Dungeon crawler recomendations

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Licorice
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Licorice »

Lethe wrote:The absurd endgame scaling also makes the hard mode investment limit more relevant, because at that point you're getting so much money that investing in key stats continually can really break things (like 1000+ stat levels above character level).
The hard mode qualifier disappeared after I beat ame no murakumo and it no longer says maximum level but average level, just like normal mode. So I guess the restrictions stopped applying?
Lethe wrote:The party I cleared with has only three characters in common with yours (Parsee/Reisen/Yuyuko)
Yeah those three are kind of the hard counter: SIL/TRR/DBF infliction, DRK damage, and DTH protection.

I used Kasen for Higekari's Cursed Arm (also TRR and DBF and DRK damage), Nitori cause her stats are cray cray with maintenance and Super Scope 3D and Flandre also for her crazy ATK and DRK damage.

With Suika, Yuuka and Satori I was trying to set up a 1M+ TRR/SIL/HVY infliction on the boss, but HVY ticked down too fast for Yuuka and Satori to extend it, so that was kind of a fail. Still managed to perma TRR and SIL tho. Satori also doubled as a tank and second source of DBF by mirroring Reisen's Discard.

Byakuren and Aya were part of my opening and buffing strats. Aya casts Shiratuko's a few times on Byakuren at which point Byakuren can 100% speed anyone with her buff transfer spellcard. Aya died early but the idea was to have her be an MP battery. Luckily I anticipated that and Yuyuko was also subclassed magician so she had something to do except protect against DTH and take hits.

Meiling was there to take hits, provide some emergency healing, and also increase Flandre's damage output with SDM Residents skill.
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Lethe
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Lethe »

Licorice wrote:The hard mode qualifier disappeared after I beat ame no murakumo and it no longer says maximum level but average level, just like normal mode. So I guess the restrictions stopped applying?
Oh damn, I forgot that happens. Maybe it never comes back and that's what's confusing me? Kind of disappointing if so, but I guess you can still self-impose it.

I used Hina all game (seeing her explode bosses from 50% in one turn convinced me :lol:) so virtually everything I did came down to stabilize, huge debuff/buff differential, win gradually. The only time in the main game I remember having to do a really serious reconfiguration was for the first mirror/magatama fights. I love debuffs and status effects so it was great to have a game that let me (ab)use them so thoroughly throughout.
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Vanguard
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Vanguard »

LoT 1 and 2 are good stuff. Abandoning all death penalties in 2 was the right call. Yeah, you lose out on any sense of danger while exploring, but the common enemies were never very dangerous or interesting in these games. 2's win streak bonuses let you get at least some fun out of random encounters since you're rewarded for lasting as long as possible. Struggling to get through just one more fight with the tattered remnants of your team is a unique challenge and there's no way it'd be worth the risk if dying meant you lost it all.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Licorice »

Vanguard wrote:Abandoning all death penalties in 2 was the right call. Yeah, you lose out on any sense of danger while exploring, but the common enemies were never very dangerous or interesting in these games
I agree. Hard to think of a non roguelike dungeon crawler that's actually threatening and not just a slot machine. Even roguelikes sometimes fail e.g. Angband which can be played ridiculously cautiously at no penalty.

It's a stretch but you could think of Firemen on the SFC as a dungeon crawl. Burning Rangers too. Even has a random dungeon generator.
Vanguard wrote:2's win streak bonuses let you get at least some fun out of random encounters since you're rewarded for lasting as long as possible. Struggling to get through just one more fight with the tattered remnants of your team is a unique challenge and there's no way it'd be worth the risk if dying meant you lost it all.
Yes replace the stick with the carrot. Much like Ys Oath and Origin. Sort of worked here. I gave Rinnosuke, Komachi and Nazrin the item and money drop passives, and those were stronger if they were in the front, so their TP would drain first, and once it was gone, the bonus I'd be getting from consecutive battles wouldn't be enough to compensate, so back to Gensokyo!

