2241: The Best Thing About Dungeon Crawlers is Dungeon Design

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If I say the word “dungeon” to you — assuming I’m talking about games; leave any thoughts of leather-clad masochists chained to the ceiling beams while straddling a wooden horse for the moment — what springs to mind?

The term “dungeon” can mean lots of different things, even within the RPG genre.

In traditional top-down RPGs such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, the term “dungeon” is used to distinguish specific locations from the overworld map, and to further distinguish those locations as being dangerous rather than safe havens where you can buy things and heal up. Usually they’re semi-linear in nature, with a clear start and end point, usually with a boss monster right at the end, followed by a story event and, if the designers are feeling nice, a teleport back to the surface.

In modern massively multiplayer RPGs, meanwhile, the term “dungeon” is used to describe instanced content that is completely separate from the game’s main open world, and which is designed to be played through by a specific number of players. They are usually completely linear in nature, given the unpredictability of humans when brought together in a group and the impracticality of exploration when combat requires everyone to be present in the same place, and usually make their encounters the focal point of the experience, with boss encounters challenging players to understand and react appropriately to various mechanics.

In action-adventure RPGs such as the Legend of Zelda series and its imitators, the term “dungeon” is used in a similar way to in traditional top-down RPGs: it’s a dangerous location separate from the main overworld. In Zelda-likes, though, dungeons tend to be less linear — or at least have the appearance of being so — and much more puzzle-based, requiring exploration and creative use of items to progress instead of just pure combat skills.

In dungeon crawlers, meanwhile, dungeons are incredibly complicated beasts that present as much of a challenge — if not more so — than the often frequent combat in the games. And, given that dungeoneering is the focal point of these titles, that’s a very good thing indeed; while linear dungeons with predictable encounters may work well for more narrative-heavy experiences, dungeon crawlers tend to be heavy on the mechanics and restrict narrative for the most part to being a reward for progressing.

Let’s take Dungeon Travelers 2, which I’m currently playing, as an example. Here’s a screenshot showing the map of just one of the floors of the Mostar Catacombs, a mid-game dungeon that seems to give a fair few people online a bit of grief. (Credit to xChaosLokix on GameFAQs for the pic.)

Dungeon Travelers 2

Mostar in particular seems to confuse people quite a bit because it is about as far from linear progression as you can get. You don’t clear the first floor and then go on to the second one; navigating Mostar is a complicated affair that constantly sends you back and forth between its two floors using ladders, pit traps and teleporters. On top of that, you also have to deal with Dark Zones, where the visibility is lower and you can’t look at your map, along with traps, hidden doors, one-way passageways and all manner of other goodies.

Likewise, the other dungeon crawler that I’ve previously invested time into, Demon Gaze, had some marvelously fiendish mazes to navigate, with hazards ranging from water currents that drag you uncontrollably from one place to another — very frustrating when you can see that where you want to be is just over there — to floor tiles that deal damage or do unpleasant things to your party, but which are the only way through a particular passageway.

I absolutely love this. One of my favourite things to do in this type of game is to explore, and dungeon crawlers reward thoroughness with a wonderful feeling of satisfaction: the knowledge that not only have you bested the monsters in the dungeon, but you’ve bested the dungeon itself. This isn’t an exaggeration, either; in both Demon Gaze and Dungeon Travelers 2 — and I don’t doubt this happens in other dungeon crawlers too, though my knowledge on the subject is more limited than I’d like it to be — there are times when you’ll find your progress stymied not by the power level of the enemies you face in battle, but by the very design of the dungeon confounding your sense of direction or hiding its secrets behind illusionary walls or on the other side of deadly traps.

You just don’t get this level of dungeon design in other types of RPG, and that’s fine — if the Final Fantasy series plopped you into a dungeon that took 6 hours to navigate in between every major plot point, I doubt people would have the patience to see their stories through to their conclusions — but it gives dungeon crawlers a very distinct identity, even within the RPG genre. And I really like that a whole lot.

While many RPGs are worth playing for the story and characterisation — areas in which neither Dungeon Travelers 2 nor Demon Gaze slouch, it has to be said — the real highlight of dungeon crawlers is in exploring these weird and wonderful mazes that someone came up with, and feeling either the frustration and terror of becoming completely lost, or the jubilant sense of triumph that comes with finally locating the stairs up to the next floor, or unlocking that door that has been taunting you ever since you came into the area for the first time.

