My recommendations:
SMT: Strange Journey - hardcore crawler.
Live A Live - brilliant
Octopath Traveller 2 - best modern dungeon crawler.
Dungeon crawler recomendations
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Dont mean to sound over-picky here, but aren't those game better classified as classical RPG ?
To me, Dungeon Crawler may be seen as an RPG subgenre where you lead a bunch of characters along some grid-based levels, most of the time in 3D point of view from the characters ; e.g. Etrian Odyssey and Labyrinth of *** series.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Strange Journey is a dungeon crawler but the others aren't really. Technically, every warpig or jarpig could be called a "dungeon crawler" if we just define a dungeon crawler as any role playing game that has dungeons you can crawl through and complete. Dungeon Crawlers as a subgenre are more laser-focused on the dungeon delving as the end and the means, not just a means to a goal.
You dungeon dive in final fantasy so you can kill the boss and progress the next piece of story. But most of the time, in a Wizardry-like, a traditional roguelike or a classic SMT game, it doesn't work that way. Hell, some dungeon crawlers don't even have an "outside" of the dungeon, like Nocturne. Basically the entire game is a series of dungeons, including zones where shops, healing and fusing are located. But for those dungeon crawlers that do have an "outside of the dungeon," it's more like a rest area. You dungeon dive in a proper dungeon crawler so you can complete that floor of the dungeon, which will allow you to progress to the next level of the dungeon. Story sequences are either infrequent or not emphasized and narrative progression takes a far backseat to gameplay progression and the feeling of increasing power balanced against brutal challenge. Often, finishing a floor of a dungeon involves painstakingly combing over it to uncover secrets which will allow you to more easily traverse that floor in the future. This kind of idea is simply incompatible with a more normal Jarpig, like Final Fantasy. Unless you really screwed up and missed some important item, there is no reason to ever return to an FF dungeon once you have cleared it. Most dungeons in jarpigs are a series of corridors and rooms with some scripted encounters, some random encounters, some small puzzling. But rarely a central theme or concept that stretches to the degree seen in the best DRPGs. You might see "the water dungeon" or "the fire dungeon" in a jarpig but nothing like the shopping mall dungeon or torture rooms dungeon from Strange Journey.
DRPG dungeons are also fiendishly complex and layered in trap tiles and movement puzzles that average jarpigs avoid completely. A trap tile in a jarpig might take a little bit of your hp. A trap tile in a dungeon crawler could give your entire party poisoning at a point in the game where antidotes either don't exist or cost a prohibitive amount of money. That's how a DRPG fucks over the player.
Enemies are the same way. Average intensity of a jarpig enemy in a dungeon is probably a 3. They are just a speed bump to slowly whittle down your resources. Dungeon crawlers don't pull punches. It is VERY common in SMT games that the first run from the start of the game to the first save point has NUMEROUS places where bad RPG can send you to the game over screen. Forcing you to hit "new game" and watch cutscenes again. Bad design? Ok, I'm not going to argue the point. But it's also a difference in philosophy. The DUNGEONS are the star. Every encounter is crafted to be an absolute bitch if you make poor choices are suffer some asshole RNG. Jarpigs normally (not always) scale slowly up in difficulty from the start of the game, until whatever point where you snap the difficulty over your knee and trivialize the game (a good example is when you unlock Espers and the ability to swap them in FF6, which makes that game piss-easy.)
DRPG balance is a lot more spiky in power level. There are typically these huge breakpoints where a character will learn a new magic spell that's very overpowered but also costs a lot of magic. Or a warrior might find a new random weapon that's way better than anything you had before, and as a result he now deals triple damage or something. That's DRPG balance. Eventually, the game catches back up and that overpowered thing stops being overpowered. Sometimes the spikey balance goes the other direction and the enemies hit their power spikes before the player party, which leads to "catch up" spikes in power and the game seems impossible at certain level ranges... Just because of how the balancing is.
I'm rambling and I don't know if anything I wrote makes sense. DRPGs are just different than jarpigs or even warpigs. Carpigs have many of the elements of a DRPG but they include a lot more stuff that DRPGs typically excise. Like party banter and story.
The best way to get a feel for what a DRPG is, is to play some version of Wizardry 1 and then play either Might and Magic 3 or World of Xeen. If you want a real-time dungeon crawler, then Dungeon Hack, Eye of the Beholder or Menzobarrenzan are good choices. I'm choosing western games despite most of the DRPGs produced nowadays coming from Japan. The reason for that is the influence with the subgenre came FROM the West and into the East. Tabletop -> Wizardry -> DRPGs as a subgenre. As good as Etrian games are, they are essentially modernized and perfected classic Wizardry.
You dungeon dive in final fantasy so you can kill the boss and progress the next piece of story. But most of the time, in a Wizardry-like, a traditional roguelike or a classic SMT game, it doesn't work that way. Hell, some dungeon crawlers don't even have an "outside" of the dungeon, like Nocturne. Basically the entire game is a series of dungeons, including zones where shops, healing and fusing are located. But for those dungeon crawlers that do have an "outside of the dungeon," it's more like a rest area. You dungeon dive in a proper dungeon crawler so you can complete that floor of the dungeon, which will allow you to progress to the next level of the dungeon. Story sequences are either infrequent or not emphasized and narrative progression takes a far backseat to gameplay progression and the feeling of increasing power balanced against brutal challenge. Often, finishing a floor of a dungeon involves painstakingly combing over it to uncover secrets which will allow you to more easily traverse that floor in the future. This kind of idea is simply incompatible with a more normal Jarpig, like Final Fantasy. Unless you really screwed up and missed some important item, there is no reason to ever return to an FF dungeon once you have cleared it. Most dungeons in jarpigs are a series of corridors and rooms with some scripted encounters, some random encounters, some small puzzling. But rarely a central theme or concept that stretches to the degree seen in the best DRPGs. You might see "the water dungeon" or "the fire dungeon" in a jarpig but nothing like the shopping mall dungeon or torture rooms dungeon from Strange Journey.
DRPG dungeons are also fiendishly complex and layered in trap tiles and movement puzzles that average jarpigs avoid completely. A trap tile in a jarpig might take a little bit of your hp. A trap tile in a dungeon crawler could give your entire party poisoning at a point in the game where antidotes either don't exist or cost a prohibitive amount of money. That's how a DRPG fucks over the player.
Enemies are the same way. Average intensity of a jarpig enemy in a dungeon is probably a 3. They are just a speed bump to slowly whittle down your resources. Dungeon crawlers don't pull punches. It is VERY common in SMT games that the first run from the start of the game to the first save point has NUMEROUS places where bad RPG can send you to the game over screen. Forcing you to hit "new game" and watch cutscenes again. Bad design? Ok, I'm not going to argue the point. But it's also a difference in philosophy. The DUNGEONS are the star. Every encounter is crafted to be an absolute bitch if you make poor choices are suffer some asshole RNG. Jarpigs normally (not always) scale slowly up in difficulty from the start of the game, until whatever point where you snap the difficulty over your knee and trivialize the game (a good example is when you unlock Espers and the ability to swap them in FF6, which makes that game piss-easy.)
DRPG balance is a lot more spiky in power level. There are typically these huge breakpoints where a character will learn a new magic spell that's very overpowered but also costs a lot of magic. Or a warrior might find a new random weapon that's way better than anything you had before, and as a result he now deals triple damage or something. That's DRPG balance. Eventually, the game catches back up and that overpowered thing stops being overpowered. Sometimes the spikey balance goes the other direction and the enemies hit their power spikes before the player party, which leads to "catch up" spikes in power and the game seems impossible at certain level ranges... Just because of how the balancing is.
