Dungeon Dreams (Female Protagonist)

TLDR: Good dating, town building, questing, story and characters. Shallow dungeon crawling that will be either tedious or endlessly aggravating depending on how much you're willing to grind. It hurts me so much to give this game a negative review. I really wanted this game to be good but it just keeps getting worse the more I play. Half my time is spent in town dating, building, questing, etc. The rest is dungeon crawling. The first half is where this game excels. Most characters have a personality that makes them interesting enough to make me bother remembering them. This is especially important for the potential romantic interests which you'll be buying gifts for and taking on dates or dungeon dives (if they can fight). The dialog is decently well written and really drives me to become invested in my dates and quests. Events happen all the time and everywhere which really encourage me to walk all over the town looking for the next one. What was going to happen next? Meeting a new character? Facing my jerk of a rival? Flirting with a cute girl? Being the wing-woman for my best bud? General humorous shenanigans? A dangerous adventure? I want all of them. It is also satisfying to improve the town with new buildings making even more events available as adding options to pass the time and help progress in the Dungeon. There's even a day/night cycle which makes you plan ahead for certain jobs and activities which can only be done at certain times of the day. Sadly, the Dungeon and everything combat related are the parts where this game crashes and burns. When creating your character you choose a background essentially giving a starting bonus to either gold, job points (JP) or experience points as well as a class. Fighter, scout and Mage are the first choices with the promise of branching class trees for each of them. Cool. Invite up to 3 (girl/boy)friends, gear them up, teach them skills by spending JP and go into the 1st floor of the randomized dungeon! First thing I notice is how bland it looks. This is an RPG Maker game yet I've never seen a single game show both surprising prowess and absurd incompetence with the engine's stock assets. The town is colorful, varied and full of life. The Dungeon is a bunch of rectangles full of mobs. And I mean FULL of mobs. Encounters aren't random but I almost wish they were because these enemies swarm me immediately and at high speeds. Can't run from battles. Ok. Let's fight. It's standard JRPG + ATB combat. ATB being influenced by each fighter's AGI stat. I have attacks, items and my class skills to use with MP. At first I am be able to fight enemies relatively efficiently by gearing up and learning skills. Fights are reasonably challenging and don't last too long. At least individually. Remember, FULL of mobs. However the further I progress the more I notice that enemies have tons more health and fights last much longer. I am certainly not undergeared as I always have the best gear the shop can currently offer + whatever I got from side quests. Underleveled? That might be it however after about lvl 14 I need such ridiculous amounts of EXP to level up that I'd be repeating the same floors for dozens of hours before I was able to make those long fights more reasonable. Frustrating. Using powerful skills during these battles would be a mistake. MP drains very fast and the items to replenish it are either too rare or absurdly expensive to buy. Again, I could grind but it would take forever. Frustrating. Have I mentioned that if I die in the dungeon I lose everything I was carrying? The game provides no way of protecting my frail characters in battle. Healing costs MP which is the most valuable resource. So, I should get a tank, right? Wrong. There is no "formation" mechanic, nothing to draw aggro. Enemies may randomly decide to ignore my 3 bulky fighters to slap double crits on my made-of-soggy-paper mage. Frustrating. RNG in general is a huge pain in the a**. About a third of all my attacks would MISS without rhyme or reason eliminating any sort of strategic element from battles. The best I can do is select skills and pray that they kill the enemy AOE caster before it- oh there it goes, turns wasted, entire party damaged, enemies still alive. Frustrating. The lack of a bestiary or a "scan" ability makes the game's elemental resistance/weakness system an exercise in Frustration to figure out. 90% of enemies seem resistant to dark, I didn't find a single light attack and all other elements seem to have no game-changing effect. No way to confirm. Frustrating. Lack of information in general is a common problem. What does each stat do? What does each starting bonus do? What stats does this equipment in the shop I'm looking to buy have? What skills are available in each class? The best I can do is guess and choose blindly then reload a previous save when I inevitably waste gold and JP. Combat in general Isn't nearly varied or deep enough to get away with being as punishing as it is. Skills are basic, enemies are basic, tactics are nearly non-existent and all that matters is numbers and dumb luck. I could continue listing Frustrating stuff in this game's RPG elements and dungeon crawling (undetectable traps, sudden unavailability of shops, useless gold drops from battles and more) Other flaws outside of the Dungeon: it seems like the game has 3 or 4 different art styles which is jarring at times. Small bugs, typos and evidence that this game is kinda slapped on top of the male MC version (instances or "sir" "his" "him", etc). I get it. It's an indie dev. Whatever. Dungeon Dreams could have been such an amazing game if the dungeon crawling part of it was at least halfway decent. What a shame.

