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.