I'm rambling and I don't know if anything I wrote makes sense. DRPGs are just different than jarpigs or even warpigs. Carpigs have many of the elements of a DRPG but they include a lot more stuff that DRPGs typically excise. Like party banter and story.
The best way to get a feel for what a DRPG is, is to play some version of Wizardry 1 and then play either Might and Magic 3 or World of Xeen. If you want a real-time dungeon crawler, then Dungeon Hack, Eye of the Beholder or Menzobarrenzan are good choices. I'm choosing western games despite most of the DRPGs produced nowadays coming from Japan. The reason for that is the influence with the subgenre came FROM the West and into the East. Tabletop -> Wizardry -> DRPGs as a subgenre. As good as Etrian games are, they are essentially modernized and perfected classic Wizardry.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I hold the same view as to what dungeon crawlers are and what they include in terms of navigating a labrinyth to level up and move forward in the game. I prefer hardcore dungeon crawlers where you have to grind and use a lot of strategy. That said, I appreciate games with different styles of dungeon crawling as well. With Strange Journey, this game for the most part has you navigating endless labrinyths. Octopath Traveller 2 has you spending a fair amount of time navigating short dungeons to level up and move the game forward and the overworld acts like a massive labrinyth in its own way, which is why I labelled it as a "modern dungeon crawler" - less hardcore, more open to casual players with the overworld acting like a dungeon but not overly feeling or looking like a dungeon. Live A Live is much the same as OT2 but less so. That's my view anyway. SMT3 is another hardcore crawler, actually most SMT games are.guigui wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 10:45 pmDont mean to sound over-picky here, but aren't those game better classified as classical RPG ?
To me, Dungeon Crawler may be seen as an RPG subgenre where you lead a bunch of characters along some grid-based levels, most of the time in 3D point of view from the characters ; e.g. Etrian Odyssey and Labyrinth of *** series.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Went through two DRPGs in the last few months so I'll just make a monolith post to get my thoughts out on both.
---
Finished Class Of Heroes 2 2G on Switch, 38 hours for normal end, ~42 for post-game ending, and and even after that, there's still one more quest (kill three new bosses in already explored labyrinths) and a new 10-floor extra dungeon that doesn't have any quest associated with it. In the end, I got 100% map exploration, 100% quest completion, and ~23% item collection rate. The last is because there's a lot of items you just don't end up crafting unless you really want the item (or the achievement for 100% item collection rate).
Overall, a better game than the first one in every way. I'd rank it as a high B-tier, low A-tier in my ranking. Maps now work like they logically should instead of being gathered from a pool of maps like in the first game, and magic is now standard MP fare over the OG D&D / Wizardry-style "X amounts of spells of this level".
Quite easy generally. Only the post-post-game bosses gave me any troubles, and even then it was largely about trying again until the RNG is in your favor. Though I did end up creating a new character in a new class ~43 hours in and levelling them up to help with those fights. Since you can sometimes lose points in a stat during a level-up, it's hard to plan on any class changes, and I ended up doing only one.
Really wish there was a proper manual, either in-game, digital, or physical, since there's a lot of things I still don't know what they mean or how they work. Back when I played the first game I discovered that the US publisher of the PSP original had put up the manual for Class of Heroes 2 online, and that helped out some, BUT a lot of classes, spells, items, etc. are translated differently on this new release. This also means all the guides for the game out there use the PSP version's translation, which can make finding things out troublesome now.
As for issues, there are some typos, and sometimes text would go outside its box. The item management and alchemy for creating new items is still a pain in the ass. And even in the very last extra dungeon, I was still on occasion getting the same drops as in the very first area of the game, 45 hours earlier. The bestiary would imply that bosses have unique item drops, but if you don't happen to get them when you kill them, I'm not sure there's any way to fight them again. In the first game there was an arena where you could challenge again previously beaten bosses, but I didn't spot anything like that here.
During my playtime Class of Heroes 3 was announced to be finally getting an English release, so that was nice timing. Hopefully that improves things even further, especially item management.
https://www.gematsu.com/2024/12/class-o ... tch-and-pc
---
Finished Tokyo Clanpool on Switch at around 50 hours. The game doesn't seem to track how many hours you've spent on it (should be illegal, that) but it felt like 50-ish. Got the True End which consists of going through 10 new floors of the dungeon.
It's very anime in story and visual design. The main characters are four teenage-looking girls who have to dress in skimpy outfits to save the world from a demonic invasion. Luckily this also meant I could happily speed through the dialogue without missing some grand story, and there's much less story here than in Labyrinths of Refrain and Galleria.
Apparently some people got their panties in a twist because a pervy minigame (in the original Vita version you'd use the touchscreen to fondle the underage girls' bodies for buffs) was removed from the game, and replaced with basically a menu option. It is kind of weird this was removed when Moero Crystal H has something very similar, but apparently Nintendo is changing their guidelines. I don't really care, it looked to be nothing more than really blatant pandering and fanservice without adding anything to the game. I had kind of wished the similar thing in Moero Crystal H didn't exist because it was annoying to deal with from a gameplay standpoint.
The game itself is pretty solid. There's a lot of factors that affect the characters' stats, to the point that it was overwhelming at first and I didn't really get some systems until many, many hours in. That was mostly on me since I didn't experiment on them, and I was making good progress anyway. The game is very easy overall. I did switch to Hard difficulty as soon as I could (needs to be unlocked, not available right away) and I was still plowing through most enemies, with only bosses forcing me to stop and think a bit.
In one way the game's overall lack of difficulty works for its favour, because there's a LOT of combat. The encounter rate is sometimes so high you can take two steps and have another battle. But you can set the characters up to always use specific attacks and then just autobattle it which basically skips all animations and resolves the turn in moments. If every battle took a while, it'd take ages to get anywhere. And luckily, the map design is very solid. I was having a lot of fun just exploring the dungeon and getting loot. There's a really cool area later on where at first you're confused where you're even supposed to go, and you end up doing this journey over multiple floors, going up and down and inside and out, before finding the boss. Just the exploration aspect was easily my favorite part of the game.
The combat works a bit differently from most other DRPGs in that it doesn't have a basic "Attack" command, instead each weapon has 1-4 skills that have different attributes for damage, cost, etc. and you choose however many you want to use in a single turn, as long as you have the action points available. But not attacking also carries those attack points over to the next turn, so if you hold off on attacking for some turns, you can attack many more times in that single turn, and that can be beneficial. Other gear can have active or passive skills available as well. This allows a lot of flexibility how you want to build your party.
There's no less than three systems that are basically magic. Weapons can have skills that are categorized as Magic, but using them doesn't use up any magic points, they just use the character's magic attribute for how effective it is. And there's other type of Magic skills that is limited, in that Vancian style. It's kind of a weird system, because I had equipped my healer with a staff that had a skill for healing every member of the party, and I just had her activating that skill constantly, every turn, as often as possible, and it never consumed anything, and my characters were at max hit points pretty much all the time. On the rare occasion they did die, it's because an enemy managed to hit them for their full hit points in a single turn, or they got hit with an insta-kill attack.