Before I did that, and at times when I just wanted to press further because fuck me if I remember the temperature switch combination to get to where I am now, I did as you described.
Lethe wrote:I used Hina all game
Ah yes Hina. Very good character. Invincible with role of Nagashi-bina and when subclassed as Hexer and given the regen skill. She carried me through the mid game and for a while I built my party around her (i.e. made sure everyone had 90+ DBF resist or skills like Nimble for Aya). But as my roster grew it got a bit annoying making everyone Hina compatible. So eventually swapped her out for Reisen. I never did get a lot of damage output from Pain Flow. Nothing close to what Nitori or Patchoulli could deal, and their nukes were easier to set up. No one could ever tank quite as well though (well, until I got Byakuren and gave her 30 training manuals).
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Vanguard
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Vanguard »

Licorice wrote:Yes replace the stick with the carrot. Much like Ys Oath and Origin. Sort of worked here. I gave Rinnosuke, Komachi and Nazrin the item and money drop passives, and those were stronger if they were in the front, so their TP would drain first, and once it was gone, the bonus I'd be getting from consecutive battles wouldn't be enough to compensate, so back to Gensokyo!

Before I did that, and at times when I just wanted to press further because fuck me if I remember the temperature switch combination to get to where I am now, I did as you described.
I do long trips mostly because I like the endurance gameplay. That the reward is generally not very big is less important than the fact that you get rewarded for it at all.

One of the only times these games make random encounters work is the area leading up to the Eientei fight in LoT1. You have to do the switch puzzle in one shot, which means you need to keep your team fresh for as long as possible. Running out of MP and TP are both big problems, and since losing HP hurts your TP you need to avoid taking hits too. It's one of the only times the TP mechanic seriously matters, and I appreciate that LoT2 offers similar gameplay as an option at any time.
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Blinge
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Blinge »

Weird isn't it. I loved Eo1 and endured Eo2 but the name Touhou and those extra-fanservicey waifu portraits completely turn me off trying labyrinth of touhou.
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Licorice
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Licorice »

Well, neither EO or LoT is something you play for the graphics.

I played EO3.

LoT2 is much better.

The problem with EO3 was once you came up with a good build, that was it. You just repeated the exact same one or two tactics the build was built around and got stronger. A slightly more complicated kind of mindless than your average JRPG (as the tactics usually required party member synergies and multi-turn set ups), but still mindless.

That said EO3's navigation minigame (?) did a great job capturing the essence of dungeon crawling. You had a limited number of moves and had to use them to, well, navigate to the new frontier or whatever point of interests you previously found but were inaccessible for whatever reason. So it was all about repeated expeditions, solving navigational puzzles, and maintaining resources to go further. Very good.

Problem IIRC is this very minigame was associated with replaying its bosses, and this was a super easy way to grind your characters to insane levels, trivializing the main game. Well not really a problem, I guess. It didn't trivialize anything too interesting to begin with.

Another point in EO's favor is the FOEs in the main dungeon were much, much, much more interesting than the FOEs in LoT2. I mean in their on dungeon map behavior and AI. Avoiding them was always a puzzle.

Also the music in EO3 is very good. LoT2's music is completely forgettable to me and eventually I actually turned it off.

Too bad the party building was so monotonic, and the combat was so repetitive. Also super annoying crafting system.

So while EO3 has a few things over LoT2, the things it didn't do as well account for 99% of the game, so LoT2 is just much better overall.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by BryanM »

Combat stagnation is definitely an issue with games that use Wizardry's battle system. Everytime I complete unlocking spells in an Earthbound game, it always makes me feel a bit of pathos. An empty feeling, that I've "finished" the game and don't feel like I want to continue.

The Final Fantasy games have historically been better at that than Dragon Quest - the class system introduced in 3 lets you use new units without having to grind them up from scratch. I'm sure you all remember the dungeon where you have to shrink all your d00ds and class changing everyone to mages was the way to advance. And the later games that didn't use the class system, rotates characters often to keep things from getting stale.

The "roguelike" event in Arknights takes it to sensible end: You start each run with three dudes. After every map you complete (~2 to 3 minutes), you get a new dude. So there's constantly a reward, and no two fights are exactly the same. Game mode only lasts around 30 minutes if you get a good run all the way to the end.

Of course, Arknights also has the advantage of tools like distance and time to differentiate units and threats. Sometimes I suspect that Wizardry combat really is limited to rock-paper-scissors, that it really is better for it to be simple and mostly mindless.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Licorice »

LoT2 fixes Wiz combat to an extent.