I’m 36 hours into Dungeon Travelers 2 at the moment and I get the impression I still have a very long way to go. I’m looking forward to the continued journey if what I’ve experienced so far is any indication of the bare minimum I can expect to be challenged with later in the game!

2005: Dan’s List of Vita RPGs

This is one of those posts I write specifically to respond to something someone asked me recently where Twitter or chat messages aren’t a particularly ideal solution to give an answer. In most cases, though, people other than the original person who asked can also get something out of my response, so I post it here.

In this case, my good friend Dan Lipscombe enquired as to whether I could give him any Vita RPG recommendations.

Well, of course I can!

Here goes, then. Some Vita RPGs that are either well-regarded or that I have personally enjoyed. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means!

Persona 4 Golden

This is the one everyone recommends, and with good reason; it’s great. Even if you played the original Persona 4 on PlayStation 2, Golden is worth playing due to its amount of additional content and tweaked gameplay.

If you’re unfamiliar with Persona 4, it’s a combination of murder mystery, school life simulator, dungeon crawler and Pokemon. Taking on the role of a transfer student to a school out in the sticks of Japan, you start investigating a spate of strange murders that sees people disappearing then showing up a few days later hung upside down from television aerials. It’s up to you and your school friends to discover the truth behind what is going on, which is far stranger than you might expect.

Persona 4 Golden is an excellent game that has transcended its originally niche appeal to become a truly mainstream title that most people have heard of by now. It’s well worth playing through to completion — though be warned, it is long. Like, 80+ hours long, even if you don’t do much of the optional side content. It’s a journey well worth taking, though, and the lengthy slog makes the characters’ personal journeys all that more meaningful.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth

There are three Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth games on Vita. There’s no real requirement to play them in order, since they’re self-contained stories that don’t really have anything to do with each other, but playing them in order will give you a better understanding of the characters — plus an appreciation for how the series has continually grown, developed and changed for the better over time.

Neptunia’s concept is based on anthropomorphised game consoles going about their business in the land of Gamindustri. The three games’ stories veer off in different directions, but there are usually strong anti-piracy messages involved, along with commentary on not forgetting the past, the futility of fanboyism and general satire of both games industry and anime culture.

The Neptunia games are occasionally clunky, sometimes balanced questionably and not the most technically impressive games you will ever see — but my God, are they ever charming and delightful, not to mention rare examples of comedy and satire in games actually working well.

Hyperdevotion Noire

A spinoff of the main Neptunia series, Hyperdevotion Noire focuses on PlayStation personification Noire and gives the tsundere princess her own personal story. Unlike the regular Neptunia series, Noire is a strategy RPG a la Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics. A wide cast of characters, each of whom personify a well-known Japanese game series (such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Resident Evil) all have unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and “gimmicks” in each stage force you to think a lot more strategically than “charge at the enemy and cut them down in order”.

I’m not normally very good at strategy RPGs, but Noire is accessible, fun and enjoyable — plus it continues the series tradition of good humour, charm and satire, and Noire is absolutely a strong enough character to carry her own game.

Demon Gaze

If you liked old-school dungeon-crawlers on PC — I’m talking stuff like Wizardry, Lands of Lore and Might & Magic — then you might want to give Demon Gaze a shot. Creating your own custom party of adventurers, you venture forth into an array of dungeons to battle terrible demons, capture them and make use of their power.

In between your adventures, there’s a delightful little soap opera going on in the inn that you and your party call your home, with a cast of colourful characters getting up to all manner of mischief. It’s a lovely blend of the narrative-centric approach that more conventional Japanese RPGs tend to take, and the mechanics-centric, challenge-heavy nature of first-person “gridder” dungeon crawlers. It also has absolutely gorgeous artwork, and an unconventional but enormously catchy soundtrack that makes use of Vocaloid voice synthesisers.

Operation Abyss

I haven’t actually played this one yet, but it’s on my shelf; given that it’s from the same folks who made Demon Gaze, though, it’s a fair bet that it will be similarly good, and the people I know who have played it have enjoyed it a whole lot.

