Dungeon Travelers 2 (PS Vita)

Dungeon Travellers 2 is a dungeon crawler RPG from Sting entertainment published in the EU by NIS America on October 16th. A sequel by the name of Dungeon Travellers 2-2 has been announced for 2016 in Japan.

Dungeon Travellers 2 sees you take the role of a highly gifted young man who has a love for monsterology & research as well as the extraordinary gift of been a Libra and a member of the royal library, a high ranking organization dedicated to the elimination and quelling of monster numbers in the kingdom of Romulea. As awesome as this makes you sound you basically stand around doing very little and bark orders at women who fight on your behalf which seems to be a recurring feature in dungeon crawlers I have played as of late.

While your character doesn’t do all that much in terms of helping you in battle, he does play the role of commander giving orders to his knights to combat the monsters from the land and seal them away so they cant re spawn. Not as it makes much of a difference to the game play however as the game itself points out numerous times in its repeated attempts to break through the 4th wall, this mostly seems to be an attempt to add humour to the title and while its not bad it can seem a little forced or repetitive at times.

This is all done in the visual novel style that has quickly become the norm for most RPGs in recent years offering up the occasional still image (usually of half naked women) however this has been censored somewhat compared to the Japanese release but still offers a fair amount of fan service. From what I played the main story seems well written at least but sadly the cut away and side segments are a little less so, but the lighthearted nature of these scenes mostly blends well into the main story without being too distracting. With a fairly interesting story and imagery its quite easy to get lost in for a hour or two before you even realise it.

Sadly this praise of the style does not extend to the first person view when traversing dungeons because while the dungeons themselves are in fact relatively well designed sadly the battle screen and menus seem overly basic and not in line with the rest of the game or enemies that despite being monsters look more like innocent young girls or fruit.

Progression and battles are pretty straightforward as you are given a mission to which you embark to the dungeon required, and make your way around the self drawing map. As you traverse the dungeon you may encounter a trap, a locked door, maybe a treasure or two or even a raman selling bear but honestly its all very straight forward and should be a breeze for anyone new to this series or dungeon crawlers generally. The real threat with this title comes in the form of battle that from the off can prove quite challenging, often going like a light switch swinging back and forth between a brisk stroll in the park to the 9 circles of hell. On a few occasions I found myself tearing through a zone with little issue only to have my healer one hit KO’d by a single spell damaging for 3x her max HP. While it can be disheartening and honestly a little cruel at time grinding a couple of levels or  foraging for equipment can quickly even the field again.

Powering up or strengthening your party  in this title comes in many forms from equipment and level ups to spending skill points and advanced job classes leading to a great deal of customization, allowing for multiple play styles. One such method is the use of seal books that require you to use the multiple opponents you seal on your adventure and turn them into a item that can do almost anything including stat boost to changing the encounter rate.

My final notes on this title would be that despite the difficulty spikes this game is quite well done and offers a lot of options to the player to aid progress and improve. While I would have liked to have seen the menus be more polished, they are not the worst and are very simple to use, the rest of the title seems to be up to a much better standard which makes the menus feel like a bit of an afterthought. The story left me wondering what is to come but however the attempted humour and destruction of the 4th wall can feel a little forced at time and a appears more often than is needed. I would recommend this title to most dungeon crawler fans if for you fan service isn’t a issue this game will likely appeal to you too.

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OGUKJay

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