[i](Clarification : Since some people wonder how I know so much about the game - I owned it prior to the steam release, so I've booked in quite a chunk of playtime, some 50 hours, outside of it's english release. Therefore I know whereof I speak.)[/i]
[H1]This is why we shouldn't leave Japan on its' own. No, really, I'm serious. We do that and instead of Football Manager they come up with this?!?![/H1]
Dungeon Manager ZV, which I think I can sum up best by saying it's FM2015, but for someone who wants to design, and manage their own dungeon, their own monster roster and carefully balance the growing needs and desires of the adventurers they are luring into their dungeons with the promises of untold lewt with the need to protect that loot and therefore placing big scary monsters in the way. Put too many big and scary monsters in the way, the adventurers will take one look at your dungeon and go "NOPE.JPG", but make the dungeon too easy, and they'll walk out with your lewt, and you will fail at managing your dungeon. It's a curious beast.
[H1]No, really, we must never leave Japan alone, this is what happens when we do. They create games where you're monster mixing slimes, golems and demons?!?![/H1]
The game visually is ... not the worlds most stunning presentation. It's going to send you back a long way in time, I actually had to look up the kind of resolution it was using (1024x768 in case anyone wondered). The art style for what you get is consistent and well drawn, though ye gods could it have done with high res artwork for current gen monitors. The music too, has that kind of castlevania style theme, that sort of off kilter japan orchestral horror they do reasonably well. But beyond the somewhat shonky presentation lurks a really, really brutal game. DMZV is to dungeons what Football Manager is to the emerald turf.
Oh it starts innocuously enough, giving you a nice 3x3 grid of rooms you can build out into, one of which will have your stairs to the surface world, in these rooms you can fill out each room with a selection of zombie minions, along with a larger "foe" of sorts, be it a slime, a golem, a demon or if you've been stirring up some kind of hellish creation, one of the monster mixes available (G-Golems and Zombie-Demons are merely the start of the chaos available...), once you start working your way down through the floors, you'll start to appreciate the subtleties that come into play, such as being able to set elemental affinities on a per floor level, which confer bonuses either to your monsters, or even to the heroes that walk the dungeon (in exchange for bonus resources should you kill them!), setting up your zombie minions with their own attack and defense levels mean that some rooms will be tailored to dealing with specific classes of hero... and that's when you realise that you're going to be sinking a lot of time into this one.
[H1]The kind of game where five minutes can become an hour, and an hour can become half a day....[/H1]
The hero roster is -extensive-, no less than 23 or so classes with a few unique versions and a final "boss" of sorts await you as you work your way through the game, ranging from the simple Novice, who wanders in with little more than a sackcloth and a pointy stick, all the way up to Valkyries, Samurais and Knights that can actively change the element of the floor they are on and really ruin your day.
Juggling the monster strength relative to your fame is the key balancing act here, as you'll want to keep the two running along the knife edge to get the maximum inflow of adventurers (and occasionally an escapee to relate his experiences of your fine establishment), so in terms of mechanics, there's a lot more going on than meets the eye. It would be lazy to spam the strongest things you could field, and the game -will- punish you if you do just that, by starving you of heroes, and then eventually steamrolling you with something far beyond your capabilities. It reacts to your playstyle, and will chastise you for being a poor designer. However, play it's game, and it will reward you with an experience that is very much the Football Manager of Dungeons.
[H1]Okay, this sounds interesting and all, but how on earth do you make sense of it? How does ANY of this make sense?!?! HALP!!![/H1]
Therein lies the nub of the review. This is a [i]very[/i] niche game. If you're seriously considering buying it, and you've done your research, then my advice is to take the risk, the chances are you're already aware of what you're letting yourself in for. Strap in and prepare for something very much unlike you've played to date.
If however you're even remotely unclear on what you're getting, if you came here from a recommendation, if you just came to this game from idle curiosity and really don't have the first clue as to what is going on, or you do not have an abiding love of [i]very heavily text based[/i] and [i]very japanese influenced[/i] bizarro games that don't want to make sense, and ask you to manage a -dungeon- of all things. Then I would tell you to turn around, and walk the other way, otherwise you'll be making a mistake, and you'd do the game a disservice as well.
Verdict : [b]Highly recommended -but- only to the people who know with absolute certainty what they're letting themselves in for. This is a niche game in the truest sense of the term, and as a result will appeal to a very narrow, and very odd demographic. If you enjoy solving rubiks cubes in the dark, this may just appeal to you.[/b]
[i]Writer and columnist for [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/justreviews]Just Reviews[/url], where you can get similar fine reading material. Join our group, follow our curations, and throw me a like if you would like to keep up to date with our efforts![/i]
