I will never, ever forgive Valve for robbing us of Dungeon Travelers 3 by banning the DT 2 and 2-2 ports from steam for mild ecchi art while allowing Sex Fuck Donkey Cumspurt 3: Hitler Cock on the front page

HELLO... i have a loose design for a game in mind and i think the first-person dungeon crawling viewpoint might work well for it, so i'm interested in seeing different ways it's been done... does anyone have suggestions for small / cool / unique takes on DRPGs to check out? i've played a couple Etrian Odyssey games but not much else ~

If the sequel to Dungeon Travelers 2-2 isn’t called Dungeon Travelers 2-2-2 I cannot emphasize enough how furious and disappointed I will be

Here’re some things I’ve enjoyed or liked the idea of while playing the game:

• Bashing down walls is such an inspired idea to put in a dungeon crawler. I really hope there is or will be another game to do this! It’s just such an interesting idea which essentially builds off that very dungeon crawler-y activity of figuring out where hidden doors are in a dungeon.
• Management sim in my dungeon crawler: I like this in principle but I’m simply not in the right place intellectually to engage with this level of party management.
• Cool actions like hiding from enemies is a fun idea.
• Appealing art in places. Very rich detail and colour. But sadly I’m not too into all the designs and I’ll talk about them in the negatives too. The human character designs are really great though I think.

Here’re some of the negative things:

• Violence against children isn’t my idea of an ingratiating characteristic for a main protagonist. Additionally, the simpering innocence of the child character makes the whole thing seem like it’s played for laughs, which, personally, I’m not into. Maybe when I was younger and edge-y-er I would have found it more humorous.
• The monster designs kind of make me feel queasy - in fact the whole game makes me feel a bit gross. I can’t exactly pinpoint why. Maybe the narcissism of the witch character (I know there’s more to her story down the line). It’s just kind gross lol in a sort of greasy way.
• scrub enemies litter the dungeons which seem to demand nothing from the intricate party composition the game asks for. It’s literally mashing A.
• the magic and skills system is not for me. It’s linked to pacts - which determine the skills of the character you link to that pact. It’s an interesting and experimental design choice which I commend but simply didn’t enjoy that much.
• I’m not entirely sure how role playing comes into this game. I’m a book. Cool, I can get into that. I control a party of puppets. Yep, I can imagine puppets have characters too - it’s kind of cute. But wait, there’re 7, 10, 12, supposedly up to 40 characters in my party. I know they don’t act individually (which is all really clever) but I can’t quite get my head around it. I’m not that intelligent, I guess. But to me, these covens just become a stack of stats rather than an actual party of characters.

Which kind of speaks to the game as a whole. It’s really experimental, which I love in principle, however the game both confounded me while at the same time making my skin crawl.

I would recommend the game if you’re really into micromanaging rpg parties and have a strong stomach for dark characters and stories.