Dungeon crawler recomendations

[Sima Tuna]

Strangers of Sword City is pretty fun. It's probably the best Experience DRPG on the Switch.

Darkest Dungeon isn't a conventional DRPG, but it's similar in some respects and always worth playing. I'm still waiting on Amberland 2 to get a Switch port. I loved Amberland 1 on Switch. I liked Class of Heroes 2 but you may not. It's very Wizardry 1 in design.

[guigui]

Thanks for the input, I'll definitely keep an eye out on those ones Potato Flowers, Stranger Sword City, Etrian.

[Vanguard]

Strangers of Sword City is pretty fun. It's probably the best Experience DRPG on the Switch.

Darkest Dungeon isn't a conventional DRPG, but it's similar in some respects and always worth playing. I'm still waiting on Amberland 2 to get a Switch port. I loved Amberland 1 on Switch. I liked Class of Heroes 2 but you may not. It's very Wizardry 1 in design.

I've never played an Experience game before. What are they like? What's the best one?

[Sima Tuna]

Strangers of Sword City is pretty fun. It's probably the best Experience DRPG on the Switch.

Darkest Dungeon isn't a conventional DRPG, but it's similar in some respects and always worth playing. I'm still waiting on Amberland 2 to get a Switch port. I loved Amberland 1 on Switch. I liked Class of Heroes 2 but you may not. It's very Wizardry 1 in design.

I've never played an Experience game before. What are they like? What's the best one?

They're like the Japanese Wizardry games. If you look at the history of DRPGs, there was Wizardry in the west. Which eventually gave us games like Might and Magic. There was Eye of the Beholder, which spawned a lot of games like Legend of Grimrock.

But in the east, well... It was pretty much just Wizardry influencing DRPG evolution. Wizardry was hugely popular in Japan. It influenced all of the big-name jarpig franchises, including Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.

Before Experience Inc made their own games, I believe they either worked on Wizardry licensed titles or unlicensed spinoffs built on Wizardry licensed systems. Something about Generation Xth being a secret Wizardry licensed game that had the license removed? I dunno.

The majority of japanese DRPGs take their influence directly from Wizardry. You have Elminage Gothic, Labyrinth of Zangetsu, Class of Heroes etc. What Experience Inc primarily bring to the table now is very high production values relative to those other games. They provide a lot of text and battle speed options, as well as autopilot, automap and many quality of life features. Their newer games tend towards the easy side, although Stranger of Sword City is a pretty large exception. Labyrinth of Yomi is probably the most appealing DRPG of theirs for a casual player, but I was put off by what I felt was a simplistic combat engine.

So anyway, to your question, "What are they like?" They are like Wizardry 1 but with a lot more polish. They are like Etrian (they both trace their roots through the same lineage) but without stylus mapping. "What's the best one?" Entirely subjective. Most people will probably say either Stranger of Sword City (my choice) or Labyrinth of Yomi.

Japanese DRPGs are really weird. They latched onto Wizardry 1 hard and basically stopped there. We never got a slew of Japanese Wizardry 7 clones or World of Xeen clones.

[Vanguard]

Original SoSC or SoSC revisited?

[guigui]

Potato Flowers in Full Bloom is an incredible game, a contender for best DRPG of all time, and it meets all of your criteria.

I tried the demo and it looks very nice indeed. Quick question : is your party stuck to 3 characters during the whole game ?

[Vanguard]

You can only have 3 in your party at one time, but you can switch characters in and out at your home base. You aren't stuck with the tutorial party, you can always create new characters, and getting underleveled characters caught up is super fast. Like two or three fights will do it.

[Sima Tuna]

Original SoSC or SoSC revisited?

Opinions are mixed on which is better. SoSC Revisited usually gets recommended, although I've heard some of the "fixes" from the original game were things that didn't need to be fixed. I think Revisited was made easier thanks to feedback from people who don't play DRPGs. I'm not experienced enough with either version to give you a definitive answer. If Revisited has more content then I guess that version?

DRPGs are in a weird place. Most people who review DRPGs do not even recognize this as a distinct genre and many of them dislike DRPGs and DRPG game design on principle.

[guigui]

You can only have 3 in your party at one time, but you can switch characters in and out at your home base. You aren't stuck with the tutorial party, you can always create new characters, and getting underleveled characters caught up is super fast. Like two or three fights will do it.

Thanks. Also this system where you cannot display nor see the map when too far away from a torch kills me ; I'm just so bad at mental mapping that I need to check map very often.
Is there a way to overcome this ; object, character, skill or something ?

[Vanguard]

Nothing other than activating torches as you find them. The amount of torch fuel you get is fairly generous. Turning it on and off comes with a big flat cost so if you're going to be using it again soon it's often better to just leave it on.

[guigui]

Alright thanks for the tip ; I was always ticking the torch on and off, bad as you say.