One way it does this is by varying the encounters, so each significant encounter you'll likely be employing tactics you haven't ever used before.

I guess that's not the combat itself. The combat itself is improved because encounters take *much* longer, and variance is no longer "lol you lose" or "lol you win" like in Wizardry, but instead "lol this character is dead" and it happens a handful of times every significant encounter and you have 12 characters adventuring at a time so you need to have 12! = 479,001,600 different contingency plans. Well, not that many in practice, but you get the idea.

LoT2 hard mode really did do combat very well. Proof that you can make Wiz combat at least somewhat interesting.
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Vanguard
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

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Licorice wrote:The problem with EO3 was once you came up with a good build, that was it. You just repeated the exact same one or two tactics the build was built around and got stronger. A slightly more complicated kind of mindless than your average JRPG (as the tactics usually required party member synergies and multi-turn set ups), but still mindless.
That's a serious problem with combat in the great majority of RPGs and LoT does a great job of making you think about each turn. The character switching mechanic is the key to it all. The developer is free to give bosses attacks strong enough to permanently remove half your team from the fight because your lightweights can "dodge" them. Someone has to take that hit, but you get to choose which 4 of your 12 characters are candidates. It's also good that switching is one of the fastest actions in the game. Potentially you can both save an ally from a fatal hit and set up your next big attack with a single switch. Because benched characters regenerate, you don't need the powerful healing abilities that ruin most JRPGs. The switching mechanic is also a far more elegant way of encouraging you to use a variety of attacks than a cooldown system is. You could just leave Yuugi in the front spamming Knockout in Three Steps and she'd kill the boss eventually, but that move's delay is really long and it'd be far more efficient to alternate between that and Kaguya's Hourai Barrage. Because of the switching system, offense is way more interesting than the canned combos you use every fight in most RPGs and defense is way more interesting than casting a full party heal after every attack like you do in most RPGs. It's good stuff.

The downside to all of this is that 99% of random encounters are about annihilating the enemy party with a giant nuke before they have a chance to do anything. Gets a little old.

In some ways LoT's combat system reminds me of Helen's Mysterious Castle, another standout JRPG that encourages you to use different tactics against every enemy type. Much like LoT, it's all about timing your actions correctly. In a lot of ways I think Helen does it better, even though it's a much simpler and less deep game. In particular, Helen is really good about not hiding information from you. You can always see exactly when each character will get their next turn, exactly how long each ability will take, how much damage your attack will do, and even what action the enemy is preparing. Cuts out a lot of needless luck and guesswork.
Blinge wrote:Weird isn't it. I loved Eo1 and endured Eo2 but the name Touhou and those extra-fanservicey waifu portraits completely turn me off trying labyrinth of touhou.
LoT1 has ugly default portraits, but it's really easy to replace them and there are a lot of pre-made portrait sets floating around the internet that you can use.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

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Haha, it's not the fact that they're ugly. it's that they're SO weeb.

This is coming from a man who loves the shit out of Valkyria Chronicles 1, and watches anime now and then.
But there's a particular form of western otaku that's really starting to grind my gears. Always a waifu profile pic on discord, talks about a "new" anime like they consume every turd flung off that island when it's new so they can talk about it. The Let it Die discord is full of anime-picture retards who speak in memes, suck at the game and float their unwanted opinion constantly.

Completely offtopic rant, sorry. Anyway this is the vibe i get from Touhou games, i just don't understand how an apparently decent dungeon crawler can come out of that irredeemably nerdy fandom, the fact that it's apparently populated by lolis alone is icing on the shitcake.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

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Blinge wrote:Haha, it's not the fact that they're ugly. it's that they're SO weeb.
I get it, I'm just saying you can change them to whatever you want.
Blinge wrote: Completely offtopic rant, sorry. Anyway this is the vibe i get from Touhou games, i just don't understand how an apparently decent dungeon crawler can come out of that irredeemably nerdy fandom, the fact that it's apparently populated by lolis alone is icing on the shitcake.
Touhou fans make a lot of good games. The official Touhou shmups aren't really my thing, but like Koumajou Densetsu 2 is a first rate arcade-style platformer and Touhou Wandering Souls is an interesting brawler/platformer/collectathon/RPG hybrid. The former has really good character portraits too.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

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^ Was about to say, Koumajou Densetsu 2 is great. Give it a try if you haven't Burinju. :cool: Plays ultra-smooth, very nearly a stage-based SOTN (that's a speedrun that hurries past enemies, but it also shows off the super-tight handling). Killer OST, too, easily CV-standard - and indeed, the character art is superb.