Trails in the Sky

Technically a PSP game, this is downloadable and playable on Vita, and well worth your time. Following the adventures of Estelle and her adoptive brother Joshua as they attempt to become full-fledged “Bracers” — essentially state-supported mercenaries — Trails in the Sky is a sprawling adventure with a beautifully crafted world, some wonderful writing and a fun battle system.

The game blends the sidequest-centric nature of Western RPGs with the more linear storytelling typically found in Japanese RPGs to great effect. The sidequests each have their own little stories and characters to explore, and really help the world to feel truly alive.

Criminal Girls

This one won’t be for everyone due to its relatively explicit sexuality, particularly exploration of sadomasochistic themes. If you can deal with that sort of content, though — along with the fact it’s very obviously a PSP port — Criminal Girls tells a fascinating tale of personal redemption for a colourful cast of characters as they come to terms with traumatic experiences from their past and attempt to move beyond them.

Criminal Girls is noteworthy for its exploration of “trust” through both its narrative and its mechanics — I wrote in more detail on this topic here.

Akiba’s Trip

Not an RPG in the typical sense, Akiba’s Trip is most akin to Sega’s Yakuza series in that it provides an open world that covers a relatively small geographical area — in this case, Tokyo’s Akihabara district — and a ton of things to do, plus a nigh-unparalleled sense of atmosphere thanks to its detailed world.

Thrown into the underworld by your discovery of — and recruitment into — the ranks of the “Synthisters” (essentially synthetic vampires), it’s your job to find out where this scourge has come from and put a stop to it — while simultaneously keeping your little sister happy, taking photos for tourists and attempting to end up in the arms of one of the game’s lovely leading ladies.

Akiba’s Trip has fun brawler-style combat with a huge selection of upgradeable weapons ranging from baseball bats to bus stop signs and computer monitors. Combat involves smacking Synthisters around a bit until they’re in a position where you can grab their clothes and rip them off them, which exposes them to sunlight and, in true vampire tradition, causes them to combust.

Steins;Gate

This isn’t an RPG at all, but if you own a Vita (or PS3… or PC) and haven’t read this extraordinary visual novel, you need to right now. Blending real-world urban myths (such as the legend of John Titor and questions of what CERN are really up to with that big underground particle accelerator) with a creative yet plausible interpretation of how time travel and parallel worlds might work, Steins;Gate follow the adventures of an impressively unreliable narrator as he tries his best to stop something horrible happening to someone he cares about.

Here’s a full review of it.

There are tons more great RPGs and visual novels available on Vita, but I’ve rambled on for over 1,200 words now, so that should be enough to get you started. Hope you enjoy at least some of these!

1801: Pondering Some More Games of the Year

So I mentioned yesterday that this last year has been a pretty bumper crop for great games, and I gave a few examples of some titles that I’ve particularly enjoyed, primarily in the last couple of months or so. I thought I’d continue today with some thoughts on some other games from throughout the year that have stuck in my mind for one reason or another, and which consequently I feel are probably worth your time.

Velocity 2X

The original Velocity, a PlayStation Minis title, put Brighton-based developer FuturLab well and truly on my radar. Blending an Amiga-style aesthetic with some modern, interesting gameplay, Velocity was something I hadn’t really come across before: a puzzle-shmup. It combined elements of vertically-scrolling shoot ’em ups with the mind-frying dimensional manipulation of games like Portal to create something enormously enjoyable, very distinctive and hugely addictive. I liked it so much I played through the whole thing again when they rereleased it with enhanced visuals on Vita under the name Velocity Ultra.

So it’s fair to say that I was very much intrigued by the possibility of a sequel, particularly after I had the opportunity to get my hands on an early version at the Eurogamer Expo a while back, and test-drive the new side-scrolling platform sections. When the full game finally came out, I was delighted to discover that it very much lived up to its potential — and that even more so than its predecessor, it was a game that continually “evolved” the further through it you went, with each new level gradually introducing new mechanics to the player until the game you’re playing in the latter stages is almost unrecognisable from how it was at the beginning.

It has a lovely aesthetic, some excellent music and some supremely tight controls — utterly necessary for a game so focused on speedrunning as this. It’s a great addition to the PlayStation Vita’s library of more “quick-hit” games that are good for pick-up-and-play fun when you have a few minutes to spare — seriously, fuck 95% of mobile phone games nowadays — and it’s a supreme challenge for even the most skilled gamers out there.