My main damage dealer had a spear with a skill that could hit 20 times with each hit dealing low damage. They also had boots with a skill that repeated any given skill four times. Wait a few turns to build up your action points and you can run that skill three times in a single turn for 3 x 4 x 20 = 240 attacks in a single turn, with the combo system increasing the effectiveness of each hit. Oh, and have the other characters buff up that character first with Double Damage and Always Crit -spells beforehand. If nothing else, it was fun to watch even bosses get slaughtered this way.
But yeah, it definitely isn't the most balanced system. I thought it was fun, but I can see some people not being into it. The overall lack of challenge also means you don't have to take full advantage of the many systems. Though you're always stuck with the same four main characters, you can change their jobs (after unlocking them) but I didn't feel any need to, their different skills didn't seem to be any better or worse than the default ones, just a bit different. There is an even harder difficulty, but it didn't become available for purchase until after beating the main game. Would've been better to have all the difficulty options available right from the start. Post-game was an absolute cakewalk. It's like the devs forgot to increase the amount of XP it takes for each successive level up after level 100 or so, as my characters were gaining levels every other fight, sometimes several levels at once. The true final boss was at level 225, while my damage dealer was at 386...
Item management was problematic here as well. You end up accumulating a ton of gear, and if you're not careful about selling the ones you don't want as soon as possible, it's very easy to get overwhelmed. During selling you can't sort the gear at all, which makes it an absolute pain to find the items you want to get rid of, especially if you have multiple versions of the same item that have different rarity (meaning objectively better than more common variations due to better stats and more skills). At some point I dropped the ball on that and just had hundreds of weapons and armor in my inventory. Luckily the inventory size is limitless so it doesn't really matter, but it is annoying regardless. Also I had maxed out my money (I don't think I ever bought a single thing), so it's not like I needed to sell anything.
Despite its issues, I'd still rank the game as high B-tier, low A-tier, same as Class of Heroes 2 2G incidentally. I had a good time with it and the exploration kept me hooked. Some people will certainly put it as C- or D-tier due to the sheer animeness of it all and not being difficult. I'd say this is a good option for dipping your toe into the genre. Though I guess at around 50 hours it is on the longer side for a newcomer, so Potato Flowers in Full Bloom still reigns supreme there.
---
Finished Class Of Heroes 2 2G on Switch, 38 hours for normal end, ~42 for post-game ending, and and even after that, there's still one more quest (kill three new bosses in already explored labyrinths) and a new 10-floor extra dungeon that doesn't have any quest associated with it. In the end, I got 100% map exploration, 100% quest completion, and ~23% item collection rate. The last is because there's a lot of items you just don't end up crafting unless you really want the item (or the achievement for 100% item collection rate).
Overall, a better game than the first one in every way. I'd rank it as a high B-tier, low A-tier in my ranking. Maps now work like they logically should instead of being gathered from a pool of maps like in the first game, and magic is now standard MP fare over the OG D&D / Wizardry-style "X amounts of spells of this level".
Quite easy generally. Only the post-post-game bosses gave me any troubles, and even then it was largely about trying again until the RNG is in your favor. Though I did end up creating a new character in a new class ~43 hours in and levelling them up to help with those fights. Since you can sometimes lose points in a stat during a level-up, it's hard to plan on any class changes, and I ended up doing only one.
Really wish there was a proper manual, either in-game, digital, or physical, since there's a lot of things I still don't know what they mean or how they work. Back when I played the first game I discovered that the US publisher of the PSP original had put up the manual for Class of Heroes 2 online, and that helped out some, BUT a lot of classes, spells, items, etc. are translated differently on this new release. This also means all the guides for the game out there use the PSP version's translation, which can make finding things out troublesome now.
As for issues, there are some typos, and sometimes text would go outside its box. The item management and alchemy for creating new items is still a pain in the ass. And even in the very last extra dungeon, I was still on occasion getting the same drops as in the very first area of the game, 45 hours earlier. The bestiary would imply that bosses have unique item drops, but if you don't happen to get them when you kill them, I'm not sure there's any way to fight them again. In the first game there was an arena where you could challenge again previously beaten bosses, but I didn't spot anything like that here.
During my playtime Class of Heroes 3 was announced to be finally getting an English release, so that was nice timing. Hopefully that improves things even further, especially item management.
https://www.gematsu.com/2024/12/class-o ... tch-and-pc
---
Finished Tokyo Clanpool on Switch at around 50 hours. The game doesn't seem to track how many hours you've spent on it (should be illegal, that) but it felt like 50-ish. Got the True End which consists of going through 10 new floors of the dungeon.
It's very anime in story and visual design. The main characters are four teenage-looking girls who have to dress in skimpy outfits to save the world from a demonic invasion. Luckily this also meant I could happily speed through the dialogue without missing some grand story, and there's much less story here than in Labyrinths of Refrain and Galleria.
Apparently some people got their panties in a twist because a pervy minigame (in the original Vita version you'd use the touchscreen to fondle the underage girls' bodies for buffs) was removed from the game, and replaced with basically a menu option. It is kind of weird this was removed when Moero Crystal H has something very similar, but apparently Nintendo is changing their guidelines. I don't really care, it looked to be nothing more than really blatant pandering and fanservice without adding anything to the game. I had kind of wished the similar thing in Moero Crystal H didn't exist because it was annoying to deal with from a gameplay standpoint.
The game itself is pretty solid. There's a lot of factors that affect the characters' stats, to the point that it was overwhelming at first and I didn't really get some systems until many, many hours in. That was mostly on me since I didn't experiment on them, and I was making good progress anyway. The game is very easy overall. I did switch to Hard difficulty as soon as I could (needs to be unlocked, not available right away) and I was still plowing through most enemies, with only bosses forcing me to stop and think a bit.
In one way the game's overall lack of difficulty works for its favour, because there's a LOT of combat. The encounter rate is sometimes so high you can take two steps and have another battle. But you can set the characters up to always use specific attacks and then just autobattle it which basically skips all animations and resolves the turn in moments. If every battle took a while, it'd take ages to get anywhere. And luckily, the map design is very solid. I was having a lot of fun just exploring the dungeon and getting loot. There's a really cool area later on where at first you're confused where you're even supposed to go, and you end up doing this journey over multiple floors, going up and down and inside and out, before finding the boss. Just the exploration aspect was easily my favorite part of the game.
The combat works a bit differently from most other DRPGs in that it doesn't have a basic "Attack" command, instead each weapon has 1-4 skills that have different attributes for damage, cost, etc. and you choose however many you want to use in a single turn, as long as you have the action points available. But not attacking also carries those attack points over to the next turn, so if you hold off on attacking for some turns, you can attack many more times in that single turn, and that can be beneficial. Other gear can have active or passive skills available as well. This allows a lot of flexibility how you want to build your party.
There's no less than three systems that are basically magic. Weapons can have skills that are categorized as Magic, but using them doesn't use up any magic points, they just use the character's magic attribute for how effective it is. And there's other type of Magic skills that is limited, in that Vancian style. It's kind of a weird system, because I had equipped my healer with a staff that had a skill for healing every member of the party, and I just had her activating that skill constantly, every turn, as often as possible, and it never consumed anything, and my characters were at max hit points pretty much all the time. On the rare occasion they did die, it's because an enemy managed to hit them for their full hit points in a single turn, or they got hit with an insta-kill attack.
