Quest of Dungeons (Nintendo 3DS) Review

Quest of Dungeons starts by letting you pick a character from all the standard fantasy archetypes. A knight can be used to destroy enemies in your path, while the mage and shaman allows tackling the dungeons with magic spells. Regardless of who gets picked, the differences are minimal. The assassin, for example, can take down enemies who are further away, but at the end of the day, that doesn't make the experience any different.

The game's story, if it can be called that, doesn't take itself too seriously, which is always nice to hear in a genre that seems to be beaten to death. The main character's comrades are fairly self-serving, but you venture into the depths anyway. From here on, Quest of Dungeons commits what really is its only major sin. There's nothing wrong with the game per se, but there's nothing inventive either. It is exactly what you'd expect, from beginning to end.

Procedural generation has become more of a buzz term than anything, as often it means the levels are more random then procedural, and fortunately here, it truly is procedural. There are clearly rules set in place to make sure the environment follows certain constraints, and this attention to detail alone makes the dungeons feel vast but manageable. After so many iterations, Quest for Dungeons doesn't add anything deep and meaningful to the formula, but it executes it correctly where some games simply let it fall to the wayside.

Another prime example of the way this adheres to the formula is the bosses. Regular enemies are fairly easy, and the decision to make the combat and movement turn-based was very smart. Knowing that even movement outside of battle matters to how enemies reach you builds a lot of tension. Bosses, though, raise the stakes to nearly insane levels. They are juggernauts, not content with being harder versions of regular enemies, but instead being ridiculously overpowered enemies. It feels like how a boss should be in this kind of game, and anything short of perfect planning leads to almost instant death.

Therefore, the greatest sin really is that Quest of Dungeons doesn't try to be different enough. While things like turn-based movement and a sense of self-awareness mix the formula up a little bit, there's just nothing to say you should play this over anything else. However, fans of the dungeon crawlers should definitely try this out, because it nails down the experience so fluidly.

What it lacks in innovation, it makes up for in doing everything right. The thing with dungeon crawlers is that they shouldn't be easy, and Quest of Dungeons delivers that well without asking gamers to give up fun. Every victory feels like an accomplishment, and for that alone, this deserves praise. Toss in some interesting fetch quests and assassination missions that seem to fly right by, and you have a worthy member of an otherwise crowded genre.