Assault Android Cactus

I’m not sure this counts, given that it feels like it’s been in development forever and is still in Early Access, but I’ve certainly played it a whole bunch this year and really enjoyed it. Moreover, it’s been wonderful to see how the game has continued to grow and change as its development continues — not to mention the fact that its small development team are lovely people who are a pleasure to talk to, also.

Assault Android Cactus, even in its unfinished state, is an extremely solid take on the twin-stick shooter genre. Taking inspiration from Japanese bullet-hell shooters as much as more Western shmups such as Geometry Wars, Assault Android Cactus features an array of unique characters, each of whom have their own distinctive ways of attacking and fending off enemies. Some are conventional enough, others are… less so. For some players, it’ll be a matter of pride to master the more offbeat characters like Aubergine; for others, they’ll want to chase high scores with the more “traditional” characters like the eponymous heroine Cactus.

Assault Android Cactus benefits from a clear and easily understood scoring system — something which many of its Japanese influences cannot boast! — and there’s a strong emphasis on chasing the elusive “S+” rank for each level by attempting to chain all your kills together into a single combo while avoiding death. This is easier said than done on some levels — particularly the challenging boss encounters, which will give even the most seasoned veterans of the 8- and 16-bit era a run for their money.

I’m really looking forward to the finished version of this great game… and I’m especially looking forward to being able to take it on the go with me thanks to the upcoming Vita version!

Demon Gaze

I’m not going to pretend Demon Gaze is the best RPG I’ve ever played, but I have to give it an enormous amount of credit for getting me into a subgenre of RPGs that I’ve never really “clicked” with: the grid-based dungeon-crawler, or “gridder” to some.

Demon Gaze was enjoyable and unusual. Its Vocaloid-heavy soundtrack gave it a very distinctive audio-visual aesthetic, while its environments were varied and a lot of fun to explore. The Demon’s Souls-style online features, whereby other players could leave messages on the floor for you to discover, were a lot of fun and occasionally helpful, even amid all the distinctly… inappropriate messages that were also left adorning the dungeon floor at times. The level design was wonderful, making use of simple but effective mechanics like one-way doors, forced movement panels, floors that damaged you and other staples of the genre to create some challenging levels that taxed your brain. And the combat, although simplistic, was enjoyable and nicely streamlined.

It had a surprisingly enjoyable story, too. My past experience with dungeon-crawlers is that they’ve tended to skimp a bit on the narrative front, which is one of the things I tended to find most offputting — I’m a narrative junkie, after all. Demon Gaze, however, managed to strike a good balance between the mechanics-heavy dungeon crawling and the somewhat fantasy soap opera-esque happenings that went on back at the inn any time you accomplished something significant. The memorable cast of characters with whom you’d interact between forays into the dungeons more than made up for your custom-created party members’ relative lack of personality, though pleasingly, the game at least made an effort to incorporate said party members into “background narration” of numerous scenes just so they didn’t feel completely irrelevant to the narrative as a whole.

It was a challenging game, too, though arguably a little inconsistent with its difficulty level. It starts incredibly tough, gets much, much easier as you level — so much so that I had to whack up the difficulty level to its highest to have any sort of challenge whatsoever — and then gets monstrously difficult again right at the end, particularly if you choose to pursue the optional post-game extra ending, which you really should if you want to say you’ve had the full experience.

Demon Gaze was definitely one of my biggest surprises this year, and it makes me much more inclined to seek out other dungeon-crawlers in the future — something I wouldn’t have thought to do prior to giving it a shot.

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More to come in the next few days.

1563: Sullen and Ill-Tempered

I’ll level with you, dear reader, I’m not entirely sure what to write today. The Black Dog has been creeping in somewhat over the course of the day, leaving me somewhat morose and not particularly in the mood for a great deal of communication. This feeling sucks, but I am taking some small solace from the fact that there are a few irons in the fire right now. Whether or not any of them will come to anything remains to be seen, but at least they’re there.

In the meantime, it’s largely been business as usual. I rediscovered the fun of Japanese doujin title Croixleur earlier through its new Sigma edition and would encourage anyone who enjoys a bit of hack-and-slash goodness to check it out. Then I spent some time moving towards cleaning up the rest of The Witch and the Hundred Knight. I’m torn on which ending to try for, since both the Normal and True endings are very straightforward to get, while the “Bad” ending actually takes significantly more effort to attain.

