DUNGEON ENCOUNTERS

Extremely disappointing. Despite enjoying the exploration, the unique ideas(Like the whole dungeon just being a coordinate grid), and the sparse story, everything else was miserable. Game feels like an attempt to make the most passable game on the smallest budget possible. The best parts of this game were the math puzzles, and those were arguably the only real gameplay. Not worth it, even 70% off.

What a peculiar game. Essentially it's an extremely stripped down party-based dungeon crawler. And by stripped down I mean there are no classes, no spells, no abilities, nothing of the sort - not even consumable items of any kind, really. There is some unique equipment, but it's rather limited and a lot of the time situational. All your characters get is HP (self-explanatory), PP (determines what and how much equipment you can put on) and equipment: 2 weapon slots (weapons are physical/magical, melee/ranged, single-/multi-target and with fixed/random damage), headgear (magical defense and optionally speed), armor (physical defense and optionally speed) and 1 accessory (speed, crit chance, counterattack chance, extra damage). One thing I actually like is that physical and magical defense act like separate health bars that take damage of the respective type without rollover, so the damage only goes through to HP when the defense is at 0. Unfortunately, in practice it usually only saves the character from 1 attack since a lot of the time the enemies will do damage many times over what defense the currently appropriate level of armor provides. Some enemies can attack your party members' life points directly instead, and the heavily randomized damage often ends up being much higher than the max HP values too, resulting in rather unfair-feeling oneshots. Some weapons apply special effects instead of dealing damage (poison, banishment, petrification, etc.) and these same special effects can also be applied by the enemies to your party members, and can be quite devastating until you find the ability to completely nullify them. Speaking of abilities, these are divided into exploration and battle ones. Exploration abilities mostly help navigating the floors and avoiding hazards, while battle abilities include things like restoring defense, resurrection, healing and various passives. The game is also rather punishing overall. If your party is wiped, the characters stay on the same tile and you have to assemble a new party from the base to go down and carry them out. Keep in mind that there are only 4 character slots, so you're gonna have to keep some of them open to pick the other members back up in several trips. Certain enemies can petrify your party members, requiring you to leave them behind until you find an altar, input the coordinates of your petrified party members, and go back to pick them up. Some enemies and floor hazards can scatter your party members to random locations on random floors, the process of finding them again being quite arduous even with the ability that is supposed to help locating wandering adventurers. There are also enemies and floor hazards that can not only steal certain amounts of gold from what you have on hand, but are also able to put you in debt, somehow. The presentation is extremely minimal, with a flat map that has all encounters and events represented as 2-digit hex numbers (black for enemy encounters and white for events like stairs, altars, shops, new abilities). As you explore you'll mostly be hearing some ambient noise and that's it. In combat, both sides are shown as static portraits and all battle music tracks are electric guitar covers of classical pieces. The arrangements aren't bad by any means, but it's still a bit of a weird choice. One of many in this game, really. Given that there is no real progression aside from "number go up," you will have seen most of what the game has to offer in a couple hours. Sure, some of the later acquired abilities do feel nice to get, but not much really changes. I could only recommend getting it on a deep sale and only if you really need a nothing-but-gameplay palate cleanser of sorts, otherwise there are dozens of more feature-rich and overall engaging JRPGs/DRPGs to choose from. That said, it does still have a certain charm to it as you zone out and grind in the background while doing something else.

This game is like plain rice made by an incredibly skilled cook. It is undeniably of very high quality. I would prefer if it had some seasonings on it, but I can't say it isn't exactly what it set out to be.

This game scratches a very specific itch in my brain, from back when games basically suggested you make your own map. But the way the compendium works, if you forget anything you've learned its all there. Gameplay-wise its very simple but that's not inherently bad. Game isn't for everyone, but its def for me.

攻略を見ずに進めるのは正直苦行に近いと思う。昔のファミコンのゲーム体験のような…。 自分はしんどくなった時点で攻略を参照し、コツコツとマップを埋める作業ゲーになった。 わたしはコツコツ作業ゲーが大好きなので、この時点で個人的良作となった。 みんなが楽しいとは感じないと思う。10人いたら2人くらいじゃないかな。 まあ良くも悪くもプロモーション通り。

Painfully simple, yet needlessly annoying. There isn't really exploration, just revealing squares (the entire map layout is always exposed). There isn't any party customization, because despite many choices of "people" everyone is basically the same. If someone gets petrified, you have to just drop that person on the ground and move on without them, probably manually climbing multiple floors to pick up a new replacement from floor zero. Combat is largely an auto attack simulator.

