Dungeon Encounters is so aggressively a digitized tabletop RPG that it’s amazing the director, Itou Hiroyuki, had no familiarity with them going into the project. Despite that, though, that is my biggest takeaway, and its whole vibe has made me immensely nostalgic for the days when program assets were just poorly taken pictures of the physical object by a camera that didn’t even know what a megapixel was. Just toss a Windows 95 title bar on top of Dungeon Encounters and I’m home.
There’s a lot that’s good to say about the game. Its mechanics are simple, but immensely solid, and it always manages to feel tense and dangerous as you dive down into the dungeon, strata by strata. Those strata, while composed of little more than grid squares, combine the background colors, sounds, and even the general grid layouts to convey an impressive sense of location, really selling each different biome you come across as unique places with stories all their own.
On a surface level, though, it’s quite sparse, and it’s left to the player to come up with the details. Even the characters follow that philosophy, with the game having you assemble a strange, disparate cast of characters that range from standard adventures, to robots, to a cat, and to a nerd that’s been transported into that world. You only get the tiniest of snippets to explain who they are and why they’re there, and even then you might not get a clear picture. Your group’s reason for being and their dynamics together are entirely up to you, as is the story of what they encounter along the way.
Dungeon Encounters is so aggressively a digitized tabletop RPG that it’s amazing the director, Itou Hiroyuki, had no familiarity with them going into the project. Despite that, though, that is my biggest takeaway, and its whole vibe has made me immensely nostalgic for the days when program assets were just poorly taken pictures of the physical object by a camera that didn’t even know what a megapixel was. Just toss a Windows 95 title bar on top of Dungeon Encounters and I’m home.
there's some maybe interesting thoughts here but they're held back by an exhaustingly large dungeon and dice rolls upon dice rolls upon dice rolls
admittedly didn't get suuuuuuper far but the slog's gone on long enough i can't see it getting any better, especially with my significant issues with its systems (the large amount of highly random damage, floors being big and uninteresting, heavily encouraging skipping around and thus just... not engaging with the actual gameplay). overall 0/10, play Etrian Odyssey instead
admittedly didn't get suuuuuuper far but the slog's gone on long enough i can't see it getting any better, especially with my significant issues with its systems (the large amount of highly random damage, floors being big and uninteresting, heavily encouraging skipping around and thus just... not engaging with the actual gameplay). overall 0/10, play Etrian Odyssey instead
Layer 1: Dungeon Encounters looks like the devs said "good enough" and called it a day.
Layer 2: There's a surprising level of polish here. Nice little character bios, cool rock guitar battle music, and the battle system has more depth than it lets on.
Layer 3: Once again I find myself starting all the way back at the first floor with my weakest characters, tediously trying to save my main party who were all KOed and/or turned to stone by a surprise overleveled enemy party. They're stuck on floor 20, which took me forever to get to, but I know there's 99 floors total and I've barely scratched the surface of what this game expects me to do. What started as a lean distillation of my favorite aspects of JRPGs has turned into the grindy tedium that I originally feared it would be.
I spoiled the ending for myself by looking it up online. I won't ruin it for you; I will simply say that if I spent the hundreds of hours necessary to get there, and that's all that happened, I would be pretty upset.
Dungeon Encounters does a lot of things right, and it could have been fine-tuned to be a much more enjoyable and stimulating journey than it is. I like the idea of an Into The Breach-style approach to the JRPG format; simplified aesthetic + deep strategy. But clearly, the devs said "good enough" and called it a day.
Layer 2: There's a surprising level of polish here. Nice little character bios, cool rock guitar battle music, and the battle system has more depth than it lets on.
Layer 3: Once again I find myself starting all the way back at the first floor with my weakest characters, tediously trying to save my main party who were all KOed and/or turned to stone by a surprise overleveled enemy party. They're stuck on floor 20, which took me forever to get to, but I know there's 99 floors total and I've barely scratched the surface of what this game expects me to do. What started as a lean distillation of my favorite aspects of JRPGs has turned into the grindy tedium that I originally feared it would be.
