Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls in A Dungeon? Familia Myth Infinite Combate (Nintendo Switch) Review

For those who haven't experienced Is it Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (Known from this point on by the shortened Japanese name of 'Danmachi') the story is set in a classic fantasy universe, where gods have grown bored in their realm, and so descended to the human realm for some entertainment. These Gods set up 'Familias' for the humans; families or guilds that they grant power to, power they can use to delve into the titular dungeons. One of these labyrinthine dungeons in the city of Orario is the backdrop for this tale, where the Goddess Hestia supports the only member of her familiar - a young boy named Bell Cranel; a lowly level one adventurer just beginning his first steps into dungeon exploration.

The game follows the story from these very first moments, and does soy fairly faithfully throughout. Though, in doing so, it does a disservice to the source material. Bland and without any impact, totally ruining the big moments of the story with shoddy CGs and poor timing. The gameplay itself is split between something of a visual novel playing out much of the story, along with a basic dungeon crawling experience. Sadly, both of these elements are hugely lacking. The visual novel parts feel like from a 10-year-old game, with no "quality of life" style improvements that have become commonplace in these, no way to skip or fast forward, with the most basic, static character designs.

Equally, having to navigate around multiple-choice menus to level up, buy and sell equipment, or even just speak with characters is clunky. This could mostly be forgivable if the dungeon crawling aspects were decent enough to redeem it. They're not. Not even close. The dungeon crawling is dull and ugly. The controls and combat look like a cheap mobile tie in that would use micro-transactions to unlock more chibi-fied characters to play as. Bell is barely even recognizable in his strange chibi form, as it waddles around the simple little areas, and the enemies could come from any other dungeon crawling game from the PSP.

The gameplay is just as messy as the presentation. The collection of pixels claiming to be Bell waddle slowly around indefensibly small maps, where basic monster sprites like Goblins and Minotaur pop up, and slowly shamble at Bell before letting off some absurdly slow attacks. The problem is, for 99% of these enemies, a few quick attacks then a step back, and repeat, will destroy everything. There's no challenge at all, and as the levels increase, the only extra challenge is surviving the boredom of the repetitive hit, hit, hit, step back, hit, hit, hit, repeat ad nauseam.

There is more than the normal hit to utilise, yet there's just no real need to do so. There's a strong attack which does double the damage or so, but leaves Bell vulnerable. There are special attacks, and later on more abilities are unlocked, including party members who are displayed as just little portraits with bars that fill to be able to unleash a special move. There are moments where the difficulty suddenly spikes for a boss encounter, having to memorise attack patterns and dash in when there's an opening to land a few hits and again repeat, but mostly these are again tests of patience.

Atop this, there's a levelling system, along with equipment to buy and enhance, magic to unlock, even a second player to play as. The story of Danmachi is not just Bell's. As he explores the dungeon he delves too deep, and finds himself face to face with a foe far beyond him; a walking death sentence, until a high-level adventurer known as the Sword Princess Ais Wallenstein arrives. As the game progresses, the story plays out from her point of view too, giving a chance to play as a higher level character, with a larger Familia, and team of characters to utilise in support.

If only it made things better. It does not. Only in the final chapters does any of the dungeon crawling gameplay actually improve, and then it's too little, too late. For those that struggle through and finish the main story - which is the worst adaptation of this story by far - there is some post-game material that tries to cover the "Picking up Girls" aspect of the story. Giving Bell something of a harem style story, with unlockable scenes that are not worth playing through the post-game for, nevermind the full thing.