Not liking a cute puzzler like Dandy Dungeon: Legend Of Brave Yamada is a bit like looking at a pet with chilly indifference. Puppies are nice, conceptually. There is not any different approach to purchase unconditional love. But puppies are flawed. Liking them means trying previous their annoyances, discovering their embarrassments endearing, and placing in a variety of exhausting work.
I discover DD’s dungeons extra dreary than dandy, however maybe they’re constructed for individuals with extra persistence. Or at the least individuals who just like the jokes extra.
Meet Yamada-kun, a person of irrepressible enthusiasm and eccentric life selections. He spends all day programming in his pants, coding a game with himself as its hero. You play Yamada’s game as he builds it, step by step including ranges, complexity, and faff. The plot progresses as you degree up Yamada’s improvement abilities, typically by operating by outdated dungeons. It’s not lengthy earlier than you’re fired out of your job at an evil and colossal video game studio, and instantly they set about stealing your work.
It’s neat framing, and never with out allure. I like how Yamada’s garments disintegrate as he transitions from heroic videogame Yamada into lonely bed room Yamada, who’s pining after the subsequent door neighbour he’s fallen in love with. He has additionally, considerably creepily, programmed her into his game as a Mario-esque princess in misery. That’s performed as satire, with Yamada convincing himself that the trail to his neighbour’s coronary heart lies in defeating faux monsters as he invents them. The display screen will get swamped in flowers each time she pops by. It’s an entire factor, and comes throughout as foolish and self-aware, somewhat than as abuse of a trope.
I couldn’t bear to say this to his face, however Yamada’s game is a lot worse than it might be. You traipse by small dungeons, break up up into ranges that every take lower than a minute. The purpose is to attract a path from begin to end, bashing down monsters whereas popping well being potions and spells. You get a bonus if you happen to handle to stroll over each tile, which is sophisticated by how they fall away when you tread on them. Figuring out how to do that kinds the brunt of the game. Maybe 90% of my brainpower went into plotting out good routes, ignoring the monsters and specializing in the actual constraints: partitions.
That’s the large downside. The monsters ought to matter, however they don’t. You’re purported to manoeuvre round their capabilities, avoiding ranged assaults, prioritising completely different threats. For essentially the most half, although, I merely didn’t must. I survived by utilizing objects, timing well being potions round health-granting mid-stage degree ups, and popping the odd magic scroll after I wanted to. This doesn’t demand a lot thought. It’s dangerous at making you are feeling intelligent, and if a puzzle game doesn’t make me really feel intelligent after I succeed (or at the least silly after I don’t), then it has failed as a puzzle game.
There is a possible model of this that works. One that isn’t structured round these good routes by every degree, and as an alternative calls for you take note of their occupants. It wouldn’t even want any new concepts! There are already enemies that assault from afar, enemies that summon buddies, enemies that heal or, um, oil their mates. They might be woven into an intricate net that it’s worthwhile to fastidiously choose your well past, somewhat than a cobweb you may storm by.
Yamada additionally has entry to a spread of talents, gained by equipping objects between runs, however they principally really feel as redundant because the monsters. And as frustratingly near working. I can placed on a chef’s outfit and get a knockback assault, for instance, and it’s crying out for me to assemble paths round its use, letting me kick powerful enemies into the void. But there’s merely no want. I’d prefer to see each degree by the lens of talents like that, as I might with Into The Breach or Desktop Dungeons, however I’m six hours in to DD and it’s but to occur.
If DD compelled me ahead, giving me new threats to reckon with every time I cleared a dungeon, I might nonetheless discover it repetitive. The incontrovertible fact that I actually need to repeat outdated ranges makes me need to tear my hair out. The grind comes baked in: not solely do it’s worthwhile to repeat outdated dungeons to unlock new ones, there are additionally recurring mini-bosses with highly effective objects you’ll need. Those are on the finish of notably lengthy dungeons, and solely have an opportunity of dropping mentioned objects. If you’re unfortunate within the digital coin toss, you’re in for but extra repetition. They don’t care about your time. It’s infuriating.
This all sucks, as a result of that unsatisfying core is wrapped up in offbeat, typically stunning presentation. You by no means see exterior of Yamada’s house, for instance, however he will get a cavalcade of tourists. There are bosses from the evil and colossal video game studio that fires you initially of the game, who even have their very own evil tune, sung to the tune of Frère Jacques. Your mum posts you bonus ranges, by some means. I as soon as opened the door to a pig.
It’s amusing, but in addition counter-intuitively tame. There’s an inclination to lean on repeated codecs, propping up jokes with formulation that give diminishing returns. I chuckled the primary time Yamada flat out ignored a ravenous adventurer who’d simply given him a brand new improvement concept, smiled the second time, and was nonplussed by the third.
Ultimately, even when extra of the jokes had landed, they wouldn’t have been sufficient to hold the game they’re crushed underneath. I’m conscious that repetition in games will get rubbed in by taking part in lengthy stints for evaluation. Perhaps all of it would have been much less tiresome if I’d skilled it within the small bursts the unique cellular model of DD was designed for. But repetition generally isn’t good game design. It must be spiced up with novelty or thought, and the precise dungeons of Dandy Dungeon don’t pack sufficient of both.
It’s bought coronary heart, that pet, nevertheless it wants extra brains.