In the demo dungeon, I find this system to be an annoyance because torches are always 3 steps away from my position, so that not being able to see the map right where I am is just frustrating.

But maybe later, if torches are far away from each other, then this system can become a real part of the gameplay ? Waiting for a significant price drop to get the game I guess.

[Vanguard]

The demo is pretty generous and you should be able to copy your saves over too.

[cj iwakura]

Strangers of Sword City is pretty fun. It's probably the best Experience DRPG on the Switch.

Darkest Dungeon isn't a conventional DRPG, but it's similar in some respects and always worth playing. I'm still waiting on Amberland 2 to get a Switch port. I loved Amberland 1 on Switch. I liked Class of Heroes 2 but you may not. It's very Wizardry 1 in design.

Personally, I hated SoSC's death and revival system. It made the game frustrating, not fun.

I think their best game is probably Operation Abyss, it keeps it simple(and I love the modern setting).

[Vanguard]

I've been playing Stranger of Sword City revisited. So far I feel like it's a good but not great crawler, but maybe it'll improve as I go. The character building system is weird and more complicated than it needs to be. Rolling for stats on new characters is stupid as hell. When you make a new character you pick their age, if they're under 20 they have 3 life points and terrible stats, 20 to 39 has 2 life points and bad stats, 40 to 59 has 2 life points and bad stats, but supposedly their life points recover slower than younger characters. Finally, ages 60 to 99 gives you the best stats but 1 life point. Life points are much the same as SaGa LP, you lose one when you get KOed and losing all of them permakills the character. Since the main character can't be permakilled, they should always be age 60 to 99. The rest of the team should probably be 40 to 59. After a character loses an LP, you can take them back to base and either leave them at the hospital for a while to recover their LP, or you can pay for instant recovery. Also you have to randomly roll your stats and the age thing just influences it and sets a minimum. It can range from like 3 to 30, but even for a 99 year old rolling a 20 or higher can take a really long time. I just spent a few minutes going for reasonably good rolls because it's a boring waste of my time, and revisited is supposed to be easier anyway.

The class change system is kind of cool. You can change to another class and carry over half your stats, a selection of your skills, and half of your experience levels. In the original game you could only change any one character 5 times and had to plan carefully if you wanted a strong end result. Revisited allows unlimited reclassing though the cost goes up every time. I like the revisited approach better, complex RPG character building with no respecs is almost always a bad idea.

The combat is fine, it's standard wizardry/JRPG stuff. I like that the autobattle feature is extremely fast. The autotravel feature is also pretty fast and those two QoL features are much appreciated.

[Sima Tuna]

I've been playing Stranger of Sword City revisited. So far I feel like it's a good but not great crawler, but maybe it'll improve as I go. The character building system is weird and more complicated than it needs to be. Rolling for stats on new characters is stupid as hell. When you make a new character you pick their age, if they're under 20 they have 3 life points and terrible stats, 20 to 39 has 2 life points and bad stats, 40 to 59 has 2 life points and bad stats, but supposedly their life points recover slower than younger characters. Finally, ages 60 to 99 gives you the best stats but 1 life point. Life points are much the same as SaGa LP, you lose one when you get KOed and losing all of them permakills the character. Since the main character can't be permakilled, they should always be age 60 to 99. The rest of the team should probably be 40 to 59. After a character loses an LP, you can take them back to base and either leave them at the hospital for a while to recover their LP, or you can pay for instant recovery. Also you have to randomly roll your stats and the age thing just influences it and sets a minimum. It can range from like 3 to 30, but even for a 99 year old rolling a 20 or higher can take a really long time. I just spent a few minutes going for reasonably good rolls because it's a boring waste of my time, and revisited is supposed to be easier anyway.

The class change system is kind of cool. You can change to another class and carry over half your stats, a selection of your skills, and half of your experience levels. In the original game you could only change any one character 5 times and had to plan carefully if you wanted a strong end result. Revisited allows unlimited reclassing though the cost goes up every time. I like the revisited approach better, complex RPG character building with no respecs is almost always a bad idea.

The combat is fine, it's standard wizardry/JRPG stuff. I like that the autobattle feature is extremely fast. The autotravel feature is also pretty fast and those two QoL features are much appreciated.

The meta with character rolling is you want to have 2 hearts with the max stat roll potential you can get. Additionally, I believe every character has a small percentage chance during generation to receive a "mega roll" way above what they normally could get. So it's like a gatcha system almost. You want to hold out for one of those "mega rolls," and then the ability point range is going to be relative to your age limitations.... What I mean is that a young character might have a "mega roll" of 15, because that's still way above the average roll of 1-8 or whatever they would normally get. But then an older character could have a "mega roll" of 30 like you said.

Rather than going full min-max, I would just take the first ability score roll that is above your average roll range for your age.

You want a character with two hearts rather than one because dying with a single heart means permadeath and having 3 hearts is pointless because of this reason:

You want to create 2 of every character class. This is so you have a spare who can be in the party when your main dude is resting at the hospital to restore their hearts. If you alternate in this manner, you should largely be able to keep your party functional and working no matter how many times you almost-wipe. Whenever a character dies, you can just leave the dungeon, put that guy in the hospital to rest/restore his depleted life point, and recruit one of the stand-ins you have waiting.

I really like SoSC's class system. It is LIKE Wizardry but it imposes some limitations so you can't completely cheese the class changing system. It's less fixed and restrictive than Labyrinth of Yomi (which I believe did not allow cross-class ability saving.)

Experience Inc are almost known for their very fast autobattle/autotravel options. I'm a big fan. I also really like how loading screens are barely present in many Experience games.

[Vanguard]

Yeah, I figured pretty much all of that out. It's the sign of a bad character building system to have many options, but one right answer. For those not in the know, you gain 1 stat point per level up, so the difference in power between a character who rolls a mediocre 10 and someone who spends an hour getting a 30 is huge. The class change system, on the other hand, seems very solid. Tons of good options to choose from, and in the revisited update, you can't mess your build up in a way that can't be fixed. Beating a boss unlocked the ability to use certain shortcuts, hopefully there are many more exploration upgrades coming. I also like that the explorable areas are made of several maps put together, sometimes with much higher level enemies in different sections.

The game is way too easy though. If the original was hard then revisited seriously messed it up. Hopefully it picks up soon.

[Klatrymadon]

This Lunacid spinoff is being built in Sword of Moonlight, From's old make-yer-own-King's-Field software. Great to see it's still actively used - the last project I had heard about was Moratheia a few years ago, which also looked excellent.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3506 ... _the_Moon/

It'll be interesting to see if Lunacid fans who aren't familiar with KF still gel with this one, if only because Lunacid had hugely increased manoeuvrability and ease of action.

[Vanguard]

Finished the main story of Stranger of Sword City Revisited. Fairly middling overall. Random encounters from start to finish are almost universally going to be a joke that hit your characters for 1% to 5% of their health. The fast combat option is extremely fast, and I really appreciate that. Every turn based RPG should have a high speed option that fast. It remembers the commands your party used last turn and allows you to change specific ones without changing all of them, which is much appreciated, but it is not without its flaws. It is not able to use most multi action abilities, and there's an ability you can learn that gives you two actions per turn for free, obviously you want to use that every turn, but if you want it you have to re-enter each character's commands again. It also is not good at using multi turn, charged up abilities, it will remember that you chose to charge up for a super move, but will forget which move, and seems to favor weaker, lower level abilities. But since the random encounters are mostly absolute trash, you can often get by just autoattacking through them.

Undead type and spirit type enemies can only be hurt by specific weapons that specialize in harming them. They're not super rare but they are a minority of weapons. You can equip two weapon sets to a character and switch mid-combat, but it comes up enough and is inconvenient that I will usually just give everyone a weapon with anti-undead and anti-spirit unless I find a weapon with much, much higher stats to switch to. There are buff spells that empower your weapons against spirits and undead - separate spells of course - but it's only one character at a time, and it's way too much of a pain to cast on every party member in every random encounter.

The more challenging fights are not great either. Success is mostly just going through the optimal pattern over and over. If they have instant death you need to keep your anti instant death buff up, unless your team is immune. If they have strong physical attacks you'll want the physical damage -50% buff up the whole time. You'll want your mages spamming their stackable evade and accuracy buffs and debuffs. And so forth. Fights are generally either boring of frustrating, because the game punishes character death harshly, winning a boss fight with even one character KOed can be a big setback.

Each character has life points, not unlike SaGa LP. Usually they'll have one to three. They lose one if they get KOed, and when they run out they are permakilled. You will probably want to get at least 2 LP on everyone except your immortal main character. After they die, a character needs to be revived, and there are a few options. Pay huge hospital bill for immediate revival, wait for a long but free hospital rest revival, or blow a rare revive item. To recover LP they must also spend a lot of money at the hospital, or rest for a while, or use a rare item. If you take your main character to the hospital, they will force the expensive instant revival on you, but they will do it even if you can't afford it, so just spend all of your money on upgrading equipment before you take your MC to the hospital, and their revival is free. I made a backup cleric to use when someone is hospitalized, but she became useless pretty fast, and switching equipment was always a bother, and I ended up not using her after a while. Instead I just took the rest of my team item farming while the KOed characters recovered their LP. I think it would have gone a lot better if I set up something like two long range physical attackers for backup characters, because they'd always be better than nothing and are relatively safe from getting killed. Instead I filled up the rest of my backup party slots with the "freeman" class. Freemen stay at the guild and give you passive bonuses like earning gold or helping KOed characters recover faster. You want to build a bunch of them early so they can passively level up and make the revival process less of a waste of time.

The dungeons are alright. They're fairly short and easy to navigate. The game has a very nice fast explore function that turns gimmicks that would normally be really annoying, like invisible one way currents that push you around, into something you can enjoy engaging with, because even if you get warped back to the start, you just tell the game to get back to where you were and you're there in a few seconds. Another really great feature that more DRPGs could benefit from. I don't think too highly of Experience's game design sensibilities but they do have some good QoL ideas. Anyway some of the gimmicks are still annoying. One area is full of poison, and the damage is pretty high and you have to stop and heal constantly until you find all of the poison immunity equipment, which it seems you can find exactly enough of to equip a full party, though some of that equipment is in the poison zone itself. The dungeon that doesn't let you cast spells is a pain too, and both the poison and the antimagic areas come back last time in the final dungeon. Unfortunately most of the exploration abilities unlocked throughout the game are just different flavors of keys to get through re-themed locks, like hidden paths and burning doors.

The character building system is good, but the classes themselves are not very compelling. Like dancer isn't good for anything on its own, you change classes to dancer purely for the sake of getting some nice abilities to complement another class. It's a class that makes your suck for a while for the sake of being better latter on. They seem to have not wanted your abilities to ever be outright better than a standard attack, so you get stuff like an aoe attack that does 70% of a normal attack's damage, or an attack that needs to charge up for a turn but does 5x the damage of a normal attack. Not too exciting. You do get to mix and match abilities from different jobs and that's always fun. You lose half of your experience levels when changing classes it basically just makes the character building process less rewarding for no reason. It isn't totally crippling, you keep a lot of what you had, but what's the point? FFV doesn't really penalize you for switching classes and everyone loves that system. Stranger of Sword City overall feels unwilling to stray far at all away from the original Wizardry's formula and it is a bit too basic and shallow for me.


Monochrome Echoes: White, the successor to Quester, is in early access by the way. Supposedly its map is 6x the size of Quester or Quester Osaka. No English language support in the early access version, but it will be in the full release, which supposedly will be in like a week or two.

[Randorama]

Some of you might be interested in this squib I wrote about Data East's Dark Seal, which is an action/R2RKMF game ("kill people to the right, mostly") with a few ARPG mechanics ("get magic power-ups") and a dash of shmup ideas ("shoot projectile weapons"). The thread includes squibs about Capcom's Black Tiger and Sega/Westone's Wonder Boy in Monster Land. These are not really Dungeon crawlers in the standard sense of the world, but they have a few A(rcade)RPG mechanics and are relatively good games for their time. Hopefully, some may see the merits in me linking to these threads.

[qmish]

Great to see it's still actively used - the last project I had heard about was Moratheia a few years ago, which also looked excellent.

There was some cool stuff between these two

Check this page, which is perhaps the most comprehensive resource about SoM-based games, be sure to click on each title for more info/links.

https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/games/

[Klatrymadon]

Cheers! Yeah, I downloaded everything on there last week - hoping to get into Trismegistus shortly. Unfortunately as the SOM engine is pretty old it only acknowledges the first 8 buttons it sees on your controller, so I can't set up proper PS1 KF controls on it. Maybe I should try using Steam inputs...

[qmish]

Unfortunately as the SOM engine is pretty old it only acknowledges the first 8 buttons it sees on your controller, so I can't set up proper PS1 KF controls on it. Maybe I should try using Steam inputs...

It treats controllers as DInput devices instead of XInput.

Perhaps try this tool: https://old.reddit.com/r/KingsField/com ... r_release/

[Randorama]

Some of you might also be interested in this squib about Konami's Devil World/Dark Adventure, a game more or less pilfering on Atari's Gauntlet please paste links around if you wish to do so.

[Vanguard]

A demo of Labyrinth of Touhou 3 is out on steam. Seems like they're expanding even further on the RPG mechanics than they did in 2. Now your characters start with few or no abilities and you pick them up as you go. I largely liked 1's approach the best, where characters are more or less complete, functional units right out the gate and your numbers just get bigger as you go. But the most important thing is that the combat system seems to be intact and as good as ever. I like the 3's new way of displaying turn order better than 1 and 2's ATB meters. There is waayy too much talking though. Even for a JRPG, let alone a DRPG, the dialogue to gameplay ratio should not be this high. Hopefully it settles down soon, worst case scenario you can always hold A to skip through pretty fast.

[Randorama]

Some of you might be interested in my squib on Cadash. Do not forget to visit this game's hopelessly beautiful world when you can - it is proven that playing this game at least once per month has astounding positive effects on health

[Imhotep]

Lunacid is a '23 hommage to King's Field and Shadow Tower by KIRA LLC.

It's mostly successful in what it sets out to do and comes highly recommended if you're into those games.