My main damage dealer had a spear with a skill that could hit 20 times with each hit dealing low damage. They also had boots with a skill that repeated any given skill four times. Wait a few turns to build up your action points and you can run that skill three times in a single turn for 3 x 4 x 20 = 240 attacks in a single turn, with the combo system increasing the effectiveness of each hit. Oh, and have the other characters buff up that character first with Double Damage and Always Crit -spells beforehand. If nothing else, it was fun to watch even bosses get slaughtered this way.
But yeah, it definitely isn't the most balanced system. I thought it was fun, but I can see some people not being into it. The overall lack of challenge also means you don't have to take full advantage of the many systems. Though you're always stuck with the same four main characters, you can change their jobs (after unlocking them) but I didn't feel any need to, their different skills didn't seem to be any better or worse than the default ones, just a bit different. There is an even harder difficulty, but it didn't become available for purchase until after beating the main game. Would've been better to have all the difficulty options available right from the start. Post-game was an absolute cakewalk. It's like the devs forgot to increase the amount of XP it takes for each successive level up after level 100 or so, as my characters were gaining levels every other fight, sometimes several levels at once. The true final boss was at level 225, while my damage dealer was at 386...
Item management was problematic here as well. You end up accumulating a ton of gear, and if you're not careful about selling the ones you don't want as soon as possible, it's very easy to get overwhelmed. During selling you can't sort the gear at all, which makes it an absolute pain to find the items you want to get rid of, especially if you have multiple versions of the same item that have different rarity (meaning objectively better than more common variations due to better stats and more skills). At some point I dropped the ball on that and just had hundreds of weapons and armor in my inventory. Luckily the inventory size is limitless so it doesn't really matter, but it is annoying regardless. Also I had maxed out my money (I don't think I ever bought a single thing), so it's not like I needed to sell anything.
Despite its issues, I'd still rank the game as high B-tier, low A-tier, same as Class of Heroes 2 2G incidentally. I had a good time with it and the exploration kept me hooked. Some people will certainly put it as C- or D-tier due to the sheer animeness of it all and not being difficult. I'd say this is a good option for dipping your toe into the genre. Though I guess at around 50 hours it is on the longer side for a newcomer, so Potato Flowers in Full Bloom still reigns supreme there.
No matter how good a game is, somebody will always hate it. No matter how bad a game is, somebody will always love it.
My videos
My videos
-
m.sniffles.esq
- Posts: 1331
- Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2019 5:45 pm
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I don't really pay attention to these things, but apparently nu-wizardry just won a Grammy (this was on my rss), evidently beating out the usual suspects of the God of Wars and Assassin's Creeds.
I find this a bit surprising (not based on the soundtrack, as I haven't heard it. But that enough people played nu-wizardry to vote for it)
I find this a bit surprising (not based on the soundtrack, as I haven't heard it. But that enough people played nu-wizardry to vote for it)
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Maybe you guys can help me out. what would you say is the first realtime action dungeon crawler?
my requirements
- movement in real time, yours and enemies
- combat in real time: so.. if you stand and do nothing, you're gonna take hits and die.
- first person
Ultima Underworld?
does Dungeon Master (1987) qualify?
speaking of Underworld I gave it a go recently. I'm on floor 4, went mage. Mage kinda sucks, I still have only one offensive spell, and run out of MP with every enemy.
Also I found myself with pad and paper translating a lizardman language
my requirements
- movement in real time, yours and enemies
- combat in real time: so.. if you stand and do nothing, you're gonna take hits and die.
- first person
Ultima Underworld?
does Dungeon Master (1987) qualify?
speaking of Underworld I gave it a go recently. I'm on floor 4, went mage. Mage kinda sucks, I still have only one offensive spell, and run out of MP with every enemy.
Also I found myself with pad and paper translating a lizardman language
-
BareKnuckleRoo
- Posts: 6649
- Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2011 4:01 am
- Location: Southern Ontario
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Dungeon Master definitely counts. Sure, the movement is tile-based, but it's still real-time combat which radically changes things. I don't particularly like it compared to turn based games though, feels too much like you're piloting some multi-limbed abomination that flails weapons around. For real-time games I prefer single character first-person stuff like King's Field. Ultima Underworld and Elder Scrolls Arena are the first two examples I can think of, but from what I remember trying ES:A the controls are awful compared to what we're spoiled with in modern FPS games. I haven't actually tried Ultima Underworld yet but I've been scared it's gonna be heavily mouse driven for movement and combat which I found was unpleasant in ES:A...
I believe Dungeon Master and Ultima Underworld were the earliest examples of real-time combat and movement, where you could move to evade attacks in a first person RPG environment. At least I can't think of any that came before them with real-time combat as opposed to turn based movement.
I believe Dungeon Master and Ultima Underworld were the earliest examples of real-time combat and movement, where you could move to evade attacks in a first person RPG environment. At least I can't think of any that came before them with real-time combat as opposed to turn based movement.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
UU's combat is better than ES:A in my experience
I have played Arena to completion and it was meh.
Underworld is great.. also i THINK it counts as full 3D? look up and down etc.
I have played Arena to completion and it was meh.
Underworld is great.. also i THINK it counts as full 3D? look up and down etc.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I've been playing the Brandish remake for PSP recently. Cozy little game and lots of fun, although the tile-sniffing can get a bit tedious sometimes.
We here shall not rest until we have made a drawing-room of your shaft, and if you do not all finally go down to your doom in patent-leather shoes, then you shall not go at all.
-
Klatrymadon
- Posts: 2243
- Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2005 2:39 pm
- Location: Liverpool
- Contact:
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Hell yeah. I'm replaying the Brandish remake in fits and starts too. It's a really bold and unique action-DRPG. It does a great job of introducing all of its gameplay concepts and then implementing them in more complex and demanding ways; the floor design keeps getting more intricate as you go along, culminating in some dual-layered monstrosities in the Dela mode full of switches, pitfall traps, dark zones, hidden rooms and everything else. You constantly dip between the layers and double back, discovering new areas and secrets as you unpick the knot. Along with Xanadu Next it represents Falcom's best work, imo.
With KAI's help I managed to get the PC-98 games running, so I'm keen to put some time aside for Brandish 2: THE PLANET BUSTER. It's a fair bit clunkier than the PSP game and far more ruthless, but having a basic knowledge of the way everything is going to work makes it feel perfectly playable.
With KAI's help I managed to get the PC-98 games running, so I'm keen to put some time aside for Brandish 2: THE PLANET BUSTER. It's a fair bit clunkier than the PSP game and far more ruthless, but having a basic knowledge of the way everything is going to work makes it feel perfectly playable.
-
cj iwakura
- Posts: 1798
- Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:28 am
- Location: Coral Springs, FL
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Yeah, Brandish 2 is a sloooow burn, but the music is phenomenal(no easy feat).
And has one of the funniest announcement videos ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN82Z6R1huw
And has one of the funniest announcement videos ever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN82Z6R1huw
It doesn't lie.Brandish will fuck you up!!
heli wrote:Why is milestone director in prison ?, are his game to difficult ?
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Metro Quester
Got it on the NSW for a 50% discount these days. Game is quite barebones but the settings sounds fine. You have to grind a little to get your party right, hopefully it will not take too much time and luck.
Gameplay loop is quite short with the fuel system : have to return to base frequently. Though you can move your base easily, addint a strategic element to it.
Food system is not too intrusive, and adds other objectives to your runs, sounds good so far.
I did not encounter the very hard battle Sima Tuna mentionned earlier yet, maybe will get it soon ? It looks like leveling your characters and choosing equipment right helps a lot, so maybe there is even more strategies involved here ?
