For reasons that remain inexplicable to me, Record of Lodoss War is a pretty popular fantasy franchise. The characters are incredibly flat, the plot is incredibly rote. All it really has going for it is “vibes”. I will readily admit that the dreamy opening of the OVA is enchanting, and makes me with the rest of the show matched that. And Deedlit is a fantastic character design. So when we take Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, we are gifted with all of the vibes as a frame, but whatever the hell we want in terms of gameplay and story. And yet, and yet… I am not sated.

I can’t help but feel like the sheen is wearing off on the Ladybug games. There’s a few reasons why: there are so many fucking Vanias these days, and Ladybug in particular has a house style that is pretty recognizable. I think it probably has more to do with the fact this game is more or less a rehash of Synchronicity: Prologue, but with far less novelty. And not just in aesthetics, though the wacky monsters of SMT are very fun, the mechanics and level design were also more creative there. There aren't a lot of distinctive areas or surprising encounters in Deedlit. This game is very breezy and linear, as to be expected, and not much sticks with you. There's not a lot of replayability in these games, unfortunately.

Team Ladybug recognizes the art of a meter management loop. This has become increasingly evident in the more recent games, even in Drainus their recent shmup release. The elegant, dare-I-say perfect loop of Touhou Luna Nights isn’t matched here. Instead, this system is again almost identical to Synchronicity: evade, switch colors, absorb magic, use magic, repeat. It’s a good system, to be certain, but it’s not crisp and its not novel anymore. The problem with the constant return to systems it that the seams begin to show more, and the flavor begins to fade.

Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is still a good game: like every Ladybug game, it’s got awesome music, some of the best spritework in the business, and a very slick combat system. They may be boring ass fantasy monsters, but they're beautiful. It may be a rehash of an older game, but that game still plays well. It may be the same old song, but it's a good song. Its world design being breezy isnt an intrinsically an issue when you play these games like action games to blast through. When you take these games for what they are, this specific style of action game, you can have a lot of fun. But I worry that this will become a matter of “fans of the genre” as time goes on.