NDE - Near Dungeon Experience

An interesting little curiosity that goes for a bit of a Shadow Tower vibe. Atmosphere is dreary, lonely, and a bit mysterious, though it is brought down somewhat by the dialogue being riddled with typos and grammatical errors - an editing pass was sorely needed here. This is also not really a full-featured dungeon crawler. If you're looking for complex mazes and mechanics, you will probably not be satisfied with this one, but it's a decent short experience otherwise. Difficulty settings not only affect the XP and gold you earn, but also serve as class selection. I played through on hard mode as the scholar (cleric), but took a quick look at the other modes as well. The scholar is largely self-sustaining; this made resource management practically moot, so other than its mediocre combat performance and rough early game, I'm not sure why it's considered hard mode. The Nightmare slime class also confused me, as it was virtually unkillable from what I played. The game is comprised of seven short dungeons and eight bosses. The idea is to pick your battles to balance XP gain and exploration against resource management, though as stated, as the scholar I was rarely concerned about resources. Some areas are blocked off until you return later with a new ability. The main rewards for backtracking are memories; it's unclear what these do, but I suspect that they influence the ending, and it's not hard to find them all. The "sin system" takes the form of the occasional yes/no decision to make (e.g. will you look at your reflection in the vanity dungeon?), which will influence your stats. You could probably min/max this if you wanted to, but I just said no to all of them. Be advised that I encountered a couple of soft lock bugs. One I was luckily able to glitch my way out of, but the other was a dead end. Save often and in multiple slots (good advice for any game). Overall, it's not bad. It's worth a look if you're interested in an unusual take on RPG Maker, but it could have been stronger if it had gone further with its themes and design. A bigger, more complex sequel that expands on the ideas laid out here could be pretty compelling.

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