For now I can see myself playing this one a bit more, hopefully a lot. And the sequel Metro Quester Osaka is also on the NSW now.
Anyone have inputs on those games too ?
Got it on the NSW for a 50% discount these days. Game is quite barebones but the settings sounds fine. You have to grind a little to get your party right, hopefully it will not take too much time and luck.
Gameplay loop is quite short with the fuel system : have to return to base frequently. Though you can move your base easily, addint a strategic element to it.
Food system is not too intrusive, and adds other objectives to your runs, sounds good so far.
I did not encounter the very hard battle Sima Tuna mentionned earlier yet, maybe will get it soon ? It looks like leveling your characters and choosing equipment right helps a lot, so maybe there is even more strategies involved here ?
For now I can see myself playing this one a bit more, hopefully a lot. And the sequel Metro Quester Osaka is also on the NSW now.
Anyone have inputs on those games too ?
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
-
scrilla4rella
- Posts: 947
- Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2005 2:16 am
- Location: Berkeley, CA
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Apologies if this was discussed earlier but can anyone offer thoughts on the Wizardry remake from Digital Eclipse? Any good? I just realized it was out of early access so I'll prob cop soon. The dev seems to have a good track record.
As for myself, I haven't beaten may darpgs (did I do that right?) but I played the crap out of the The Dark Spire and Eltrian Odyssey V. I actually cleared Eltrian Odyssey 2 on DS back in the day, perfect game to play on and off.
The JDRPG(?)s like Eltrain Odyssey and Stranger of Sword City definitely have a different look from the western developed wizardry games but who doesn't love a good dark grimy dungeon look?
As for myself, I haven't beaten may darpgs (did I do that right?) but I played the crap out of the The Dark Spire and Eltrian Odyssey V. I actually cleared Eltrian Odyssey 2 on DS back in the day, perfect game to play on and off.
The JDRPG(?)s like Eltrain Odyssey and Stranger of Sword City definitely have a different look from the western developed wizardry games but who doesn't love a good dark grimy dungeon look?
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Those looked like they might be interesting, I saw that a new one will be coming out soon. I'm interested in hearing more of your or any other shmup farmers' impressions.guigui wrote: ↑Fri Feb 21, 2025 10:14 am Metro Quester
Got it on the NSW for a 50% discount these days. Game is quite barebones but the settings sounds fine. You have to grind a little to get your party right, hopefully it will not take too much time and luck.
Gameplay loop is quite short with the fuel system : have to return to base frequently. Though you can move your base easily, addint a strategic element to it.
Food system is not too intrusive, and adds other objectives to your runs, sounds good so far.
I did not encounter the very hard battle Sima Tuna mentionned earlier yet, maybe will get it soon ? It looks like leveling your characters and choosing equipment right helps a lot, so maybe there is even more strategies involved here ?
For now I can see myself playing this one a bit more, hopefully a lot. And the sequel Metro Quester Osaka is also on the NSW now.
Anyone have inputs on those games too ?
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
It was some mushroom thing, like one of the very first enemy packs you can encounter starting a new game. Probably about a 1/3rd chance that the first thing you fight in Metro Quester will be a mushroom thing. I couldn't figure out how to damage it or do anything to it, let alone kill it. Then it murdered my party. I think the sprite for the monster encounter is red or some different color than the standard encounter sprite. But it's right at the start of the game. I don't know if there's a trick to kill it I never learned or if you are intended to run from this fight? Of course, leveling would help but we're talking about the literal first 2 minutes of gameplay, with an encounter that could potentially be the very first your party encounters...guigui wrote: ↑Fri Feb 21, 2025 10:14 am Metro Quester
Got it on the NSW for a 50% discount these days. Game is quite barebones but the settings sounds fine. You have to grind a little to get your party right, hopefully it will not take too much time and luck.
Gameplay loop is quite short with the fuel system : have to return to base frequently. Though you can move your base easily, addint a strategic element to it.
Food system is not too intrusive, and adds other objectives to your runs, sounds good so far.
I did not encounter the very hard battle Sima Tuna mentionned earlier yet, maybe will get it soon ? It looks like leveling your characters and choosing equipment right helps a lot, so maybe there is even more strategies involved here ?
For now I can see myself playing this one a bit more, hopefully a lot. And the sequel Metro Quester Osaka is also on the NSW now.
Anyone have inputs on those games too ?
I play a lot of dungeon crawlers, so I do understand the spikey nature of their difficulty curve, but still.
Easiest way to find the fight would be to boot up a completely fresh game and fight the first 3 or so battles around the starting area, keeping an eye out for any red or different-colored sprites.
https://youtu.be/LP7sbi72Mik
Found it^. The dude in the video (the legendary deceased crab) ended up running away as soon as he saw the mushroom apply 2 stacks of poison to his entire party. That's the kind of shit I'm talking about. Mushroom bro could be the first thing you fight in this game... In a game that's already pretty poorly translated into english.
He killed it the second time he fought it but I think he got lucky on RNG. The mushroom guy can appear in multiples IIRC and also with more monsters than just one minion.Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I encountered the mushrooms too, definitely hard at first encounter and I had to run. I found some other after a little more leveling and they become easy. So maybe just escape them to explore other parts of the dungeon ; they wont necessarily come back anyway.
For a breakdown of what I've seen so far, foes come in different kinds in this game :
* Regular enemies. Spawn around nests, move a little around the map.. Blue->Purple->Red from easiest to hardest. Are randomized and spawn back each time you return to base. Give regular rewards (food, resources, items, XP).
* Mid bosses enemies. Fixed location, always red. Give regular rewards + increase max level of each characters by 2 (even those in base). Important to note is that even though the location is fixed, the content of the fight is itself randomized. So if you find the miboss too hard, you can come back to base and attempt it later with less enemies.
* Boss enemies. Fixed location and content. Always red, flavor text appears when you come close to them. Give regular reward, max level increase by 2, and open a stairs to access another part of the map.
So far I'm having a good time with the game !
For a breakdown of what I've seen so far, foes come in different kinds in this game :
* Regular enemies. Spawn around nests, move a little around the map.. Blue->Purple->Red from easiest to hardest. Are randomized and spawn back each time you return to base. Give regular rewards (food, resources, items, XP).
* Mid bosses enemies. Fixed location, always red. Give regular rewards + increase max level of each characters by 2 (even those in base). Important to note is that even though the location is fixed, the content of the fight is itself randomized. So if you find the miboss too hard, you can come back to base and attempt it later with less enemies.
* Boss enemies. Fixed location and content. Always red, flavor text appears when you come close to them. Give regular reward, max level increase by 2, and open a stairs to access another part of the map.
So far I'm having a good time with the game !
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I played through the prequel, Metro Quester Osaka. Overall I liked it! Reminds me of Dungeon Encounters somewhat, both are deliberately minimalist RPGs of basically pure exploration and combat. The game is about exploring the post-apocalyptic Japan while fighting monsters while collecting various items and resources. The game re-skins a lot of traditional RPG systems in modern terms. Instead of wizards you have professors and scientists, and instead of expending MP to cast magic spells, you use batteries and bullets and such to attack with drone bombs and chemical weapons. Riot cops are tanks. Rogues are called "Stealers."
