I’ve been enjoying first-person dungeon crawlers since AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin on the Intellivision. The style has definitely expanded since then, however Dragon Ruins II takes me proper again to 1983. The truth is, it could even be extra fundamental than that 8-bit journey that bought me began.
As you’ve surmised from the title, Dragon Ruins II is the follow-up to Dragon Ruins, additionally launched by KEMCO only a few months in the past. Narratively, you don’t have to have performed that earlier than braving the dungeons of II. With regard to gameplay, nonetheless, I don’t assume you’ll need to go backwards.
It is because the gameplay and depth in Dragon Ruins II has been expanded for the reason that authentic, the place there wasn’t a variety of depth to start out with. That’s form of the purpose, in spite of everything. Whereas most video games of this kind require you dig deeply into the trivialities, Dragon Ruins is solely about selecting your celebration members, equipping them, and diving in.
This time round, you may choose from 21 courses to construct your celebration of 4. How nicely they work collectively and complement every others’ abilities is as much as you to seek out out. Contemplating potential mismatches and your lack of high quality tools at first, getting issues going is sort of tough. Fortunately, the loop is fast and straightforward to handle.
As you’d anticipate from a grid-based dungeon crawler, you discover the dungeons block by block, routinely drawing out the map as you go. You’ll discover tools and money as you progress, however you’ll additionally enter into fight towards unseen enemies. Nicely, unseen till they assault you. The differentiator right here from different dungeon crawlers is that you just don’t actively interact in fight, it simply occurs. You don’t heal or buff or defend, the assaults simply go on routinely till you win, escape, or die.
This will likely sound unfair or—worse—uninteresting, but it surely really creates a beautiful dynamic. All of the preparation is at first, and also you then simply make a mad tear by the dungeon. How far are you able to get this time? You possibly can maintain pushing till you die, however you then gained’t get to maintain every little thing you discovered. Higher to actively retreat to the beginning with at the least one celebration member lively so you may maintain onto your loot.
Again at base, you not solely get to degree up your celebration, you can even settle for aspect quests. Missions might be performed greater than as soon as, and also you’re typically rewarded for doing so. These provide you with a purpose to completely discover the maps, which might be fairly huge. It was uncommon that I ever accomplished a aspect quest in a single run, and by no means with the total missions. The loop asks you to only get a bit additional every time, get higher, and check out once more.
This implies Dragon Ruins II works higher for 10-minute gaming classes than it does for hour-long crawls. Truthfully, it’s constructed extra for cell gaming than for consoles, making it a stable match for the hand-held Swap.
That applies to the visuals, too, as they’re as stripped down because the gameplay. The unique Dragon Ruins took an nearly vector-like strategy to the dungeon show. Dragon Ruins II provides some depth, utilizing visuals that had me recalling video games on the Mac SE or the illustrations in my pals’ sketchbooks. Battle animations are relegated to vibrating thumbnails. In different phrases, not even the design interferes with the precise dungeon crawling. The dated graphics are prone to flip away some players, however having reduce my enamel on video games like this, I liked the way in which Dragon Ruins II appears. The straightforward, forlorn imagery completely compliments the sport’s strategy.
That mentioned, other than shading adjustments, it means visible monotony will set in. This may be a problem whenever you’re grinding for the much-needed gold.
Nonetheless, at solely $15 (appropriately priced for the ten to fifteen hour time to completion), Dragon Ruins II is a straightforward suggestion for these looking for a brand new grid-based dungeon crawler. It doesn’t recreate the expertise of an Etrian Odyssey or Labyrinth of Galleria, however does a beautiful job of carving its personal path by the deepest of dungeons.