So having beaten the game I can give this a review now. Pros. the town does feel alive with a lot of options and things to do. you can build as well to add more to the town. the characters around the town are pretty good it's what you expect from this kinda setting. the artwork is pretty cool and well done. it has some okay mini games in town. Cons. The lack of any real help in the game or guides so you spend more time trying to work things out in the game. No maps for any of the dungeon levels. the enemy in the dungeon have super speed so you end up having to fight about 90% of the enemy on each level. so they have a rest level on every 4th level so you can save but that is all no healing point or having a rest for your party at the rest area. also the only way to leave the dungeon is you need a item to teleport out of there if you don't have that item you are stuck their until you die and you lose all your items. now the biggest let down for me is the relationships in this game they make no sense what so ever and are a waste of time when you finally get to have a relationship after all the crap you go though to get their and get married you don't even get any reward at all for it. the kiss is just a black screen with writing saying smack why am I getting smacked while been kissed and you don't even get to sleep with your partner at all so in the end it was all a waste of time. I would like to say this is worth it but I can really only recommend this for people who like to grind in a dungeon and waste time. I wish there was a maybe because that is what I would give this game so for now I have to give it a No.

This is a fun rpg dating medieval sim life game, a sort of side game for the male protaganist dungeon dreams game. While with some points of play in common to the original dungeon dreams the creators herein have given a nice spin allowing for some significant changes for the female protaganist variant. The characters, while largely the same as the original dungeon dreams, will react differently, up to a point to your lady adventurer,; some of the day jobs are different, some the same. Many options and oportunities await. As with the first game there is a lot of fun situations and snappy dialogues to be had and lots of options--once more, your choices really do matter, and this town, this dunegeon, these people, this adventure, this dungeon dreams--they really are yours to explore and make your own! I have really enjoyed much everything this team has made, and this game is no exception. So, if you'd like to experience Escalia from the perspective of a female adventurer, I'd say tie back your hair and set forth, your adventures await!

[b]Dungeon Dreams (female protagonist) Review [/b] As a person who grew up playing Azure Dreams, (and one who still actually owns the game), Dungeon Dreams was a quirky, fun alternative game to those long lost days of lore. Players will discover key moments reminiscent of the old Azure Dreams such as the character of Grant, who like Ghosh, is just as obnoxious, arrogant, and hilarious - equipped with his own theme song at every appearance. One important detail that sound be mentioned is the vast superiority of the Dungeon Dreams soundtrack compared to Azure Dreams. Instead of the grating obnoxious sound track of Azure Dreams, Dungeon Dreams is trendy and upbeat. I had often found myself humming along with it especially during the battle scenes. There are other difference: Azure Dream’s Tower, for example, felt more like a game of chess where monsters moved across the board in collaboration with the main character. In Dungeon Dreams, the monsters move independently whether the main character moves around or not. Another piece that was missing was the idea of the collection of monster eggs which you hatched in the incubator and could take them to fight with you in the tower. The best aspect of Dungeon Dreams is the sheer [b] content [/b]. Instead of monster eggs, you have companions each with their background and story-line with their own classes and sub-classes available for customization. These characters are fairly interactive and will have different comments and opinions when combined with other party members and brought to certain events. [i] The dungeon world feels less lonely when you have friends. [/i] Although there are some characters that can be romanced, if you are looking for a deep epic love story, you might find yourself disappointed. This is not that kind of game. There are some instances that attempt to pull at the heartstrings, for example, [spoiler] there is a kind warrior who goes missing at one point, [/spoiler] but there is a decent portion that is meant to be taken as a lighthearted spoof. The romances are [b] cute [/b], but they are not the [b] main [/b] focus. Hours upon hours can be spent roaming different places, opening up dialogues, finishing quests, playing mini-games, building new places, which in turn, opens up more and more things for you to do while leveling and grinding your way down the dungeon to the final boss. I quite enjoyed dungeon dreams. It was fun, entertaining, and delightful. The last thing I will mention are the glitches. I had found some glitches during the game which were quickly corrected by the developer and were before the official release of the game. The care taken to correct them shows me, more than anything, the drive to ensure a quality game is delivered to the customer. It is something I highly appreciate. Yeah. I recommend the game. It is pretty good and a great deal for the price.