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My only complaint was a few too many soft-arsed faeries rubbing shoulders with the nice skeletons and armours and demons, not mention letting down those nails-hard and/or crazy boss designs. But their actual mechanics - archer, lance, etc - are fine, so that's easily forgiven.

Yo I don't mind women in combat but you better not try that Strawberry Shortcake shit, I'll whack a moppet off her tuffet and step on the spider. The battlefield is unforgiving! Gimme some dead-eyed killer that looks like she's gonna cut me tadger off when I'm asleep and shove it raight dahn me maaf, nah mean? Pretty Meris, nah mean. Well no not quite. Sorry bit dark carry on. Image

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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

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Blinge wrote:The Let it Die discord is full of anime-picture retards who speak in memes, suck at the game and float their unwanted opinion constantly.
I really wish I could be one of these cool guys, but Let It Die doesn't work on my computer. Japanese companies tend to be idiot savants at making PC clients that just don't work, I really don't understand what the problem is. Chinese developers don't have this chronic disability... so weird.

.....Guess I'll have to talk about the #1 top webnovel of the week with hot Xianxia farming action here I guess...
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

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Licorice wrote:The problem with EO3 was once you came up with a good build, that was it. You just repeated the exact same one or two tactics the build was built around and got stronger. A slightly more complicated kind of mindless than your average JRPG (as the tactics usually required party member synergies and multi-turn set ups), but still mindless.
The last "grand" scope blobber RPG I've played (and probably will be the last, barring a sequel) is Lords of Xulima, whose combat system is full of complicating systems that prevents you from getting in a grind, and which makes even the healer's job one with multiple choices.

I hate to admit it but my two favorite "blobber" style combat games these days are roguelites: Slay the Spire and Star Renegades. Instead of a 40-hour campaign their hour-or-less playtime let me play with multiple builds without devoting my entire life to these games. The lack of an RNG in combat to screw up my tactics is the icing on the cake.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Licorice »

Ok, so I just completed the first Hydlide. I also completed the PCE version of Druaga the other day and watched a nice annotated playthrough of the original arcade release too. Xanadu I haven't completed, but I played quite a bit recently and Zelda I completed a very long time ago.

The games were released in this order Druaga, Hydlide, Xanadu, Zelda, between June 1984 and February 1986.

Druaga was the first of these and established the "game".

The game is:
1. Travel from maze (like) area to area
2. But first do X (where X can be anything) to reveal treasure, then get it
3. Lest you have to go back

There are enemies you can overlap with to damage at the same time as they damage you, you can block projectiles and and you can also break walls. There's a time limit for each area.

Although the guy who made Druaga had played Wizardry, and he later worked on the Japanese Wizardries (ports of the Western ones only?), he explicitly set out to make the game of Druaga nothing like the game of Wizardry, even though he wanted to make a game out of the same thing -- an adventurer diving into a dungeon to complete some task.

Specifically he wanted no (visible) stats, and he wanted the game to play something more like Pacman. On the first question at least he seemed to have changed his mind cause the later PCE Druaga has player allocable stats.

Next is Hydlide.

Hydlide is the exact same game, with some twists. Dropped is the wall breaking and the projectile blocking. You get stronger independently of treasure gain, some treasures are immediately visible, and you can move freely from screen to screen (but can't scroll) and enter separate dungeon areas. In Druaga, you could go back to earlier screens, but it's a matter of getting zapped by the boss to first missed treasure area. There's also no time limit.

