Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon: Nice little crawly treat

 

 

 

Let’s start with a double disclaimer, dear fellow gamers: first, I’ll spare us that game's full title; and secondly, that same game will be referred to as ‘DanMachi’ from now on, because even its acronym would be too darn long. With that said, let’s talk about DanMachi, shall we? 

 

I actually have to insert a third disclaimer here: until I was halfway into DanMachi, I didn’t know it was part of wider franchise. Based on its title alone, I thought DanMachi would be a VN with bits of dungeon crawling and dating sim elements; and it turned out to be a dungeon crawler with chunks of story in-between dungeons and a dating feature as a postgame treat. That sounds close enough to my expectations; and yet, it’s actually quite far from them. For once, I expected the dating element to be part and parcel of the main game; for another, I expected the story to be self-sufficient. Alas, it’s not: not only is it very poorly told, but it blatantly assumes that the reader is already familiar with the DanMachi lore. This is a tie-in game through and through, made for — and by — DanMachi aficionados. 

 

Now, was I disappointed by that turn of events? Not in the slightest, dear fellow gamers. A VN with bits of crawling would have been fine, but a dungeon crawler with bits of story is even finer. And heck, that’s some mighty fine dungeon crawling we have here, with stellar ARPG physics, loot by the truckload and convenient stat customization. That being said, I’m not gonna lie: this is totally Baby’s first ARPG. Tiny dungeons, few pieces of gear, limited customization and a whopping two skills per character: this is the bare minimum as far as the genre goes, and it might be seen as a complete rip-off or as a refreshing return to basics. Being the complete ARPG whore I am, I obviously went for the latter; and greatly enjoyed the 10-or-so hours I spent slicing stuff in DanMachi’s dungeons. 

 

All in all, DanMachi was a nice surprise. It wasn’t what I expected, but it turned out to be something just as good, if not better. It provided me with a nice variety of dungeon missions, while remaining short enough not to tire me; I’ll definitely get back to it when I want to indulge in a short 'n' sweet hack’n’slashy dungeon crawler. I’ll see you soon with my next Game of The Week, dear fellow gamers; in the meantime, keep playing and take care!