The most important of your resources is purification fuel, which is used to manufacture several other resources, and is also expended when moving on the map, among other uses. Your purification fuel is refilled at your base, and if you run out of fuel on the map, you're immediately sent home. You maximum purification fuel can be increased by beating bosses, accessing USB outlets strewn throughout the game's world, with equipment, and with character abilities. Your fuel supply is nowhere near enough to cover the entire game's map on your own, you need to find base sites, which function more or less like checkpoints, like bonfires in Souls games, and you can relocate your base there to start future expeditions. The exploration mechanics work well, small bits of progress feel rewarding, getting more purification fuel feels like a great reward, better than combat upgrades do, because of how it opens up more possibilities. It also slows your exploration down quite a bit, a necessity given that the whole game takes place on a little 100x100 tile map. You also have to feed your party every 10 days, with supposedly severe consequences for starving. It's easy to avoid, there were no real close calls in my playthrough, but I feel the mechanic adds to the game overall, you get a little more busywork but it puts me in the mindset of using my exploration time effectively, even though there's no hard time limit.
The combat system is interesting. You choose three actions for each character in your party at once. The game remembers your previous commands and generally you want to set your characters up to function on autopilot as much as possible. Healing and revivals are both done after combat automatically at the expense of purification fuel. Each character starts with 5 action points, with different abilities using varying amounts of points. At times you may opt to spend all your AP one one or two more powerful but expensive actions and forego your third action altogether. After your set up your team you mostly let the game play itself. It can be hard to follow what's going on, especially since you're always going to keep it running 3x speed autoplay, but most enemies are just varying stacks of HP, ATK, and DEF.
Most abilities are associated with equipment, like a knife enables a slashing attack, a modified vacuum cleaner might enable you to use it as a flamethrower or spray poison gas. Oftentimes you have to choose between items with good stats, items with good abilities, items that go well together, and so forth. Changing someone's weapons can make it feel like you changed to a whole new character. Many abilities use resources. A drone bomb might expend a battery and an explosive. Firing guns uses bullets. Your party will have a base supply of all resources, decided by your characters and equipment, and if you have more of less than your supply after a battle, you are reset to your supply level. So there's no needs to get into an easy fight and stock up drugs and bullets for a boss fight, and there's no reason not to use what you get for free every fight. You can generally also use an action to expend purification fuel to generate more resources, but you don't want to make a habit of doing that outside of boss fights. Programming and equipping your characters your characters to use just the resources they need to clear random encounters so you can blow through them, no outside input needed, is an interesting puzzle.
While the system makes it easy to set up your team's combo, and let it play out to smash through fights quickly, the UI isn't great for when you want to manage your team's actions from round to round, like you might in a tough boss fight. A lot of the time I mash the button to start fighting even when my characters are set up badly just because I don't want to change them and then change them back after. My #1 wish for the dev's next game, Monochrome Echoes: White, is that they let you save action sets for your characters so you can quickly change a character to low resource mode or healing and so forth.
The combat is unique and overall I like it. The combat also reminds me of Dungeon Encounters, both are really simple and quick but minimally interactive. Also because it's often minimally interactive, I would not consider Quester's combat as strong of a selling point as the combat in high quality conventional DRPGs like Etrian Odyssey or Dungeon Travelers.
You don't make your own characters, you start with your choice of several parties of questers and pick up others on the way. They might as well be generics though, none of them have any dialogue or personality beyond a name and a portait (kind of like Dungeon Encounters!) and two characters of the same class will function very similarly. They have different stats that go up, and every 10 experience levels earns them a new skill. Stat growth rates and skill choices are the only functional differences between characters. Platrhea seems to reliably learn the very important radar ability. She's a good choice for your stealer. The characters you unlock seem to be random and you won't get to meet everyone in one playthrough.
There's almost no story, something about a virus turning animals into monsters and making the world uninhabitable, but it doesn't particularly go anywhere and it isn't important, it's a DRPG. It's pretty short, I don't have a timer but it feels like around 10 hours. My #2 request for Monochrome Echoes: White is that the game be a bit longer. Thrown in maybe a postgame or a second quest. In Quester there's a new game plus feature where you can carry things over and the monsters get stronger, but it doesn't seem too interesting.
Metro Quester is surprisingly widely available in different markets for such an absolute no-name. There's even a DRM free PC version at GOG.
I started the original Metro Quester and yup, those mushrooms are brutal at first. Just run away until you have a stronger team. Running away always works even if it will use more fuel than you have. It works on boss fights too. It's not ideal but you can often push past stronger enemies by just running.
The most important of your resources is purification fuel, which is used to manufacture several other resources, and is also expended when moving on the map, among other uses. Your purification fuel is refilled at your base, and if you run out of fuel on the map, you're immediately sent home. You maximum purification fuel can be increased by beating bosses, accessing USB outlets strewn throughout the game's world, with equipment, and with character abilities. Your fuel supply is nowhere near enough to cover the entire game's map on your own, you need to find base sites, which function more or less like checkpoints, like bonfires in Souls games, and you can relocate your base there to start future expeditions. The exploration mechanics work well, small bits of progress feel rewarding, getting more purification fuel feels like a great reward, better than combat upgrades do, because of how it opens up more possibilities. It also slows your exploration down quite a bit, a necessity given that the whole game takes place on a little 100x100 tile map. You also have to feed your party every 10 days, with supposedly severe consequences for starving. It's easy to avoid, there were no real close calls in my playthrough, but I feel the mechanic adds to the game overall, you get a little more busywork but it puts me in the mindset of using my exploration time effectively, even though there's no hard time limit.
The combat system is interesting. You choose three actions for each character in your party at once. The game remembers your previous commands and generally you want to set your characters up to function on autopilot as much as possible. Healing and revivals are both done after combat automatically at the expense of purification fuel. Each character starts with 5 action points, with different abilities using varying amounts of points. At times you may opt to spend all your AP one one or two more powerful but expensive actions and forego your third action altogether. After your set up your team you mostly let the game play itself. It can be hard to follow what's going on, especially since you're always going to keep it running 3x speed autoplay, but most enemies are just varying stacks of HP, ATK, and DEF.
Most abilities are associated with equipment, like a knife enables a slashing attack, a modified vacuum cleaner might enable you to use it as a flamethrower or spray poison gas. Oftentimes you have to choose between items with good stats, items with good abilities, items that go well together, and so forth. Changing someone's weapons can make it feel like you changed to a whole new character. Many abilities use resources. A drone bomb might expend a battery and an explosive. Firing guns uses bullets. Your party will have a base supply of all resources, decided by your characters and equipment, and if you have more of less than your supply after a battle, you are reset to your supply level. So there's no needs to get into an easy fight and stock up drugs and bullets for a boss fight, and there's no reason not to use what you get for free every fight. You can generally also use an action to expend purification fuel to generate more resources, but you don't want to make a habit of doing that outside of boss fights. Programming and equipping your characters your characters to use just the resources they need to clear random encounters so you can blow through them, no outside input needed, is an interesting puzzle.
While the system makes it easy to set up your team's combo, and let it play out to smash through fights quickly, the UI isn't great for when you want to manage your team's actions from round to round, like you might in a tough boss fight. A lot of the time I mash the button to start fighting even when my characters are set up badly just because I don't want to change them and then change them back after. My #1 wish for the dev's next game, Monochrome Echoes: White, is that they let you save action sets for your characters so you can quickly change a character to low resource mode or healing and so forth.
The combat is unique and overall I like it. The combat also reminds me of Dungeon Encounters, both are really simple and quick but minimally interactive. Also because it's often minimally interactive, I would not consider Quester's combat as strong of a selling point as the combat in high quality conventional DRPGs like Etrian Odyssey or Dungeon Travelers.