I spoiled the ending for myself by looking it up online. I won't ruin it for you; I will simply say that if I spent the hundreds of hours necessary to get there, and that's all that happened, I would be pretty upset.
Dungeon Encounters does a lot of things right, and it could have been fine-tuned to be a much more enjoyable and stimulating journey than it is. I like the idea of an Into The Breach-style approach to the JRPG format; simplified aesthetic + deep strategy. But clearly, the devs said "good enough" and called it a day.
you walk over tiles on a grid, get stopped by battles on random tiles, leave to the next floor once you run over every tile, rinse and repeat. that's about it. battles are the ATB flavor of turn-based combat against what seems to be a preset enemy formation, selected at random. both parties have physical defense and magic defense to protect their HP, both defenses auto-regenerate after every battle, and magical attacks are free to cast rather than being tied to a resource. abilities are active and passive and use a resource by taking up a certain number of slots; you gain more slots by walking over as many tiles as possible. you have to start from 0 and make it all the way down to floor 99 with zero meaningful developments -- no dialogue, no overarching narrative, no characterization, nothing.
there's really not much to it and I still somehow found myself losing track of time as I played it. I'd say I enjoyed it to some extent, mainly as a change of pace from all the action games I've played, but after 4 hours I'm on floor 11 and I feel like it's just not worth my time or effort. I haven't had more than one party member die at a time so I've never truly felt challenged or pressured, particularly to the point of having to strategize whatsoever. I wouldn't be looking forward to a party wipe either, I've read that you have to find your downed party with your underleveled B squad so it's like pseudo-permadeath with tedious strings attached.
I can't be bothered grinding out the monotony just to find out if the game might get even remotely engaging. it's not gonna happen. at this point I play it a lot like I did with "survivor clones" where I mute the audio and listen to some of the many albums I've been meaning to get to... and I truly despise the idea of consuming several forms of media at once so that's not really saying much. I play video games to get absorbed in them and take in every element, mainly the music and sound in this case and the lack thereof, not to zone out and juggle my attention between the game and a TV show, movie, YouTube video, whatever it may be unless I'm grinding post-game content or an achievement in one of my favorite games or something. I just think that nonsense should be reserved for mundane chores and work, and games shouldn't be a chore to play like this one is.
in fact while I was playing it I couldn't help but draw vague similarities to Vampire Survivors. not as in it's another mindless stimulant; if I had to choose I'd pick this instead every time, although it is funny how different critical reception is between the two. what I mean is that it's another heavily distilled and barebones approach to genre conventions. where Vampire Survivors is like watching paint dry for ~30 minutes just to unlock other stuff and upgrade stats between runs, this game is all about the dungeon crawling without the theatrics, atmosphere, worldbuilding, narrative, etc etc. I know there's other dungeon crawlers with a similar design but nothing about this one managed to captivate me.
I don't outright dislike Dungeon Encounters but it's a hard sell even to someone that'd be into it. I kinda like how bold it is in its minimalism, I just can't justify the time investment given the shallowness. if I want to play a dungeon crawler I'll play a blobber or whatever. if I wanted to play a JRPG with less story and more gameplay I'd play something like SaGa, it's got plenty more mechanical depth. in a time where we're spoiled with so many great video games out there and plenty more to come, I fail to find a reason to see this one to the end.
there's really not much to it and I still somehow found myself losing track of time as I played it. I'd say I enjoyed it to some extent, mainly as a change of pace from all the action games I've played, but after 4 hours I'm on floor 11 and I feel like it's just not worth my time or effort. I haven't had more than one party member die at a time so I've never truly felt challenged or pressured, particularly to the point of having to strategize whatsoever. I wouldn't be looking forward to a party wipe either, I've read that you have to find your downed party with your underleveled B squad so it's like pseudo-permadeath with tedious strings attached.