[h1] 日常用語としての「ゲーム」であればこの作品は限りなく Bad に近いでしょう [/h1] ゲームエンジンが処理を行い，その結果を図画として画面に描写し，モニタに映ったそれをプレイヤが見て判断する．これがよくある現代の「コンピュータゲーム」です．誤解を恐れずに言えばこの作品は，ゲームエンジンが処理を行い，その結果が整形されただけのデータをみてプレイヤが遊ぶつくりになっています．その証拠に，例えば店であれば，イベントブックで表示される「内容」に店主のセリフが表示され，一方フィールドでイベントを実行すると即座に売買の選択が始まります．このおかしさに気付き，そして実はおかしくないと納得できる人でなければ，このゲームと向合うことは大変な苦労を伴うでしょう（しかしだからといってそれはプレイヤが悪いという意味ではありません）． [h2] 我々は本当にこのゲームのプレイヤなのか [/h2] 端的に言いましょう．このゲームをプレイするとき，我々は，プレイヤであると同時に，ゲームのカセットないしディスクのリーダの役割を果たします（厳密には違いますが）．床にイベント番号が書いてあるとき，そこで決定ボタンを押下することは，まさしく「当該の番号のイベントを参照し実行すること」と等価です．モニタに映し出された「このマスに居る」「このキャラクタに話しかける」のではなく，「このマスにある」「この会話イベントを実行する」のです．この構造の面白さに納得できる人でなければ，このゲームと向合うことは大変な苦労を伴うでしょう（しかしだからといってそれはプレイヤが悪いという意味ではありません）． [h2] しかし本当にプリミティヴなのか [/h2] とにかくこのゲームでは「プレイヤとしてゲームに向合ってプレイすること」ではなく，「エンジンの一部となって一緒に処理すること」を求められます．これが制作陣の謳うゲームの本質的な面白さなのでしょうが，それにしてはバトル時を中心に演出や音楽が前面に立ちすぎています．ここも削いでしまうと最早商業ゲームとして成り立たないという営業判断もあるのでしょうが，これがかえって「普通のゲームっぽさ」を演出してしまい，Bad評価に繋がっているのではないか？という感があります．「つまらない」「シンプルさを盾に逃げている」とBad評価をされた方は，その点ではこのゲームがSQEXの他タイトルのような雰囲気を纏ってしまったことによる被害者と言えるかもしれません．ゲーム性とゲーム体験でレイヤがずれてしまったのがこの作品最大の弱点ではないかと思われます． [h3] 以上を踏まえて…… [/h3] このゲームで得られるゲーム体験は，本質的には「ゲーム機がモニタに現状を映すまで」の部分を一般化したものです．固有名詞がFINAL FANTASY TACTICSやFINAL FANTASY XIIに寄っているのは，あくまでもその方が「キャラクタ1」や「近接武器A1」よりも親しみやすいからという情けでしかありません．ではなぜ「マリアル」にしたのか．その中途半端さが非常にもったいないです．そして各種問題の異常さ．せっかく他のイベントがゲームエンジンらしい処理の本質を見せてくれているのに，ここでだけ突然モニタの向こうのプレイヤであることを求めてくる．こういった齟齬の積重ねが，私のような「基幹システムが楽しいのに演出が派手」という感想や，それなりに見られる「もう少し世界説明をしてほしいし何をさせたいのか分からない」という感想を生んでしまうのでしょう．

Dungeon Encounters is a niche, boiled-down Wizardry-like. The game is focused on exploration and, especially, risk management. You never have quite enough resources, and miles to go before there's an easy place to stop or return to the surface. How far can you go? And which passive benefit can you afford to live without? It's great! It's one of my favorite games I played this year.

This game is cool, and feels immense. the abstracted nature of it might be a turnoff for folks who want a more story or personality-driven experience, but if you love that gameplay loop of go in dungeon, get stronger, return to surface, heal and upgrade gear, go deeper in dungeon, get stronger, return to surface, etc, this is for you. and despite the minimalist appearance, there's a lot of cool stuff and funny moments in here, expressed through the gameplay mechanics.

The design decisions made on this game are fascinating. It's unfortunate that they don't result in a very fun game to play.