You don't make your own characters, you start with your choice of several parties of questers and pick up others on the way. They might as well be generics though, none of them have any dialogue or personality beyond a name and a portait (kind of like Dungeon Encounters!) and two characters of the same class will function very similarly. They have different stats that go up, and every 10 experience levels earns them a new skill. Stat growth rates and skill choices are the only functional differences between characters. Platrhea seems to reliably learn the very important radar ability. She's a good choice for your stealer. The characters you unlock seem to be random and you won't get to meet everyone in one playthrough.
There's almost no story, something about a virus turning animals into monsters and making the world uninhabitable, but it doesn't particularly go anywhere and it isn't important, it's a DRPG. It's pretty short, I don't have a timer but it feels like around 10 hours. My #2 request for Monochrome Echoes: White is that the game be a bit longer. Thrown in maybe a postgame or a second quest. In Quester there's a new game plus feature where you can carry things over and the monsters get stronger, but it doesn't seem too interesting.
Metro Quester is surprisingly widely available in different markets for such an absolute no-name. There's even a DRM free PC version at GOG.
I started the original Metro Quester and yup, those mushrooms are brutal at first. Just run away until you have a stronger team. Running away always works even if it will use more fuel than you have. It works on boss fights too. It's not ideal but you can often push past stronger enemies by just running.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Very close to endgame in Metro Quester too.
As always, I liked to farm a little (lot ?) in the game and my characters are getting to level 70, close to highest possible in a single playthrought.
I can say that Shuriken looks like a ultimate farming weapon : just get 2 stealers with a couple shuriken each and you'll destroy about any foes in a single turn. Then you can add 3 more characters to your team to level them up as desired.
Also the Recycler weapon is very useful as it increases your max fuel, and gives some fuel back when harvesting resources and food. Runs can last for a very long time with this ; I take 4 of them to battle of course !
Overall it is a pleasing game, except that of course farming it to the bones like I did certainly makes it too easy by the end. But I like it, finding efficient ways to farm is part of the game to me.
As always, I liked to farm a little (lot ?) in the game and my characters are getting to level 70, close to highest possible in a single playthrought.
I can say that Shuriken looks like a ultimate farming weapon : just get 2 stealers with a couple shuriken each and you'll destroy about any foes in a single turn. Then you can add 3 more characters to your team to level them up as desired.
Also the Recycler weapon is very useful as it increases your max fuel, and gives some fuel back when harvesting resources and food. Runs can last for a very long time with this ; I take 4 of them to battle of course !
Overall it is a pleasing game, except that of course farming it to the bones like I did certainly makes it too easy by the end. But I like it, finding efficient ways to farm is part of the game to me.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Ahah, even though I farmed like hell and have overpowered characters and gears, I cannot beat what looks like Metro Questers' final boss.
S**t happens when thinking is required over brute force, I'll have to spend more time tinkering the team. Any hints on how you did it Vanguard ?
S**t happens when thinking is required over brute force, I'll have to spend more time tinkering the team. Any hints on how you did it Vanguard ?
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Just finished Metro Quester last night. The final boss is pretty brutal. I beat him with a team ranging from lv 65 to 69 by going defensive. The final boss mostly uses physical damage so I had multiple characters spamming super stronghold from equipment every turn, which made his attacks manageable. I had both a scientist and a professor using the free first aid ability, and I have the passive that makes drugs in your inventory heal your team too. My stealer also spammed flash bangs to inflict paralysis and continuously created gadgets from fuel to keep that going. Most of my damage came from burning and poison DOT. I think he had some status ailments too? My mobile police has the ability to protect your party from ailments and I would use that on the turns the boss used status attacks. Everyone was equipped with shockproof suits as their accessories to help stay out of the oneshot zone.
Metro Quester Osaka is better balanced. Most of the game seems harder but its final boss is easier. There are some nice UI improvements as well.
I hear the author said that there's a monster in Metro Quester which no one has encountered yet.
Metro Quester Osaka is better balanced. Most of the game seems harder but its final boss is easier. There are some nice UI improvements as well.
I hear the author said that there's a monster in Metro Quester which no one has encountered yet.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Thanks for the tips Vanguard. Defensive looks like a way to go indeed ; I will try again brute force, I almost 2 turn ko'd him last time with lots of burning and poisons.
I guess finding all monsters in the game requires to go NG+ and beyond, as I am far from finding them all.
Also, did you discover how to access the "remained locked equipment" and "remained locked questers" in the codex menu at the base ? They still display N/A to me, only the monsters codex is open.
I guess finding all monsters in the game requires to go NG+ and beyond, as I am far from finding them all.
Also, did you discover how to access the "remained locked equipment" and "remained locked questers" in the codex menu at the base ? They still display N/A to me, only the monsters codex is open.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
The locked equipment and questers are NG+ things.
Status ailments are really good in these games. Flash bang costs 1 AP and puts 30 points of paralysis on all targets, which I think is a 30% chance to skip their turns. I don't think you can stack it higher than that. Attack up buffs and defense down debuffs almost always seem to pay off. Burning, bleeding, and poison are all really strong. Seems like burning is the best and poison is the weakest because of when they trigger.
What if the secret enemy is unlocked by beating Maw Man with the stun light on that makes enemies twice as tough
In the Osaka prequel they said the questers were supposed to go to Tokyo and find the blue haired girl, the one on the game's store pages, but I never saw or heard anything about her in my Metro Quester playthrough.
Status ailments are really good in these games. Flash bang costs 1 AP and puts 30 points of paralysis on all targets, which I think is a 30% chance to skip their turns. I don't think you can stack it higher than that. Attack up buffs and defense down debuffs almost always seem to pay off. Burning, bleeding, and poison are all really strong. Seems like burning is the best and poison is the weakest because of when they trigger.
What if the secret enemy is unlocked by beating Maw Man with the stun light on that makes enemies twice as tough
In the Osaka prequel they said the questers were supposed to go to Tokyo and find the blue haired girl, the one on the game's store pages, but I never saw or heard anything about her in my Metro Quester playthrough.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
The blue haired girl is mentionned in Quester, in one or two of the USB ports.
Maybe going deeper in NG+ reveals more lore in those ports ?
Maybe going deeper in NG+ reveals more lore in those ports ?
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I'm just happy to see that someone actually has taken the time to learn these games and explain wtf is going on with them.
I tried to find information about the games online and there is very little in English. You guys should collaborate and write a guide for both games. Run some ads for smutty games in the sidebar of your blog and split the profits.
"Did you like Metro Quester? Then you'll love Meet 'n' Fuck Quester"
I tried to find information about the games online and there is very little in English. You guys should collaborate and write a guide for both games.
Run some ads for smutty games in the sidebar of your blog and split the profits."Did you like Metro Quester? Then you'll love Meet 'n' Fuck Quester"
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Game cleared, last boss is definitely brute-force able, he was down in 2 turns with lots of burning, poison, bleeding, and a single defense buff for the whole party. Maybe too much farming before that though, whole team was level 70.
Started NG+ to see what is going on, and realised I made mistakes. Elements :
* all characters get reset to level 1, bye bye my levels farming time.
* the starting rooster is about 10 characters selected at random among the 15ish characters you unlocked from previous runs. You get to find the others back in the dungeons, or as days pass. I guess you also find new characters in new station as in NG, though it did not happen to me yet.
* your starting items are selected at random among the items you had from previous runs. This is where my biggest mistake occured : only 60 items are transported from one run to the next (I had some 140+ items), and those items are selected according to the numbers of upgrades you gave them, then according to their rarity.
This means that a common item upgraded to its maximum +3 may be selected over a very rare unupgraded item. Ofc this happened and I lost most of my very rare items (5 stars) to keep some common upgraded items that are way less effective. Bye bye Shurikens.
So advice if you want to start NG+ : discard all but your 60 best items, you'll be sure to find them back later.
* the foes look a bit stronger, but not that much more than in NG. Maybe in late game or subsequent NG++ this starts to matter.
* the USB ports do not give more lore. Though the ending mentions a door leading down you find after beating the last boss, that you do not open because you dont want to dive further in the metro. So maybe there is another area after beating more NG+ ?
* The monster codex indeed shows all monsters, except n°33 ; certainly the one the developper mentionned as "undiscovered by anyone yet". My guess is that you either encounter it after more NG+, or in a very well hidden secret area.
Not sure what to do with the game now : it hurts so much to play NG+ underpowered and knowing that I could have been so much stronger by just reading the items things explanation ; plus I fear there is nothing more here than just stronger monsters. Not sure I'll continue. At least this was a good time in the first run.
Started NG+ to see what is going on, and realised I made mistakes. Elements :
* all characters get reset to level 1, bye bye my levels farming time.
* the starting rooster is about 10 characters selected at random among the 15ish characters you unlocked from previous runs. You get to find the others back in the dungeons, or as days pass. I guess you also find new characters in new station as in NG, though it did not happen to me yet.
* your starting items are selected at random among the items you had from previous runs. This is where my biggest mistake occured : only 60 items are transported from one run to the next (I had some 140+ items), and those items are selected according to the numbers of upgrades you gave them, then according to their rarity.
This means that a common item upgraded to its maximum +3 may be selected over a very rare unupgraded item. Ofc this happened and I lost most of my very rare items (5 stars) to keep some common upgraded items that are way less effective. Bye bye Shurikens.
So advice if you want to start NG+ : discard all but your 60 best items, you'll be sure to find them back later.
* the foes look a bit stronger, but not that much more than in NG. Maybe in late game or subsequent NG++ this starts to matter.
* the USB ports do not give more lore. Though the ending mentions a door leading down you find after beating the last boss, that you do not open because you dont want to dive further in the metro. So maybe there is another area after beating more NG+ ?
* The monster codex indeed shows all monsters, except n°33 ; certainly the one the developper mentionned as "undiscovered by anyone yet". My guess is that you either encounter it after more NG+, or in a very well hidden secret area.
Not sure what to do with the game now : it hurts so much to play NG+ underpowered and knowing that I could have been so much stronger by just reading the items things explanation ; plus I fear there is nothing more here than just stronger monsters. Not sure I'll continue. At least this was a good time in the first run.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I was sick in bed all day yesterday and did a full NG+ run of Quester Osaka. I've concluded that there isn't any real reason to play NG+. It's mostly easier than a standard playthrough, enemies are a bit stronger but you have a gigantic supply of purification fuel, and a few late game weapons will trivialize most of the game.
Skill gains are at least somewhat randomized. I used the same scientist I used in my previous playthrough, and she never picked up the stun light ability. I noticed that the game lists Goldrhea as Platrhea's "buddy" in her profile. I wanted to see if you'd get some bonus for using both together, but couldn't unlock Goldhrea because I recruited enough characters to fill out the whole screen and the game wouldn't let me unlock any others for the rest of that playthrough.
By the way, I looked around the steam forums and it seems people did eventually find the secret enemy. They said that enemy #33 is locked for the rest of a playthrough after beating the "first" boss. I'm not sure if beating any boss locks it, or if a specific enemy is the first boss, but it sounds like it's a normal enemy that is only particularly remarkable for how hard it is to find. It's not RPG Hibachi that can only be challenged after beating a stun light-berserked Maw Man on NG+10 like we were suspecting.
There's also one enemy missing from my Quester Osaka bestiary so I'm sure there's something similar in that game too.
Skill gains are at least somewhat randomized. I used the same scientist I used in my previous playthrough, and she never picked up the stun light ability. I noticed that the game lists Goldrhea as Platrhea's "buddy" in her profile. I wanted to see if you'd get some bonus for using both together, but couldn't unlock Goldhrea because I recruited enough characters to fill out the whole screen and the game wouldn't let me unlock any others for the rest of that playthrough.
By the way, I looked around the steam forums and it seems people did eventually find the secret enemy. They said that enemy #33 is locked for the rest of a playthrough after beating the "first" boss. I'm not sure if beating any boss locks it, or if a specific enemy is the first boss, but it sounds like it's a normal enemy that is only particularly remarkable for how hard it is to find. It's not RPG Hibachi that can only be challenged after beating a stun light-berserked Maw Man on NG+10 like we were suspecting.
Spoiler
Those wanting to face RPG Hibachi will have to play Labyrinth of Touhou instead
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
Thanks to your illness Vanguard, now we know all about Metro Quester. Looks like Osaka is just more of the same game, and that NG+ has no real interest indeed. NG was fun while it lasted for sure.
Since you seem to have played lots of them dungeon crawler, I'm wondering if you might suggest one for me ? Dont have much time to play, so I'd like to get one that suits the best my needs.
Already cleared Undernauts Labyrinth of Yomi, Legends of Amberland, Severed and Metro Quester. Tried and dropped The Lost Child and Labyrinth of Refrain. My criteria are :
* Switch only
* Can create team
* Get attached to your characters, switching them in and out is fun for strategy, but not all the time and for no reason (looking at you Labyrinth Refrain)
* Strategic elements attached to combats, need to think to progress
* Grinding ok, I kind of like it
* Not too much verbose
Thanks for any recommendation.
Since you seem to have played lots of them dungeon crawler, I'm wondering if you might suggest one for me ? Dont have much time to play, so I'd like to get one that suits the best my needs.
Already cleared Undernauts Labyrinth of Yomi, Legends of Amberland, Severed and Metro Quester. Tried and dropped The Lost Child and Labyrinth of Refrain. My criteria are :
* Switch only
* Can create team
* Get attached to your characters, switching them in and out is fun for strategy, but not all the time and for no reason (looking at you Labyrinth Refrain)
* Strategic elements attached to combats, need to think to progress
* Grinding ok, I kind of like it
* Not too much verbose
Thanks for any recommendation.
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
Re: Dungeon crawler recomendations
I'm not terribly familiar with switch DRPGs, but the Etrian Odyssey origins collection is on Switch and it looks like it's on a big discount right now too. Etrian 3 is one of my favorites.
Potato Flowers in Full Bloom is an incredible game, a contender for best DRPG of all time, and it meets all of your criteria. You don't have to grind at all, but there are plenty of rare item drops and those seem to be your thing. It's relatively short at around 20 hours, has essentially no wasted time, and is very replayable. Best of all is its combat system which puts 99% of turn based RPGs to shame.
Potato Flowers in Full Bloom is an incredible game, a contender for best DRPG of all time, and it meets all of your criteria. You don't have to grind at all, but there are plenty of rare item drops and those seem to be your thing. It's relatively short at around 20 hours, has essentially no wasted time, and is very replayable. Best of all is its combat system which puts 99% of turn based RPGs to shame.