Quest of Dungeons Review

Quest of Dungeons

Release: September 29, 2016
Publisher: Upfall Studios
Developer: Upfall Studios
Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie, Nintendo 3DS Reviews, Role-playing
PEGI: 10+
Comments:

 

Comment

You decide you want to a wizard and your buddies tell you to go alone into a dungeon. Haven’t they ever heard thats its “dangerous to go alone?” Oh well. You are a very brave wizard (perhaps a little foolish too). You go into the dungeon and right away, a big boss kills you. Next time, you say, I’ll be a Warrior. So, you become a warrior and again your buddies tell you to go alone. This time you last for awhile, but eventually you’re killed again. Welcome to Quest of Dungeons for the 3DS. Random dungeons and no save points are the order of the day! But, is Quest of Dungeons any fun?

Quest of Dungeons has a very simple story that introduces the game briefly and gets you into the dungeons. Could the story be better? Yes, I wish it was better. Could the story be worse? Absolutely. Though, story isn’t Quest of Dungeons real focus. The dungeons in the game, of course, are where the game gets interesting.

When you enter a dungeon in this game, you never know what you’ll find. Perhaps you’ll find a really powerful item to equip or a boss that’ll kill you right away. The random dungeon concept is neat, however there are a few things that hinder the game from being good or great.

I have been playing Quest of Dungeons on easy mode and I have been getting nowhere in this game. Sometimes I think I’m getting really far into the dungeon and then some big boss or a bunch of enemies kill me. I could take this loss, if the game actually had a save point that I could go back to. Unfortunately, there’s only a temporary save & quit with this game. If you die in Quest of Dungeons, even your temporary save goes away.

I think the developer was trying to create an arcade style experience with Quest of Dungeons, but it doesn’t work. The problem is that you can make a lot of progress in the dungeons in this game if you don’t let the enemy get the better of you. But since there’s no save, one little mistake can make you start over with a new dungeon! You lose all of the items you got and all of your quest progress. There is no sense of progression in this game! I can’t tell you that Quest of Dungeons is totally bad though. There are some good things to say about this game, especially when it comes to the game’s controls.

Quest of Dungeons has very good and easy to learn controls. Fighting is as simple as pressing the A button and the B button is used for extra powers. The in-game menu is on the bottom screen and you can use buttons or the touch screen to access it! The touch screen use is good here. I also like that there’s a map on the bottom screen. Quest of Dungeons can be a fun game in small doses, but having no save points and the hard difficulty make it impossible to recommend long plays with this game and thats absolutely what I wanted out of this game. Some people will really love Quest of Dungeons though. I think its just an ok game. The game’s graphics are another reason why I just find the game ok.

Quest of Dungeons has very old school, 8-bit like graphics. There’s nothing wrong with old school graphics and some people will really like how the game looks. However, I don’t feel that Quest of Dungeons is up to the standards of 3DS graphics. The game doesn’t even make use of 3D to add depth to the dungeons. Are these the worst graphics you’ll see on the 3DS? No, the graphics are not that bad. Its too bad they couldn’t have been better though.

I do like Quest of Dungeons soundtrack though. The music in this game is appropriately moody and the sound effects are nice and creepy. I doubt the soundtrack/sound effects would win any awards, but they really fit the game and I would say are the best part of the game. Quest of Dungeons, overall, is an ok game with a lot of potential. There is some fun to be had with the game, but only a little.

Dying over and over again in Quest of Dungeons leaves the game feeling repetitive if you play the game in large doses. This game can be fun if you play it every so often. However, I’m disappointed that you can’t save in this game. I think saving would have added to the replay value of this game a lot. I can imagine there being four different saves and wanting to actually have four saves so that I can check out four unique dungeons. And once I beat the dungeons, I would without a doubt go back and play the game more.

But with no saves and a hard difficulty, Quest of Dungeons seems very limited to small play times or to just wanting to avoid the game altogether. I also think that the game’s graphics could have been better, even if only 3D had been added. I do think this game has good controls and a good soundtrack, but none of this makes Quest of Dungeons a good game. If you need a pick up and play game, you could do worse than Quest of Dungeons. Although, if you are a master at dungeon crawling games, you may really love this game. I can’t give Quest of Dungeons a high recommendation, though I can’t give it a full miss either. If only you could rent eshop titles! I suppose each of you will have to decide whether you want to go alone into a deep dark random dungeon or look to another source for fun.

Thank you to Upfall Studios for providing a review copy of this game. Quest of Dungeons is now available on the Wii U and 3DS eshops.

Positives

• Random Dungeons
• Good controls
• Nice soundtrack

Negatives

• Bad Story
• No Saves
• Extreme Difficulty

Trailer