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IGN Review of Dungeon Maker 2: The Hidden War
Whether because of a general lack of interest in the PSP development community or the fact that developer Global A Entertainment just managed to corner the market on the whole create-a-dungeon crawler, there really hasn't been a counter to its original Dungeon Maker series. It's a shame, really, because a developer with just a little more creativity in the way of monsters and world design could give the genre on the PSP a lot more life. As it stands, Dungeon Maker II is most certainly a step up from the first game, and Global A Entertainment nailed the core gameplay to the point where it's quite easy to overlook some of the little polish or atmosphere omissions, but there's nothing wrong with knowing more could have been done to make it all a little more interesting.
Most of this comes from the fact that Dungeon Maker II is not the typical pick-up-and-play experience we've been led to assume is the goal of most PSP developers. Instead, just about everything in the game is a slow burn, meant to incorporate more and more rules and bits of advice as you slowly start piecing together your labyrinthine hallways in an effort to create a nice, warm, loving home for all manner of monster... and then hack away at them and keep the odd fang or fur for yourself. Cruel, yes, but necessary when monsters are roaming the land.
They're doing this, the introductory storyline roll explains, because 70,000 years ago, a truce between the gods and the demons was formed after the gods basically dropped a couple mountains on top of the demons to stop them from tunneling down from the mortal plane to their native homeworld. Not only did it hammer home the fact that the gods were pretty friggin' powerful, it necessitated peace talks between the two to avoid monsters and those little pesky human guys scurrying around from being completely wiped out. Flash forward about 700 centuries and a demon, appropriately dubbed "Revenger" is looking to spark another celestial battle royale. That'd be bad.
And so, a bespectacled dungeon maker (that's you) arrives in a quaint little town at the epicenter of the old conflict, arriving just in time to save everyone by tunneling into the earth to create an inviting series of twisty little corridors to trap monsters inside. The actual story itself is largely inconsequential; your named character wants to take down the Revenger, and the townspeople are mostly there to help you reach that end, though they'll often ask you to hunt down some hunks of meat or bits of smithing to build new weapons and armor.
These random little quests are a perfect example of why the first Dungeon Maker game worked -- there's almost no shortage of stuff to do with every daily trip down into your monster-friendly abode. Though it certainly will take some time -- upwards of an hour, it seemed at first -- to get the ball rolling, by the time you've delved deep enough into your dungeon you'll have multiple floors, quest items and improvements to make with each trip. Sure, you can only head down once per day, but there's more than enough stuff made available a few hours into the game to make sure each trip is at least productive.
I suppose I should pause for a minute to describe how the whole dungeon making process actually works. It's more or less identical to the first game in that you pick from a handful of very basic building blocks; things like right angles, straight sections, t-intersections and rooms, and then lay them out in such a way that they twist and turn enough that monsters feel "safe" residing there. Plenty of basic rules exist to help control and define the layouts of things. For instance, placing a room right off a t-intersection will usually mean the room is empty (monsters like to go through multiple turns before setting up shop). Likewise, the materials that make up your hallway and little upgrades that you can apply to a room make it more inviting too.
All these things are spoon fed to the player so as not to overwhelm (though those that played the first game will probably find the first few hours are a bit of a retread, necessary though it may be for newcomers), and all the rules and hints can be accessed at any time to make sure you're building things properly. The more complex or "deeper" a floor, the better the monsters that will hole up there, and you're given the ability to take a quick glance at the stats for that floor at any time.
It becomes a combination of sim-like building and monster rearing, then, that actually serves as the primary foil for all of Dungeon Maker II's little addictions that slowly pile into one massive pull that will threaten to eat up any free time you may have. Riding the train to work? Sweet, you can probably explore one floor in that time. Waiting in line somewhere? Why not buy some supplies for your dungeon or maybe some cooking ingredients for upgrading your character when he goes to sleep every night.
That one aspect of the game is perhaps the most interesting. See, your main character doesn't level up like a normal RPG protagonist. Instead, he uses the bits and pieces of felled monsters to craft a meal (or rather his spritely live-in apprentice), which in turn bumps up base stats like health, strength, wisdom and so on. It's an interesting, if rather staid way of doing things, since your effort in slaying beasties isn't immediately rewarded. If left alone, one of the bigger criticisms of the original game would have returned, but there's one more wrinkle to consider this time around: a genju.
Genju are creatures that ordinarily run from humans, but your main guy is sooooo cool that apparently even skittish little critters want to befriend him. It's a good thing, too, as a genju can actually transform into monsters based on the amount of exposure (read: hacking and slashing) they have with you. They can also enter Genju Dungeons, exclusive areas that can't be edited, but filled with unique monsters and items that can only be braved by the genju alone. It's a great risk/reward setup because the spoils can be fantastic, and since the genju can't actually die (they just revert to cute cuddly forms when their hit points drop to 1), there's plenty of incentive to check things out.