The biggest change there is how you get stronger -- by killing enemies for XP. Items too, but there's only 2 in the game that affect your attack and defense respectively. In Druaga, you mostly avoided enemies, unless you suspected they might be part of the trigger for revealing the treasure (usually involves killing them in some order, or killing some enemies while leaving others alive). Hydlide employs the same trick, notably to get the shield and regen ring, but the main impetus for attacking enemies is the XP they yield. In some more maze like areas, especially when trying to push forward onto new frontiers, enemies return to the role of Pacman ghosts.

Xanadu is the most complex of these 4 games numerically, and also the largest.

Again, it's the same game as Druaga, differing on the specifics. Same as Hydlide, there's no wall breaking or projectile blocking, you can't overlap with enemies, and there's no time limit. However unlike Hydlide, scrolling returns. The perspective here is different in the "overworld", which scrolls, and there's a jump button. Dungeons and combat however, are the usual "top down", and are by screen.

In addition to XP making you more powerful, gold can as well. You buy stat increases, which determine your chances of success performing certain actions. Some treasures may also be bought. You level up explicitly at a temple, and choose between two classes. Leveling up is quite consequential as it quite significantly up your resource consumption.

Like Druaga and unlike Hydlide, enemies come in limited number.

Even though these changes are important, the most important, IMO, as it most affects the game which Druaga established, is the fact that all treasures are either already revealed, or revealed by the exact same rule -- minor treasures on every enemy killed, major on every last enemy on screen (unless killed with magic, in which case, no treasure). Gone are the cryptic triggers. Also (mostly?) gone is the cryptic relationship between treasure and the non-combat progress "gate" they unlock -- they're all keys and they're all (literal) gates.

Finally, the other big addition is that now navigation is much more complex, but remains rules based. There are many teleporter puzzles that play on screen symmetry and world wrapping, as well as one way tiles and tile patterns that you pass through using specific platforming techniques. It's no longer just 4 cardinal directions with some tiles blocking.

Zelda sits somewhere between Druaga and Hydlide, with some elements from Xanadu.

Like in Druaga you can block projectiles, and bombs are sort of similar to the pick axe, but mainly used against outer not inner walls.

Like Hydlide, there's no time limit, and you traverse freely from screen to screen.

Like Xanadu, you proceed through dungeons with the help of keys, and you assign an item to an item use button.

Treasure triggers are less cryptic than in Druaga, they mostly follow a pattern, but even so are well hidden e.g. many are found by bombing a tile, but which tile? Even Hydlide's fairies were at somewhat unusually behaving scenery e.g. trees with wasps.

Zelda takes Hydlide's kill enemies to power up system, and combines it with Druaga's power up by revealing treasures system, by making some treasures shop keepers, and enemies sometimes drop currency. This is the logical AND to Xanadu's logical OR.

The Lost Woods is effectively a teleporter puzzle.

Its other innovation is an attack button (rather than, I guess, mode, as in the other games).

One thing I prefer in Zelda in comparison with Hydlide and Xanadu, is its more varied (and aggressive?) enemy behaviors.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

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I played Zelda for the first time very late, like five years ago. Was really impressed with it, honestly. It's to topdown Famicom ARPGs what its sequel is to sidescrolling ones, that is, polished and unforgiving.

Granted I can't read JP and was playing the FC cart, so I missed a tunic somewhere, and enemies were blasting me for 1HKOs at a few points, Grobda-style. That just confirms its excellence imo. :lol:
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Licorice »

Yeah Zelda is very good. Just needs a timer. And permadeath.

Xanadu has better dungeon crawling IMO. Resource economy, navigation, that sort of thing. Shame the action isn't up to par. I played the Saturn Falcom classics port. It's 99% in english.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Klatrymadon »

Intriguing tweets from Yuzo Koshiro regarding the Etrian Odyssey series' future:

https://twitter.com/yuzokoshiro/status/ ... 98752?s=19
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Licorice »

I've been comparing the flip screen action dungeon crawlers Maze of Galious (1987) and the much newer game La Mulana (2005) it inspired.

Both are cool games. They follow a similar formula, as noted below, but La Mulana emphasizes and relies on "exploration" (obtaining knowledge about the game) more, while Galious relies on simple navigation and moment to moment gameplay more. I prefer the latter.

Some notes:

In both games, filling the "XP" bar merely heals your character.

In both games you have sub weapon ammo and money.

In Galious you also have keys, which open doors. In La Mulana, weights, which trigger switches.

In Galious, you can equip a sub weapon or character.

In La Mulana, you can equip a main weapon, sub weapon, and up to two other items (in the form of MSX roms).

In La Mulana, annoyingly, two different screens (accessible via F2 and F3) are used to equip your character, in Maze of Galious just one, accessible via F1.

Non equippable items (the majority in Galious, and would be majority in La Mulana save for the MSX roms) affect your character just by virtue of having obtained them.

In both games, there is only one room you can save in, and teleport to at any time.

Amusingly, to do the functional equivalent of Galious' password save in La Maluna, you use the "game master" MSX rom, which in the real world was used for save states.

La Mulana screens are 11 tiles high, Galious screens are 10 tiles high. Both are 16 tiles wide. I remain quite surprised how much the extra row of tiles changes the feel of every screen.

The player moves about 33% slower in La Mulana (this is very annoying, IMO).

Both games have 8 worlds or fields with bosses you must defeat to win the game.

In Galious, each world is 14-18 screens. In La Mulana each world is 20 screens.

Screens are more "self contained" in Galious. To get to some part of a screen not immediately accessible from where you entered, you never seem to have to go further than 2 screens away. In La Mulana, this number seems higher.

Both games have ladders, moving platforms and water. La Mulana also has more advanced navigational elements such as slopes.

In Galious, each world contains at least 5 items: Map, Great Key, Holy water, Cape, Rod.

In La Mulana each field contains at least 3 items: Map, Life Gem, Ankh Jewel. There is also a teleport point you need to find (as opposed to it being the entry like in Galious).

Great Keys and Life Gems both increase your life.

Great Keys also function as, well, keys to the next world (of your choice).

Galious has an overworld called the "castle". All worlds in Galious connect only to the castle.

In La Mulana, each field connects to a number of other fields. There is no oveworld, but there are some special areas. Fields are not locked.

La Mulana's fields have a "backside" (kind of like the dark world in LttP).

To fight a world boss in Galious, you need to type in a mantra you find written on a tablet in that world.

To fight a field boss in La Mulana, you need to reveal an Ankh and apply an Ankh Gem to it.

Beating the boss doesn't complete the field in La Mulana.

To complete a field in La Mulana, you also type in a mantra at a specific screen. You obtain a mantra in that field or its backside. Weirdly the game makes you do this in a certain order.

In La Mulana, tablets without mantras give hints or lore.

In Maze of Galious tablets without mantras are empty.

In both games you can fight the boss in any field or world in any order. In Galious, you might need an item from the overworld, in La Mulana, you might need an item from a different field.

In Galious there will be one cryptic thing per world you need to do to progress or get one of the items e.g. hit a wall, or walk up the same ladder 5 times, or just wait for a while.

In La Mulana, the 3 items in every field are gated by puzzles. The Map puzzle usually spans 2 screens, the Life Gem puzzle just 1. The Ankh Gem puzzle usually spans several screens and triggers. The pattern is do something to hear the "puzzle solved" chime, then backtrack to every screen and look for a change. Sometimes the change is obvious, other times it's very subtle. Like 10 pixels subtle. The change is usually the next trigger in the chain. Rinse. Repeat.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Blinge »

La Mulana is a dungeon crawler now?
Well alright.
Once again your war on genre labels offends my autism.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Licorice »

Well, you spend most of your time crawling around in a dungeon.

What would you call it? Please don't say "Metroidvania".
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Established conventions for game genre terminology exist for a reason, so that we can discuss specific gameplay styles. Just because the game is set in a dungeon does not mean it is a "Dungeon Crawler" RPG any more than Prince of Persia would be.
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Immryr
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Immryr »

is the cryptic stuff really egregious in maze of galious? i've been put off playing la mulana after hearing that the puzzles are insanely cryptic, but i love wandering around getting lost type games in general.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Licorice »

Immryr wrote:is the cryptic stuff really egregious in maze of galious? i've been put off playing la mulana after hearing that the puzzles are insanely cryptic, but i love wandering around getting lost type games in general.
Galious is much better than La Mulana as far as that is concerned. If only by virtue of being much less puzzle dense.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Established conventions for game genre terminology exist for a reason, so that we can discuss specific gameplay styles. Just because the game is set in a dungeon does not mean it is a "Dungeon Crawler" RPG any more than Prince of Persia would be.
Fair.