[i] Dungeon Dreams your standard dungeon crawler with town building and romance elements. As a young adventurer in a new town far from home, people will often give you a hard time. There are some friendly folk out there but you will need to go out and look them. You have several jobs available to choose, but your main income will come from monster infested dungeons. Would you prefer a companion, or would you rather flash some cash and pay a mercenary to accompany you? Will you try to pursue the strongest team in the town, or will go your own way with friends? It is all entirely up to you. Many quests grant an opportunity to develop Ecallia and work to make it a better place. (You can even decorate your home.) The story of "Dungeon Dreams" is pretty basic, but not bad overall. You have the option to head to church and research the lore and mythology of the world or continue in the dark with only the essentials. I really liked this was optional rather than having it shoved forcibly in your face. The dialogues are very well written and characters seem alive. Even mere NPCs have some interesting dialogues. Make sure you always talk to everyone as it helps make the town more lively. You may even reconsider your dating options as some characters gradually open up to you over time. You have a nice selection of snarky comments to respond to characters you personally don't like, which is a nice touch. This is great for when some townsfolk try to provoke or mock you based on your dungeon accomplishments. Yes, your respect among other adventurers depends the dungeon floor you reach. It can sometimes help spice up the story and dialogues. This game is an RPG Maker game and as you probably guessed, is turn based combat. The dungeon can get quite challenging and is not intended to solo. "Its dangerous to go alone." Be sure to team up with a companion or pay a mercenary otherwise you will get wrecked and lose your hard earned loot. Companions have different classes and skill sets. Some of them are very well equipped, but you still should work on equipping your buddies and unlocking new skills for them. Luckily they earn their own job points alongside you. The dungeon in this game can feel very tedious and grindy. You'll may need to spend several hours grinding job points to unlock some new skills and level up. On further levels combat can start to feel dull since fights last way longer (some people might be into that.) [/i] [u] [b] A little summary:[/b] [/u] [b] Pros:[/b] [list] [*]Simple and understandable story [*]Good dialogues and fairly decent romance options [*]Nice town development and house decorating options [*]Challenging monsters [*]Rich mythology available if you want to know more about the world [/list] [b] Cons:[/b] [list] [*]In comparison to a lively and colorful town, The dungeon's design looks like basic grey squares and nothing else. [*]Sometimes combat can drag on for too long. [*]It is a little bit too grindy (at least you can have a break and talk to people in town).[/list] This games price is good for the amount of content packed in it. I don't feel like I am done playing it myself and will definitely continue my adventure, wishing the best of luck for the developer. [quote] Please follow our curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/4680120/]Otome Lovers[/url], if you'd like to see more reviews like this one! [/quote]

See how many hours I've played? Consider this review coming from experience from someone who loves the game with all her heart. The game is good. The developer is not. He acts friendly, but he censors comments, ignores people he wrongs, and his actions contradict his claims. His community is toxic. They have persecution complexes about any criticism for this game, despite the dev claiming he welcomes critique. You can praise it all you want, but the second you think a bit could be improved, they'll accuse you of tearing the dev's creation down or only ever complaining about the game. It's a case of the most active members being those self-entitled judgmental types who can't stand anyone who doesn't behave the way they insist others have to around them. The problem is that the dev doesn't do anything to discourage this. He enables it. He's been made aware of this bullying culture, but refuses to do anything about it. He hired two mods, but didn't give them rules to enforce or any direction on what to do, nor did he hire them on credentials, just nepotism, then set and it forget it. The mods proceeded to engage in misconduct and authority abuse while the dev acted tone-deaf by talking about updates to his new game and answering any questions EXCEPT about the bullying enabling going on. Think this isn't a problem? Well, due to the lack of any real official guides, you HAVE to go to the Discord server to get help with dodgy game mechanics or obscure quest progression. So you NEED to get exposed to this toxic fanbase at some point. You also need to talk to the dev about save file fixes or bugs. I told the dev that he could fix all this. I told the dev about all the problems. I told the dev how all this made me feel. I asked the dev why he was ignoring it all. He ignored me. He deleted my comments. He told me to "move on" when his fans attacked me. I asked him to please just explain, but an innocent man doesn't withhold info that'd exonerate him. Oh, my favorite Class tree is Mage. High risk, high reward! EDIT1: I enabled comments for a reason. I called the community toxic. They proved me right. EDIT2: I wasn't banned. I left. EDIT3: I never once mentioned the dev can't fix bugs. Wonder why Maloriana feels the need to make stuff up? Interestingly, she's his most toxic fan. She'll absolutely DEMOLISH you for simply not thinking this game is the most perfect and best game in the world.

After so so many hours wasted on this game, I still cannot recommend this game at all. I tried so hard to like this game, but there are just far too many problems. Numerous bugs everywhere, including a persistent audio issue that will have you muting the game. Shallow characters, a plot that barely exists and mountains and mountains of grinding. Seriously if you think you've seen grinding before, wait till you see the sheer numbers walls in here. The only tolerable way to even play the game is cheating via speedhacks and save editing because everything is just. so. slow. The combat itself is thoroughly uninspired too. There's supposed to be a weakness system, but the gains from exploiting them are so minor that it's a waste of your limited MP resources. Battles only come in one of two flavors; mash confirm until the battle mercifully ends and another starts mere seconds later, or, this encounter deals so much damage/inflicts so many status ailments that you cannot possibly even make any meaningful choices. The game even trips itself up on it's own pacing. At times there will be events that are billed as "urgent" and seem to encourage you to take care of them ASAP. But you cannot possibly stand a chance if you don't leave the area and spend several more in game weeks grinding until it's even feasible. There's even a point where one of these events will severely limit your access to vital items needed to grind in the first place, thus making it EVEN harder to do so. The sheer insanity in the design of this game is laughable. A final mention goes to the sometimes downright hideous nature of some of the portraits and CGs. A lot of them are incredibly off model and hardly seem to match the pictures you're given in the chatbox. I can overlook a lot. I came in expecting nothing more than a simple dungeon crawler to occupy myself while watching videos, but even that was too much to hope for. Look anywhere else, this ain't it.

If you are looking for Roguelike romance JRPG with a bit of otome elements in it, This is poisoned stuff. Don't try it. I tried it in your place and now am sooo disappointed it hurts. It has female protagonist, and that's it. You can replace female protag to male and there will be no big difference. In fact, it will be better. Oh wait there is already male protag version! (okay i get this is kind of spin off ver. of original DD(male ver.) but sometimes my protag was referred as 'he/him/his' pronoun too so really...no) Interesting story and characters. Many good things in here. But again! if you want to date okay-ish men here, either he's already married, non-romanceable or into another girl. or already dead or not available for whatever reason. At some point it became almost hilarious! The game is saying to you to go date kind cute girls plenty available in this game, I guess if you want yuri this is good? There was this girl I didn't even flirt, after some main event quest, said to my protag that she likes me and I have to be good for her or else....... huh?? At this point I felt pretty much stupid hah. So that's it. If you want otome, no this isn't it. if you want yuri go ahead maybe read other reviews.

If you have had a terrible longing for Azure Dreams, but haven't been able to find anything for years--this will scratch that itch. Sadly no monster taming aspect, instead of familiars in the tower you compile teams of various adventurers with different skills/specialties (reminiscent of final fantasty jobs). But there's relationships, questionably over-horny chat lines, a host of characters, town building, house expansion--most of the good stuff--and a number of easter eggs for those of you who loved Azure Dreams. And yeah--there's a randomly generated tower hiding some potential monstrosity in its basement. And yes, that tower is a bit grindy. But if you're looking for something like Azure Dreams--you like that. All around very content.

This game is very entertaining. I love it.