austin

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jel
@jel

It's the last day of 2023 and it's time to name my game of the year:

Dungeon Encounters

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"But Jel," you might be thinking, "Dungeon Encounters came out in 2021. You also pulled this exact same stunt last year. How can it be your game of the year in 2023?"

I don't care, I'll talk about Dungeon Encounters whenever I want. It's great and here's why:

It's completely broken, on purpose

You may have heard stories about how early in the game, there is an enemy that can steal your gold. Not just some of your gold, not just ALL of your gold, but leaving you with a negative gold balance that seems insurmountable at the time. Dungeon Enounters regularly hits you with busted, soul crushing mechanics that make you wonder if you should start a new game. And yet, without fail, you keep playing and slowly realize that they also give you the tools you need to overcome whatever wild problem they just threw at you. I can't think of any game experience quite like it.

An elegant, satisfying battle system

Dungeon Encounters is a project from legendary game designer Hiroyuki Ito, who is best known for his work on the good Final Fantasy games (go ahead and look up which ones, then FIGHT ME). This becomes very apparent in the simple but extremely effective combat. Basically, your equipment makes you choose order or chaos - do you use a fixed damage weapon that will guarantee you kill a monster in two turns, or do you use the weapon that can do literally any amount of damage between 0 and 10,000 in the hopes that you can kill it in one? This concept and a few other mechanical twists make for one of the best turn based battle systems I've experienced in a long time.
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It looks like you're playing an Excel spreadsheet

This is not a game trying to be a movie. There are no graphics or cut scenes or voice lines asking you to suspend your disbelief. The fat has been trimmed, and all that remains are some nice crunchy numbers and your imagination. Dungeon Encounters does give you a fascinating little blurb about each playable character as a prompt, and your brain can fill in the rest. I'm not saying every game should be like this, I'm just saying this game does it and it's great.

It's full of remixed public domain music

Do you want to hear a butt rock remix of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkryies" that sounds like it's being played on one, solitary, synthesized guitar? Do you want to hear it looped for hours on end? It's a lot to swallow, but after awhile it was just adding to the low budget charm of this game.
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There is a giant cat named Sir Cat

He gets a special weapon that allows him to eat enemies. No damage or anything, he just eats them and they're dead. I love him.

In conclusion...

The last time I played Dungeon Encounters, I was exploring around post credits and died fighting a black hole and a super computer. They were so far beyond my power level that I had zero chance of harming them, and I decided that would be the appropriate time to quit forever, fully satisfied. I don't want to sound like I'm gatekeeping, but I do wonder if your average person who hasn't had their brain saturated with decades of janky JRPG's would "get" Dungeon Encounters. It's possible you might need that context to appreciate the seemingly unfair and broken parts of this game are intentional and well crafted. If you are in that category, please check it out.

(My actual favorite game of 2023 was Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society which has one of the best stories I've experienced in a video game. Unfortunately, I'm too busy and tired to give it the review it deserves. I'll also shout out the first major arc of Honkai Star Rail which ends with the best boss fight I've played in years. I know gacha is bad, but that game is pretty good.)


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in reply to @jel's post:

Ideally yeah, I would like to see the systems evolved. But I also wouldn’t mind just getting another big dungeon to explore. Either way like you said, the game is pretty perfect as is.

I appreciate the story has been good and you can just drop in for that whenever you want, but they also have the “hard” content for the sickos who really want to dive into the mechanics. Not a lot of ongoing games manage to do both.

Yeah I fell off Star Rail earlier this year which is fine because, heh, the backlog is big. But I still have it installed and am honestly hoping it manages to hook me again because it's a really fun game.

I really appreciate this approach to it, and the fact that they’re supporting it by allowing times events to live forever in that “Conventional Memories” section (just without the limited time rewards). So you get all the side story content even if you’ve stepped away for a few months.

There’s other little things like the recent change to weekly missions instead of daily that are easing the pressure to login everyday, that’s kind of unprecedented for this kind of game.