This isn’t the first time a Japanese game has locked its worst ending behind a particularly complicated series of hoops to jump through, and it probably won’t be the last. The last time I encountered such a practice was with Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, where the “Conquest” ending — an incredibly dark affair that, despite featuring a huge tonal shift from the rest of the game managed to fit in quite well with the overall narrative — required a huge amount of faffing around to accomplish. And your reward? Feeling awful at what you had done to the characters. I am, frankly, glad I did it first, and it’s for this reason I’m contemplating getting The Witch and the Hundred Knight’s “bad” ending out of the way first.

Meanwhile, I continue to be enraptured by Demon Gaze. I adore the characters whom you get to hang out with while back at the inn between expeditions into the game’s sprawling dungeons, but I was surprised to discover that it’s the dungeon-crawling aspect I’ve been having the most fun with. Demon Gaze’s dungeons are relatively simple in terms of tech, being designed on a flat 2D grid, but their design is superb. The current dungeon I’m running through — Endless Road, a dungeon towards the end of the game — is a multi-floor monstrosity that demands you pay careful attention to the relationship between the different levels and areas, and search carefully for secret doors.

Secret doors! When was the last time you searched for a secret door in a video game? Demon Gaze is full of them. Granted, much of the old-school frustration of hunting for secret doors is mitigated by two things — the demon Comet, who, if equipped, marks them with a big flashing mark, and the fact that players tend to leave helpful Gazer Memos in front of them — but it’s still enjoyable to kick down a wall and discover a door behind it.

At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve been enjoying the aforementioned Gazer Memo feature a great deal, too. Somewhat similar to the messaging system in Dark Souls (in that you can’t type freely but instead pick from predefined words and phrases) but with a few more suggestive terms included along the way, the Gazer Memo system allows you to scrawl messages on the dungeon floor which are subsequently uploaded to the Internet and downloaded into the game of anyone else who happens to be playing. During the time I was reviewing the game, the messages were fairly sparse and mostly helpful; now, they’re still fairly helpful, but there’s been a clear explosion in players: the sheer number of messages making rather suggestive implications about spears and butts is testament to that, I feel.

It’s fun to leave these messages, too. At several points during the game, after overcoming a particularly challenging maze of one-way doors, I found myself deliberately going back and leaving memos to future adventurers helping them out. (I also left them a few sarcastic “Nope”s if they went the wrong way.) I also couldn’t resist a “Caution! Gigantic Butt Ahead” at the entrance to one particular dungeon — a message that I now see every time I happen to wander back to that area.

But anyway. I’m rambling on about nothing much in particular and it’s getting late. As such, I’m going to leave that there. Here’s hoping that tomorrow is a more positive day.

1553: Fight On: A Music Post

I wanted an excuse to share this excellent piece of battle music from Demon Gaze, which I’m still playing through for review, so I figured, what the hey, why not just do a battle music post?

All right. Without further ado, first up, and in no particular order after that:

Demon Gaze (PS Vita) – Blue Eyes Hunter

This track from the dungeon crawler is the battle theme that plays when you fight against the enemies that pop out when you toss a gem into one of the many Demon Circles that adorn each of the game’s levels. This is a core game mechanic that allows you to acquire new equipment without having to pay for it; you can subsequently either equip it if it’s better than what you’ve got, break it down for Ether to use in upgrading existing equipment, or sell it for profit.

Demon Gaze’s soundtrack is consistently excellent and unusual. The fact there’s a heavy Vocaloid component to most of the tracks gives them a very distinctive feel, and this track is a good example. There’s a pretty wide selection of music throughout the game, and partway through your adventure the default battle theme changes — something that I always like to hear happen in an RPG, as it’s an obvious signal that you’ve made significant progress.

Final Fantasy XIV (PC, PS3, PS4) – Fallen Angel

This track from one of the toughest battles in Final Fantasy XIV’s main story (but one of the more straightforward battles from the endgame) is one of the best pieces of music in the whole game. It accompanies the battle against Garuda, one of the gigantic Primals who are threatening the land of Eorzea after being summoned by the beastmen tribes who worship them.