I can't be bothered grinding out the monotony just to find out if the game might get even remotely engaging. it's not gonna happen. at this point I play it a lot like I did with "survivor clones" where I mute the audio and listen to some of the many albums I've been meaning to get to... and I truly despise the idea of consuming several forms of media at once so that's not really saying much. I play video games to get absorbed in them and take in every element, mainly the music and sound in this case and the lack thereof, not to zone out and juggle my attention between the game and a TV show, movie, YouTube video, whatever it may be unless I'm grinding post-game content or an achievement in one of my favorite games or something. I just think that nonsense should be reserved for mundane chores and work, and games shouldn't be a chore to play like this one is.
in fact while I was playing it I couldn't help but draw vague similarities to Vampire Survivors. not as in it's another mindless stimulant; if I had to choose I'd pick this instead every time, although it is funny how different critical reception is between the two. what I mean is that it's another heavily distilled and barebones approach to genre conventions. where Vampire Survivors is like watching paint dry for ~30 minutes just to unlock other stuff and upgrade stats between runs, this game is all about the dungeon crawling without the theatrics, atmosphere, worldbuilding, narrative, etc etc. I know there's other dungeon crawlers with a similar design but nothing about this one managed to captivate me.
I don't outright dislike Dungeon Encounters but it's a hard sell even to someone that'd be into it. I kinda like how bold it is in its minimalism, I just can't justify the time investment given the shallowness. if I want to play a dungeon crawler I'll play a blobber or whatever. if I wanted to play a JRPG with less story and more gameplay I'd play something like SaGa, it's got plenty more mechanical depth. in a time where we're spoiled with so many great video games out there and plenty more to come, I fail to find a reason to see this one to the end.
This game is so mean I kinda love it
Interesting premise, I originally stopped playing about 2 hours in. I feel like if I had heard anybody talk about this game in the last 2 years, I would have been motivated to return. However with that not being the case, I'm left to assume there is no interesting spin or twist, and those first 2 hours is indicative of what the whole game is.
The way you could skip floors was neat.
The way you could skip floors was neat.
Pros:
+ the look and general design are absolutely unique
+ the dungeon is huge and more complex than it seems at first
+ ability system is intriguing and affects every element of the game
+ exploration is a constant tug and pull between danger and reward
+ treasures are rare but incredibly useful
+ enemy locations are randomized
+ descend and ascend abilities are fun and can break the game
+ losing all party members does not lead to a complete game over
+ walking speed can be quickly adjusted
Cons:
- the general visual style, animations, and overall presentation are amateurish
- the game loop repeats without change from the first floor to the last
- playtime averages over 30 hours and feels artificially inflated
- exploring each floor in full is necessary but boring and time-consuming
- event numbers on the board seem to follow no discernible logic
- the number of useful abilities far outweighs the available slots
- user interface is ugly and badly designed
- combat mechanics are shallow and tedious
- characters have no personality and cannot be customized
- equipment cannot be changed mid-combat
- party strength is highly dependent on random enemy drops
- there is no no narrative beyond the barebones title card
- random number weapons turn fights into dice throwing competitions
- shop inventory is linked to party levels instead of floor progress
- music mostly consists of lazy versions of classical pieces
- hard rock combat theme in particular gets annoying fast
- even with the upgrade, the perspective is limiting and cannot be zoomed
- wanderer compass ability is necessary but frustrating to use
- losing and retrieving a party is terribly annoying
- a wandering, lost party is practically impossible to find
- optional characters can break the entire game
- enemies and traps can put you deeply into debt without warning
Playtime: Abandoned after 12 hours, with most floors uncovered, most characters collected and 46,000 tiles explored. Final boss found and fought but not beaten. -20,000 coins in debt because ... why not?
Blagic Moments: Using a weapon with randomized damage output for the first time and realizing that the damage number is indeed completely randomized, turning battles into endless dice throws. Losing a battle and having to retrieve it with level 1 characters for no apparent reason at all. Stepping on a trap that you have never seen before and going into debt for the rest of the game.
Magic Moment: Finally turning off the terrible sound to enjoy the game a tiny bit more.
Verdict:
Dungeon Encounters portrays itself as a modern take on classical RPG virtues that distills genre tropes down to the bare necessities, opting to focus on the strength of its the mechanics over the contemporary rat race of higher and higher production values. However, only a few hours in, the issue with this unique approach quickly becomes apparent: Exploring the same, grid-based maps over and over again gets grating fast, and the combat quickly amounts to little more than two spread sheets throwing dice with thousands of sides at each other.
Losing or winning a fight more often than not amounts to pure luck after the first third of the game, and certain enemy constellation can quickly lead to a party wipe even after copious amounts of grinding. One lost fight makes it necessary to retrieve the party with level 1 characters that can be lost even more quickly on the same boring maps. This combination of tedious exploration and unfair combat situations is the core design that the entire game is built around: by floor 20 or so, you will have spent hours repeating the same few actions without much of a reason to repeat them for 80 more floors due to the lack of a narrative or any other engaging elements. With this severe lack of dramatic heft, the game reveals itself to be a wholly superfluous time sink that offers nothing but hundreds of confrontations of still pictures, until the credits finally roll.
Skip this game if you value your time and play one of the classic progenitors of the genre instead if you value mechanics over presentation.
+ the look and general design are absolutely unique
+ the dungeon is huge and more complex than it seems at first
+ ability system is intriguing and affects every element of the game
+ exploration is a constant tug and pull between danger and reward
+ treasures are rare but incredibly useful
+ enemy locations are randomized
+ descend and ascend abilities are fun and can break the game
+ losing all party members does not lead to a complete game over
+ walking speed can be quickly adjusted
Cons:
- the general visual style, animations, and overall presentation are amateurish
- the game loop repeats without change from the first floor to the last
- playtime averages over 30 hours and feels artificially inflated
- exploring each floor in full is necessary but boring and time-consuming
- event numbers on the board seem to follow no discernible logic
- the number of useful abilities far outweighs the available slots
- user interface is ugly and badly designed
- combat mechanics are shallow and tedious
- characters have no personality and cannot be customized
- equipment cannot be changed mid-combat
- party strength is highly dependent on random enemy drops
- there is no no narrative beyond the barebones title card
- random number weapons turn fights into dice throwing competitions
- shop inventory is linked to party levels instead of floor progress
- music mostly consists of lazy versions of classical pieces
- hard rock combat theme in particular gets annoying fast
- even with the upgrade, the perspective is limiting and cannot be zoomed
- wanderer compass ability is necessary but frustrating to use
- losing and retrieving a party is terribly annoying
- a wandering, lost party is practically impossible to find
- optional characters can break the entire game
- enemies and traps can put you deeply into debt without warning
Playtime: Abandoned after 12 hours, with most floors uncovered, most characters collected and 46,000 tiles explored. Final boss found and fought but not beaten. -20,000 coins in debt because ... why not?
Blagic Moments: Using a weapon with randomized damage output for the first time and realizing that the damage number is indeed completely randomized, turning battles into endless dice throws. Losing a battle and having to retrieve it with level 1 characters for no apparent reason at all. Stepping on a trap that you have never seen before and going into debt for the rest of the game.
Magic Moment: Finally turning off the terrible sound to enjoy the game a tiny bit more.
Verdict:
Dungeon Encounters portrays itself as a modern take on classical RPG virtues that distills genre tropes down to the bare necessities, opting to focus on the strength of its the mechanics over the contemporary rat race of higher and higher production values. However, only a few hours in, the issue with this unique approach quickly becomes apparent: Exploring the same, grid-based maps over and over again gets grating fast, and the combat quickly amounts to little more than two spread sheets throwing dice with thousands of sides at each other.
