The Crazy Hyper-Dungeon Chronicles

Bottom line: Pick it up if you want an unconventional dungeon crawler that doesn't take itself too seriously, but be aware of some rough edges. I originally bought this game when it temporarily made its name "♥♥♥♥♥♥ Dungeon," at least in Japanese. The game has some interesting ideas but the execution doesn't always land and I think the devs would have benefitted from a critical voice helping them dial things back. It can be too cutesy or too unserious for its own good. I get that it's the game's schtick, but it does get tiring after a while. Know that it's a not traditional dungeon crawler at all. Each level has its own theme or design concept. This makes things less repetitive but it wasn't what I was expecting and some of the ideas need to be condensed. The game is supposed to be 50 levels but I was still encountering tutorials until around 15. I'm on 23 and its just now introducing the idea of creatures calling for nearby reinforcements, which is strange since I've encountered that before, and the concept of closing and locking a room to prevent patrolling attacks, which has never been an option before now. There are the numerous obvious bugs that still need fixing. I've had backstab attacks fail to the point I was literally standing on top of the enemy and the battle still didn't trigger. The power descriptions just say "lasts for seconds" without specifying how many seconds that is. There is both a ring and potion that show monsters' visibility and I've had it randomly stop and start working (flickering) for no reason I can tell. There are design choices I would suggest re-visiting. Your inventory has no auto-sort button or at least a way to auto-condense it. There is no highlighting for newly picked up objects, no auto-stacking for potions already on your belt, and when I equip a ring it doesn't ask which one to replace. I thought we were past games auto-assuming (badly) which ring to swap, requiring more clicks to fix the problem. Recipes could possibly be auto-learned and highlighted in your journal instead of taking limited inventory slots. I haven't encountered a situation where I wouldn't want to learn one. There are many notes strewn throughout the dungeon I've just had to delete. They should be added to the journal instead. I have no idea if the contents of these notes will show up in the end-game "trial" as an attempt to be cute. I also have tons of gold with not much to do with it. Items have a value displayed but as of floor 23 I've seen nowhere to sell them. Monster vision occasionally goes around corners in a way that is unexpected. With the mentioned ring I can see that a monster 3 tiles away can see 90 degrees around the corner. Last, and this is minor, I'm not sure how the map generator is as slow as it is. Map generation has been a solved problem for decades but even with a Ryzen 9 it can take 5-10 seconds for a small map when you'd expect it to be instant. All of these criticisms aside, I'd still recommend the game. $10 seems like the right price and if it's on sale then even better. The combat is innovative-ish, taking inspiration from QTEs and its more interactive than simply "move into the enemy to attack." The design opens up ways to respond to enemies using abilities, attacking twice, or attacking fast/slow beyond just rolling dice to determine the outcome. The game does a decent job of making crafting matter, even if it is rather shallow, and exploration can be rewarding. There is no manual saving, but it does auto-save at the start of each floor, which is sufficient. There is a nice variety of enemies and friendly NPCs and there is a sort of "choose your own difficulty" where you ignore tutorials, interactions, and even unique relic items. The story so far is rather flimsy, but it's a dungeon crawler, not a visual novel, so I don't hold that against it.