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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 randomly selected preset enemy formation. 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.

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.

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.