Garuda, or the Lady of the Vortex as she’s also known, is a nasty piece of work, and her fight really gives a strong feeling of clinging on for dear life against powerful winds lashing against your face. The music’s frantic energy helps complement that, too, making this an incredibly exciting confrontation.

Menace (Atari ST, Amiga) – Boss Fight Theme

This isn’t an RPG battle theme; instead it’s a boss battle theme from the Psygnosis side-scrolling shooter Menace — a surprisingly competent game that stood up reasonably well to its console equivalents of the same period.

This track by David Whittaker may be repetitive and simple, but it helped get the idea across that battling bosses was serious business. I vividly recall finding it almost impossible to beat the first boss on Menace when I was a kid. I wonder how difficult I’d find it now?

Time and Eternity (PS3) – Towa Battle Theme

Time and Eternity was critically panned when it was released by pretty much everyone except me — I rather liked it, and looking back on last year it’s actually one of the games I feel like I enjoyed most even though I will freely admit it was not, by any means, the best game I’ve ever played.

Two big contributing factors to my enjoyment of the game were its beautiful HD anime art style — the game used hand-drawn anime cels for sprites rather than the more common polygons seen in many of today’s games — and Yuzo Koshiro’s astonishing soundtrack. Koshiro, if you’re unfamiliar, is the guy behind one of the finest soundtracks of the 16-bit era, the Streets of Rage 2 score. This particular track is one of the normal battle themes for the game — there are two; one for each of the two main characters, Toki and Towa. This is Towa’s.

Baldur’s Gate (PC) – Attacked by Assassins

I’m generally not so much of a fan of Western-style RPG soundtracks because they tend to be more “cinematic” in nature; in other words, in contrast to the catchy, singable tunes of Eastern games, Western games tend to have music more as something going on in the background. This is fine, of course — it’s worked for a lot of movies and TV shows over the years — but I’ve never been a huge fan because it makes the soundtracks less memorable overall for me.

There are exceptions, though, and this track by Michael Hoenig for the original Baldur’s Gate is one of them. One of the first battle themes you hear in the game, this track just has a wonderfully aggressive, pounding energy to it that makes you want to keep on fighting. (Of course, at the time you first hear this track, all your characters are level 1 and consequently are very likely to get killed by a small rat breathing anywhere near them, but that shouldn’t stop you from feeling like a hero while you still have a few HP.)

TFX (PC) – Defence Suppression

Oh man, I’ve been wanting to hear this track again for years now, and good old YouTube delivered the goods. YAY. Ahem. Anyway.

This is from the distinctly “arcadey” (for want of a better word) flight sim TFX from 1993, a spectacular-for-the-time game that I always really wanted to play 1) to hear this music (which was included as Redbook CD audio, so you could listen to it on a CD player) during gameplay and 2) to switch between the internal and external views a few times just to see the G-LOC-style “zoom” animation where the camera zipped back and forth dynamically rather than just switching like other boring flight sims.

Unfortunately, I could never get the copy we owned running, and thus to this day I’ve still never played TFX. I somehow doubt it will stand up quite so well today, but this is still a cool (if distinctly ’90s cheesy) piece of music.

Ar Tonelico Qoga (PS3) – EXEC_COSMOFLIPS

Ar Tonelico Qoga was not the strongest installment in the Ar Tonelico series — that honour belongs to Ar Tonelico 2 — but it has one of the finest soundtracks. In fact, with the amazing music in all three Ar Tonelico games, it’s nigh-impossible to pick one favourite soundtrack.

It is less difficult, however, to pick a favourite individual song; this one, from Ar Tonelico Qoga, is simply wonderful. Just listening to it will hopefully give you an idea of its majesty to a certain extent, but taken in context of what is going on in the story at this point, it’s just magnificent.

Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1) – Trisection

Final Fantasy Tactics had a few good tunes, but on the whole I thought it was a relatively weak soundtrack, especially when compared to the rest of the Final Fantasy series which, at this point, was still dominated almost exclusively by Nobuo Uematsu. (Tactics, meanwhile, was composed by Masaharu Iwata and Hitoshi Sakimoto.)

This track, though, is one that I’ll always remember. Accompanying the very first battle in the game, it was the absolute perfect way to stir up the emotions and encourage you to do your best — which is why I was disappointed it wasn’t used more often over the course of the rest of the game. I always wanted major battles to be accompanied by this tune, and every time the “story” music faded out in preparation for the battle to begin, I found myself hoping and hoping that I’d hear those distinctive opening rising passages again.

Trauma Team (Wii) – Be the One

The Trauma Center series has consistently fantastic music throughout, thanks largely to the involvement of Persona composer Shoji Meguro for part of the run, but this track here is a particular highlight that I believe I’ve drawn attention to on this blog before.

This track is from the culmination of the entire game’s storyline; the final operation to stamp out the disease that has been running rampant throughout the population once and for all. (I won’t spoil any further circumstances, as additional narrative aspects make this an incredibly nerve-wracking scene overall.) It’s a track that says “don’t fuck this up; everything is depending on this”, and the track that comes immediately after it was enough to get me sitting forward in my seat pretty much holding my breath as I attempting to bring the game to its conclusion. Amazing stuff.

Well, at nearly 1,500 words that’s probably enough for a “throwaway” post on battle themes from video games. If you have any favourites of your own, feel free to share in the comments. Include a YouTube link if there is one!

1551: Late-Night Dungeon

I’ve been dipping in and out of Demon Gaze since I wrote about it a few days ago, and while it has a few issues here and there — the discussion of which I’ll save until my review on USgamer, coming next week — I’ve been really rather impressed with this game.

In fact, that’s a bit of an understatement; on more than one occasion now the game has kept me up until well past 3 in the morning after I thought I’d just flip the Vita on for a “quick” game in bed before I went to sleep. (Granted, the last occasion this happened — last night — I had had far too much caffeine throughout the course of the day and was consequently finding it very difficult to sleep, but I could have done anything else with that time, and I chose to spend it lying in bed playing Demon Gaze.)

I’ve been trying to pin down what’s so enjoyable about it and it’s honestly quite difficult. It’s not that there’s no obvious good features about it; it’s that they blend together somewhat, and different aspects of the game appeal in different ways according to the conditions under which you’re playing.

Playing late at night, as I was, I was particularly enjoying the dungeon-crawling aspect of it. It’s not quite as hardcore as the 3DS series it’s taking pot-shots at, Etrian Odyssey in that you don’t have to map the damn thing by hand, but it’s still a game that, from the very outset, doesn’t hold you by the hand and expects you not only to work things out for yourself but also to experiment with the mechanics just to see what happens.

The core game structure is based around capturing demons. In order to do this, you must explore the dungeon that is the demon’s domain and capture all of the “circles” throughout by tossing a gem into them and then fighting the slobbering monsters that come out. Win, and you’ll capture the circle as well as receive an item according to the gem you tossed. Lose, and, well, you’re dead and better hope you had a recent save.

For the most part, this isn’t an issue. The monsters that come out of the cirlces are usually the same monsters you get in the rest of the dungeon, though sometimes in considerably larger numbers. As such, if your party is well-equipped to batter its way through the monsters in the dungeon, they can probably deal with the groups that come out of the circles.

Until the demon master of the dungeon shows their face unexpectedly, that is. You’re set up to believe they won’t turn up until you’ve captured all the circles and found the boss fight location, but in actuality what happens is some time around when you capture about half of the circles in the dungeon, the next one you try for will summon the demon. And it’s entirely possible they will smash your face in and then wear your buttocks as a hat, particularly in the first dungeon where your characters likely still aren’t all that powerful or well-geared.

The first time this happened, I thought I’d done something horribly wrong. Surely the game balance couldn’t be that broken? I experimented a bit; did the demon only come out of one circle, or all of them? (All of them.) Was it every time? (No, but seemingly most of the time.) Did using special abilities help? (A little.) Did levelling up help? (A lot.) Did better equipment help? (Also a lot.) By the time I’d reached my own conclusions — I should have just run away the first time I encountered Mars, then come back better-equipped and better-trained a little later, and probably with a healer in tow — it felt enormously satisfying to take the demon down and effectively clear the dungeon.

There are more subtle things, too. Occasionally you’ll find “Loot Maps” as random treasures in battle, for example, and these will give an area name, an X and Y map reference and the name of the “power” you need to reveal the hidden treasure at that location. Trouble is, the area name never matches the actual area names — “Garden of Thorns” becomes “The Vine-y Land” — so you have to use a bit of your own brainpower and deduction to figure out what it’s referring to. (Pro-tip: if the grid reference the map is pointing to appears to be a solid wall miles away from anything, you’re probably looking at the wrong area.) You also have to figure out which of the demons the “power” names refer to — rather than saying “you need Comet, Mars or Chronos” it’ll say something like “requires Dragon power” or the like. Again, there’s a wonderful feeling of smug satisfaction when you successfully decipher a map and uncover the treasure hidden in the location — particularly when the treasure in question is something that you’ve been searching for for hours for a quest.

Demon Gaze doesn’t give up its secrets easily, then, but for me, this is proving to be one of the best things about it as it makes your victories feel like genuine accomplishments. I’m looking forward to working my way through the rest of the game not only to see how the interesting story proceeds, but also for more sweet old-school grid-based exploration and treasure-hunting.

It’s bringing back fond memories of old titles like Lands of Lore, it of the Patrick Stewart-voiced intro fame, and will be a solid investment for any Vita-toting players who have a penchant for traditional dungeon-crawling. Watch out for it — and my full review — this week.

1546: Gaze This Way

Been playing an unusual Vita game for review recently. Normally I wouldn’t blog about games that I’m reviewing, but I already wrote a “first impressions” piece about the game over on USgamer a while back, so, well, these are some second impressions, I guess.

The game in question is Demon Gaze from Kadokawa Games, brought to the West by the ever-reliable NIS America. I didn’t know a lot about this game prior to starting to play it save for the fact that it had upset a few people — as many Japanese games tend to — by featuring a selection of pretty anime-style girls with artwork that is occasionally on the suggestive side.

What I wasn’t expecting from it was an old-school dungeon-crawler of the Wizardry mould, right down to creating your own party bit by bit as you can afford to, We’re talking manually choosing race, class and appearance for your characters, then heading out into a grid-based dungeon to fight lots of monsters, solve some rudimentary puzzles and ultimately complete some quests.

What I also wasn’t expecting was a rock-hard level of difficulty almost from the outset. Unlike in some other Japanese role-playing games, a level 1 character in Demon Gaze really is utter shit. Their stats are poor, their HP is low and it’s very rare for them to have any useful abilities from their class. This makes life interesting when you can finally afford to recruit an additional party member and they have to start from this position of non-power while the rest of your adventuring brigade are happily chopping the heads off monsters left, right and centre. You have to take care of the newbie until they find their feet a bit, and then only let them step into the front lines when you’re absolutely sure they can handle it.

Because this isn’t a game that is afraid to kill you and dump you back at the title screen without any ceremony. Step into a fight you can’t win and fail to get away quickly enough and there’s no “retry” option, no fade-to-black-then-wake-up-back-at-the-inn, it’s just Game Over. Reload. I hope you remembered to save every time you get back from an adventure because the game sure as hell isn’t going to auto-save for you.

The other thing that is a bit of a culture shock is that the game doesn’t hold your hand with regard to quests at all. “Go find this dude,” the game will say. “Where are they?” you’ll ponder. “Oh, you know,” replies the game. “Out there. Somewhere. Come back when you find him.” Cue plenty of enjoyable exploration and risk-taking as you search every nook and cranny to complete your objectives. Can the party survive trudging through that poisonous swamp? Only one way to find ou– oh, they’re all dead.

In some senses, this old-school difficulty and unforgiving nature is going to put a lot of people off. But that’s fine; titles like Dark Souls have proven there’s a market for unforgiving games in which you have to take a bit more care than in many other modern titles, and Demon Gaze is seemingly designed along these lines. (That’s not the only similarity, either; both Demon Gaze and the Souls series allow you to leave messages for other players that are then shared on the network, though the former lacks the latter’s ability for true multiplayer.)

I’m a relatively short way into the game so far, but I’m really enjoying it. It’s the sort of thing that feels like it could be a “long-term project” of a game; it’s fairly light on the story side of things (though it does have some seriously adorable characters who often greet you and have their own silly little side-plots when you get back from an adventure) and surprisingly friendly to quick play sessions, making it an ideal handheld game for a bit of grinding on the bus or over lunch.

Full review coming towards the end of the month; for now, suffice to say, I like it a lot.