But what's your definition? Just first person grid based affairs?

My definition is "maze where your progress is limited by your resources, but they may be replenished by going back to a metaphorical (or actual) town".

If you tack on RPG then also add "and max resources go up"
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

My definition is irrelevant; the first post in the thread says they're looking for first person dungeon crawlers, a fairly well established genre with various takes on how they play from turn based to real-time, to some stuff that's unique but has a similar enough vibe to straddle the genre like King's Field (which could also be categorized as a slow-paced melee oriented FPS with RPG elements).

None of these would generally be categorized as the same gameplay as an action platformer with some adventure or RPG elements. Their controls and movement are simply too different to be categorized as the same genre. There are plenty of great 2D action adventure platforming games like this such as Legend of Zelda II and Battle of Olympus with varying degrees of RPG/puzzle elements, and it's certainly a rich enough genre to definitely deserve their own thread. Top down adventure games such as the first Zelda also perhaps have enough similarity in terms of demanding precise action oriented inputs to merit being considered in the same thread.

Roguelikes and Diablo-style top-down action RPG games did get mentioned here too despite feeling fairly distinct from what's usually classified as a dungeon crawler, so obviously it's not about being opposed to discussing games that straddle the boundaries of genres or give similar vibes. But the importance of how everything handles such as player movement, environment physics, spacing in attacks, etc, in something like La Mulana make 2D action adventure games very different I think, worthy enough of their own thread (do we have a thread for this style of game? if not it's a damn shame, we've got a thread that's kind of a catchall for various arcadey 2D platformers and run 'n guns). Though not all dungeon crawlers necessarily need to be first-person view (Labyrinth of Touhou springs to mind), the limitation of first-person viewpoint in a dungeon crawler alone has a significant impact on exploration.

I guess I'd say my definition revolves more around how it controls rather than what elements are in the game (though both are obviously important). I can think of a lot of very different-playing styles of games that all have the "maze where your progress is limited by your resources, but they may be replenished by going back to a metaphorical (or actual) town" definition you gave that all feel very distinct in terms of game genre despite the thematic similarities.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Blinge »

Licorice wrote:Well, you spend most of your time crawling around in a dungeon.

What would you call it? Please don't say "Metroidvania".
I absolutely call La Mulana a metroidvania. I will fight you.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

It certainly seems to be pretty commonly referred to as a Metroidvania in various forums. A search for "La Mulana" and "Metroidvania" brings up lots of results like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidvania/c ... sibly_the/
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BryanM
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by BryanM »

I've grown to loathe that term, "Metroidvania". Omits stuff like Cadash and Zelda 2. Both of which deserve more popularity.

"Dungeon crawler" etymology stems from table top gaming, specifically when they started experimenting with... dungeon crawler games. The point was a de-emphasis of social/political interactions and plot, all for the sake of packing as much exploration, action, and looting into a session as possible. Stuff like Pools of Radiance would be the most faithful clone of that game.

Imo this is a higher order of classification than "clone". All dogs are animals but not all animals are dogs.
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Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations

Post by Mortificator »

BryanM wrote:"Dungeon crawler" etymology stems from table top gaming, specifically when they started experimenting with... dungeon crawler games. The point was a de-emphasis of social/political interactions and plot, all for the sake of packing as much exploration, action, and looting into a session as possible.
I agree with this, with the caveat that the original Dungeons & Dragons gameplay loop was sneak -> fight -> loot. It might sound odd, but role-playing games are not intrinsically tied to literal role-playing. They were made by wargamers who wanted to play combat scenarios as individual characters with a role in a party, rather than a general looking down from on high. D&D was explicitly called a wargame - by players, ads, and its own books - for years before the RPG moniker was coined.

It's more conductive to literal role-playing than many other tabletop games, though. What would you act out in Monopoly? You're all the same capitalist vampire. So other styles of tabletop RPG branched off, and it became useful to have a term to describe the old-school dungeon crawl.
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