Another important thing about your little genju: it does level up with combat, so the more it's around to help fight with you, the more useful it'll become. There's still quite a bit of babysitting that must be done, and a genju attack can harm you as much as it does the enemies, so some judicious use of the basic AI commands for things like attack range and frequency of magic use are both necessary, but by and large it can add a much-needed distraction or tanking ally to your trips through the home-made dungeons.
The improvements made to the first game are numerous, but mostly subtle tweaks. The actual process of summoning new bits of a dungeon is far faster, whether because of the cache in newer PSPs, optimization of where the data is stored on the UMD or, more likely, some combination of both. This means moving things around is far less clunky, even if the combat itself is still a little rigid. The range of special rooms, a key component to fighting whatever boss monster is asked for on that floor, is greater now, as are the basic rules in place for summoning elemental creatures or even shifting the balance of the whole floor toward an element.
Development is restricted by the castle overseeing the town, so you can't dig too deep too quickly (there be Balrogs, don'cha know), but there's plenty to do in between crafting homes for boss creatures to move on to the next floor. Things like allowing spoils dropped to upgrade armor or get added to a root that can be attached to any weapon are all nice, as is the ability to carry two weapons at once and use the shoulder buttons for quick access to common commands or orders). In short, the game gives you multiple things to do, even if none of them are actually moving you closer to the end goal, which is building an attractive boss room and taking them down on the way to Revenger.
It shows a keen eye toward fixing some of the nagging problems in the first game, and even without some major changes to things, Dungeon Maker II is a far better game. It's just not an entirely pretty or aurally pleasing one.
Most of that falls on the game's limited use of music tracks, none of which are actually all that catchy, basic sound effects and lack of any voice acting. It's entirely possible to play the whole game muted and not miss much, though I'm not flat-out suggesting you have to do it. The visuals are a little better, but it's here that, again, I feel a little more accomplished developer could have made things more immersive.
The monster designs, animations for them (and your main character/genju) and basic level of detail are all incredibly basic. With a tile-based setup to things, I honestly hoped there'd be a little more in the way of detail and variety, but alas it was not to be. Two other things, one good and one laughably bad: the character portraits actually have quite a bit of detail and personality (your protégé's cute little picture of her jotting down your semi-daily lessons with her tongue stuck out in concentration is adorable), but the opening CG intro is seriously bad enough to have been lifted from the PSone era.
©2008-12-16, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Most of this comes from the fact that Dungeon Maker II is not the typical pick-up-and-play experience we've been led to assume is the goal of most PSP developers. Instead, just about everything in the game is a slow burn, meant to incorporate more and more rules and bits of advice as you slowly start piecing together your labyrinthine hallways in an effort to create a nice, warm, loving home for all manner of monster... and then hack away at them and keep the odd fang or fur for yourself. Cruel, yes, but necessary when monsters are roaming the land.
They're doing this, the introductory storyline roll explains, because 70,000 years ago, a truce between the gods and the demons was formed after the gods basically dropped a couple mountains on top of the demons to stop them from tunneling down from the mortal plane to their native homeworld. Not only did it hammer home the fact that the gods were pretty friggin' powerful, it necessitated peace talks between the two to avoid monsters and those little pesky human guys scurrying around from being completely wiped out. Flash forward about 700 centuries and a demon, appropriately dubbed "Revenger" is looking to spark another celestial battle royale. That'd be bad.
And so, a bespectacled dungeon maker (that's you) arrives in a quaint little town at the epicenter of the old conflict, arriving just in time to save everyone by tunneling into the earth to create an inviting series of twisty little corridors to trap monsters inside. The actual story itself is largely inconsequential; your named character wants to take down the Revenger, and the townspeople are mostly there to help you reach that end, though they'll often ask you to hunt down some hunks of meat or bits of smithing to build new weapons and armor.
These random little quests are a perfect example of why the first Dungeon Maker game worked -- there's almost no shortage of stuff to do with every daily trip down into your monster-friendly abode. Though it certainly will take some time -- upwards of an hour, it seemed at first -- to get the ball rolling, by the time you've delved deep enough into your dungeon you'll have multiple floors, quest items and improvements to make with each trip. Sure, you can only head down once per day, but there's more than enough stuff made available a few hours into the game to make sure each trip is at least productive.
