Dungeon And Darkness is a JRPG, with a changed format for less exploration of an open map.
STORY:
You arrive in a city. It expanded recently after a "Deep Hole" was created that is filled with magic and monsters. Your want to explore it, like many other explorers in the area.
GAMEPLAY:
First, let's talk about the map. Unlike other JRPGs with an overhead view, you are simply given a picture. Then you click on a descriptive box at the right to move to another location. You talk to people the same way. For instance, you want to regain your health at the inn. You click on "Central Street." Then you click on "[Inn] Crane." Then click "Recover." There are six locations to visit in the city, and multiple characters to talk to (mostly ultra busty young women). You can talk, trade, or challenge them to a fight.
The dungeons uses the same picture format. There are eight in total, each one steadily getting more difficult. All dungeons have 100 floors; Deep Hole has 50. You can move back and forth to engage in random encounters to get experience, raise levels, receive items such as weapons or armor, or find a floor to recover. Sometimes, random events will occur. A warrior may want help defeating an enemy, or two explorers are about to have a fight and want you to choose who to side with. You can leave the dungeons by moving to Floor 1, 50, or 99. At level 100, you fight the boss.
As you raise levels, you gain skill points to put into a skill tree. You can gain abilities in every class. Become a better sword fighter, learn magic spells, become a healer, or use poisons like a thief. Fortunately, you can challenge people in the city over and over again. Defeating certain exploreres will gain you an additional skill point. This was most beneficial. I had the most fun destroying foul mouth and ill tempered Alisa on Central Street for this reason.
PROS:
It's a standard JRPG that's very easy to explore. It had a great surprise ending. Despite the alluring, ultra busty ladies you see in the city, there's no graphic sex.
CONS:
The pictures of the characters look a bit blurry and low-res. The game did crash a few times randomly. And there were times when the dialog didn't make sense. It's mostly a mistranslation from the original Japanese.
OVERALL:
Dungeon And Darkness was worth the price I paid for it. I put ten hours into the game, and had fun. I was able to beat the game at level 31, so it didn't require numerous hours of grinding. I'll note you can change the difficulty level to easy, medium, or hard. So I'm giving the game a thumbs up despite having the game crashing bug. It didn't happen often, and you can save anytime.