Losing or winning a fight more often than not amounts to pure luck after the first third of the game, and certain enemy constellation can quickly lead to a party wipe even after copious amounts of grinding. One lost fight makes it necessary to retrieve the party with level 1 characters that can be lost even more quickly on the same boring maps. This combination of tedious exploration and unfair combat situations is the core design that the entire game is built around: by floor 20 or so, you will have spent hours repeating the same few actions without much of a reason to repeat them for 80 more floors due to the lack of a narrative or any other engaging elements. With this severe lack of dramatic heft, the game reveals itself to be a wholly superfluous time sink that offers nothing but hundreds of confrontations of still pictures, until the credits finally roll.
Skip this game if you value your time and play one of the classic progenitors of the genre instead if you value mechanics over presentation.
I walking into the last encounter trying to clear a floor only to get ambushed by 5 lvl 45's at lvl 15 and having my entire party KO'd and abandoned on the floor with my highest level back up at lvls 10, 3, 2. Then two of my members got petrified and I had to start the leveling over.
Loving it.
UPDATE: Got everyone back in one piece. If you find grinding gear and levels for 6 people to recover the 4 you lost for going too deep + another during the grind enjoyable, this is a must buy.
Loving it.
UPDATE: Got everyone back in one piece. If you find grinding gear and levels for 6 people to recover the 4 you lost for going too deep + another during the grind enjoyable, this is a must buy.
Played this game non-stop for like 4-5 days over xmas time and then did the thing where I don't play my switch for months and now I have no interest in it for now.
Shelved but will come back to it one day because I really loved what I did play but not in the mood for a long dungeon-crawler game atm ;w;
Shelved but will come back to it one day because I really loved what I did play but not in the mood for a long dungeon-crawler game atm ;w;
JRPG combat stripped down to its essence and expanded upon. Really, this game is just a series of math problems with mild exploration in between. I love this.
i fear this is gonna be another yearly replay/game i replay into oblivion
I waited until a sale to try this game because I was hesitant to pay full price, and I was right to be skeptical. This game is minimal to a fault with little visual appeal, a lack of interesting character development, and infuriating music. There's simply no fun to be had.
DE is a unique game. At first glance, it's extremely barebones. No story, minimal visual flair, no combat animation, no real guidance. You're given the task of exploring all the floors of the dungeon and that's it. As you go through the game, floors keep adding various gimmicks to spice things up, and enemies will keep getting stronger and can often give status effects that can affect the party in very significant ways. I found the general loop of the game really fun, if maybe a bit repetitive after several floors, though the new gimmicks certainly demand a different approach more often than not. I was really surprised with how unforgiving the game can be sometimes, as a small mistake can lead to a lot of trouble. Also, while at first your mobility is pretty limited, as you get more abilities you can easily ascend or descend floors or move pretty much anywhere you want without much hassle. So, while the first few floors might feel slower, eventually it's becoming much more easier, given your tools. As for the combat, while it's nothing of note, a lot of its appeal is around the fact that maintaining your party and trying not to die is a much more important task than simply winning a fight. Overall, a decent experience for its price, it has a lot of cool stuff to play around, and even if there's not a story or cool visuals, it's still very fun.
This is a really interesting RPG, the simple joy in filling in the squares on the grid is hard to overstate, and the combat while simple to grasp has some real depth; the late game items can trivialize the last few hours however. This game does definitely drag in some portions and some of the mechanics/traps to me felt like major annoyances rather than interesting puzzles or decision points.
Dungeon Encounters has extremely little interest in telling you anything about how its weird little crossword mazes work. And it's precisely that stubbornness that made me more interested in figuring it all out. I haven't finished the game, and I'm not sure I have the patience to do so, but I'm very glad to have played it.
This game slaps. It's Hiroyuki Ito's design philosophy in its purest possible form.