I suppose I should pause for a minute to describe how the whole dungeon making process actually works. It's more or less identical to the first game in that you pick from a handful of very basic building blocks; things like right angles, straight sections, t-intersections and rooms, and then lay them out in such a way that they twist and turn enough that monsters feel "safe" residing there. Plenty of basic rules exist to help control and define the layouts of things. For instance, placing a room right off a t-intersection will usually mean the room is empty (monsters like to go through multiple turns before setting up shop). Likewise, the materials that make up your hallway and little upgrades that you can apply to a room make it more inviting too.
All these things are spoon fed to the player so as not to overwhelm (though those that played the first game will probably find the first few hours are a bit of a retread, necessary though it may be for newcomers), and all the rules and hints can be accessed at any time to make sure you're building things properly. The more complex or "deeper" a floor, the better the monsters that will hole up there, and you're given the ability to take a quick glance at the stats for that floor at any time.
It becomes a combination of sim-like building and monster rearing, then, that actually serves as the primary foil for all of Dungeon Maker II's little addictions that slowly pile into one massive pull that will threaten to eat up any free time you may have. Riding the train to work? Sweet, you can probably explore one floor in that time. Waiting in line somewhere? Why not buy some supplies for your dungeon or maybe some cooking ingredients for upgrading your character when he goes to sleep every night.
That one aspect of the game is perhaps the most interesting. See, your main character doesn't level up like a normal RPG protagonist. Instead, he uses the bits and pieces of felled monsters to craft a meal (or rather his spritely live-in apprentice), which in turn bumps up base stats like health, strength, wisdom and so on. It's an interesting, if rather staid way of doing things, since your effort in slaying beasties isn't immediately rewarded. If left alone, one of the bigger criticisms of the original game would have returned, but there's one more wrinkle to consider this time around: a genju.
Genju are creatures that ordinarily run from humans, but your main guy is sooooo cool that apparently even skittish little critters want to befriend him. It's a good thing, too, as a genju can actually transform into monsters based on the amount of exposure (read: hacking and slashing) they have with you. They can also enter Genju Dungeons, exclusive areas that can't be edited, but filled with unique monsters and items that can only be braved by the genju alone. It's a great risk/reward setup because the spoils can be fantastic, and since the genju can't actually die (they just revert to cute cuddly forms when their hit points drop to 1), there's plenty of incentive to check things out.
Another important thing about your little genju: it does level up with combat, so the more it's around to help fight with you, the more useful it'll become. There's still quite a bit of babysitting that must be done, and a genju attack can harm you as much as it does the enemies, so some judicious use of the basic AI commands for things like attack range and frequency of magic use are both necessary, but by and large it can add a much-needed distraction or tanking ally to your trips through the home-made dungeons.
The improvements made to the first game are numerous, but mostly subtle tweaks. The actual process of summoning new bits of a dungeon is far faster, whether because of the cache in newer PSPs, optimization of where the data is stored on the UMD or, more likely, some combination of both. This means moving things around is far less clunky, even if the combat itself is still a little rigid. The range of special rooms, a key component to fighting whatever boss monster is asked for on that floor, is greater now, as are the basic rules in place for summoning elemental creatures or even shifting the balance of the whole floor toward an element.
Development is restricted by the castle overseeing the town, so you can't dig too deep too quickly (there be Balrogs, don'cha know), but there's plenty to do in between crafting homes for boss creatures to move on to the next floor. Things like allowing spoils dropped to upgrade armor or get added to a root that can be attached to any weapon are all nice, as is the ability to carry two weapons at once and use the shoulder buttons for quick access to common commands or orders). In short, the game gives you multiple things to do, even if none of them are actually moving you closer to the end goal, which is building an attractive boss room and taking them down on the way to Revenger.
It shows a keen eye toward fixing some of the nagging problems in the first game, and even without some major changes to things, Dungeon Maker II is a far better game. It's just not an entirely pretty or aurally pleasing one.
Most of that falls on the game's limited use of music tracks, none of which are actually all that catchy, basic sound effects and lack of any voice acting. It's entirely possible to play the whole game muted and not miss much, though I'm not flat-out suggesting you have to do it. The visuals are a little better, but it's here that, again, I feel a little more accomplished developer could have made things more immersive.
The monster designs, animations for them (and your main character/genju) and basic level of detail are all incredibly basic. With a tile-based setup to things, I honestly hoped there'd be a little more in the way of detail and variety, but alas it was not to be. Two other things, one good and one laughably bad: the character portraits actually have quite a bit of detail and personality (your protégé's cute little picture of her jotting down your semi-daily lessons with her tongue stuck out in concentration is adorable), but the opening CG intro is seriously bad enough to have been lifted from the PSone era.
©2008-12-16, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved