Look, I'm playing a dungeon crawler, how unusual!
The original Dungeon Travelers was a spin-off of To Heart 2, an erotic visual novel, and never reached western shores. Atlus decided to publish DT2 in the US without pulling a Final Fantasy, also including a small extra with the first edition; unfortunately said extra, a small calendar, featured heavily rescaled images due to the US' oversensitivity to cleavages and risqu?e point of views, and I feared that the game would be censored as well.
And it's not.
From what I've seen, at least. I can't do a direct comparison between US and Japanese versions, but for some reason the game didn't suffer as much as the calendar.
Anyway, in DT2 you play as Fried, a newly appointed Libra. Libras can seal monsters but cannot fight, so they form suppression parties with those able to. On your first assignment you team up with Melvy and Alisia, old schoolmates. Alisia's a Fighter and Melvy's a mage (or Magic User, as the game insists). Monsters are either sentient fruits (like Cherry Boys, Banangos, or Green Applers) or monster musume. For uninitiated, it means monster like slimes, harpies, Frankestein monsters, and so on, represented as cute (most of the times barely dressed) girls.
As you progress thorough the story, more girls join your team, each belonging to a different class. So far I've met a Spieler, a Maid, and a Scout. You cannot change a character's class unless you want to promote them to a higher class, and it's some time before your party gets up to five members. So far the worst thing about DT2 has been the lack of customisation at party level, and how forced it feels in class choice.
On the other hand, classes have great variety: while Fighters and Magic Users are straightforward, Spielers and Maids are not; Spielers are agile, self-sufficient front-line fighters able to heal on their own; Maids can cure allies, restore their TPs (used for special actions), and inflict various status debuffs without spending TPs; instead, the effectivness of their abilities is determined by the level of the "Maid Profession" stat and that they can't act outside battles.
At each level up characters gain one skill point that can be assigned to any of the various skills; higher the skill level, higher the cost is, so some levels might result in a simple stat increase rather than in new or improved skills.
So far, the party forced on you has been rather capable, with a rather standard spread of tank, DPS, and magic users. The Maid doesn't strike as hard as other classes and can't heal as good as the Magic User, so she has been on item duty mostly.
During battles, party and enemies act based on their speed, with some actions taking effect immediately (like defend or normal attacks) and others taking more time (like casting spells). The order is on the right side of the screen, and you can bring up additional info directly over the monsters' heads to better formulate a battle plan. As usual with these games, there are four elements and different attack types (bash, slash, pierce) and every monster has its own weaknesses. Each enemy class also has its own strength, and you'll quickly learn which one to prioritise, also based on available characters before the monster's turn.
It's a nice system that requires some thought, although boss battles so far haven't gone past the usual buff/heal/use-best-attack-possible routine; DT2 still lacks the depth and enemy characterisation that the Etrian Odyssey series has, but it's far more engaging than Ray Gigant.
There are a few problems though: like your party, enemies can spawn in two rows, but the game doesn't clearly distinguish between the two; you don't know how a delayed an action can be; damage, for both sides, seem to have a rather huge random component; within a dungeon, there are only an handful of enemy types, and it's easy to get bored. So far these flaws haven't been crippling, but the first ones could have been corrected without too much effort.
Same goes for menu navigation, way too many submenus that can be reached in just one way; thankfully loading times are nonexistend and it's not as terrible as other games (like the first Class of Heroes, or Mana Khemia on the PS2), but certainly the UI could have used more refinement...like the item shop resetting the chosen category every time you sell an item; still on items, splitting healing items from random monster drops would have uncluttered menus a lot.
DT2 also features some mechanics that are never fully explained, like a character's mood. At first I though that portraits during battles reflected a character's status (like heavily hurt, poisoned, and so on), but in truth it indicates the mood, and the mood actively influences to-hit and dodge chances. The game features some 4th-wall breaking skits between a penguin and a bear to explain some mechanics, but those explanations usually come in late or are unnecessary (did you know that you could sell items to get money?); same goes for the Secret Classroom, a spoof on Persona's Velvet room, where a maid will explain other mechanics. I'd say that DT2's biggest problem is that it's not entirely clear on its system, and some aspect are left unexplained for no good reason.
The game also has a lot of random events, like merchants: from time to time the party will encounter a human merchant selling items, a bear selling ramen, or a penguin selling ice cream. All three can or cannot be in the dungeon you're exploring, and all of them move around; there's no indication on the map, or no representation in the dungeon itself, you move around and might be greeted by one these sellers. The bear and and the penguin sell food to remove status effects, restore HPs and TPs, or cure a character's mood. And it's thanks to them that I've learned about moods, but no one took the time to explain how this influences a character.
I won't say it's a mess, but again, more clarity would have been appreaciated.
Strangely enough, graphics have a lot of down points. The girls joining your party are lovely, as are the various illustrations, but portraits of the various monster musume greatly vary in quality. Your character's portrait isn't as good looking as the girls, too. Dungeons offer a good graphical variety between them, but only a token number of tiles and walls within a set. Again, the interface is barren, and more icons to represent different weapon types, for example, would have greatly improved it.
Almost every dialogue is voiced, and BGMs are a rather wild mix of genres. Voices are on the cutesy side, so might end up hating some of them (hello, Alisia); taking a page from visual novels, you can mute voices independently.
Despite all of that...I'm enjoying DT2. I must confess that part of the enjoyment is derived from the lovely portraits the game has, but it's no slouch on the dungeoneering side either. Not as good or original as other titles, but not a complete waste of time.
The original Dungeon Travelers was a spin-off of To Heart 2, an erotic visual novel, and never reached western shores. Atlus decided to publish DT2 in the US without pulling a Final Fantasy, also including a small extra with the first edition; unfortunately said extra, a small calendar, featured heavily rescaled images due to the US' oversensitivity to cleavages and risqu?e point of views, and I feared that the game would be censored as well.
And it's not.
From what I've seen, at least. I can't do a direct comparison between US and Japanese versions, but for some reason the game didn't suffer as much as the calendar.
Anyway, in DT2 you play as Fried, a newly appointed Libra. Libras can seal monsters but cannot fight, so they form suppression parties with those able to. On your first assignment you team up with Melvy and Alisia, old schoolmates. Alisia's a Fighter and Melvy's a mage (or Magic User, as the game insists). Monsters are either sentient fruits (like Cherry Boys, Banangos, or Green Applers) or monster musume. For uninitiated, it means monster like slimes, harpies, Frankestein monsters, and so on, represented as cute (most of the times barely dressed) girls.
As you progress thorough the story, more girls join your team, each belonging to a different class. So far I've met a Spieler, a Maid, and a Scout. You cannot change a character's class unless you want to promote them to a higher class, and it's some time before your party gets up to five members. So far the worst thing about DT2 has been the lack of customisation at party level, and how forced it feels in class choice.
On the other hand, classes have great variety: while Fighters and Magic Users are straightforward, Spielers and Maids are not; Spielers are agile, self-sufficient front-line fighters able to heal on their own; Maids can cure allies, restore their TPs (used for special actions), and inflict various status debuffs without spending TPs; instead, the effectivness of their abilities is determined by the level of the "Maid Profession" stat and that they can't act outside battles.
At each level up characters gain one skill point that can be assigned to any of the various skills; higher the skill level, higher the cost is, so some levels might result in a simple stat increase rather than in new or improved skills.
So far, the party forced on you has been rather capable, with a rather standard spread of tank, DPS, and magic users. The Maid doesn't strike as hard as other classes and can't heal as good as the Magic User, so she has been on item duty mostly.
During battles, party and enemies act based on their speed, with some actions taking effect immediately (like defend or normal attacks) and others taking more time (like casting spells). The order is on the right side of the screen, and you can bring up additional info directly over the monsters' heads to better formulate a battle plan. As usual with these games, there are four elements and different attack types (bash, slash, pierce) and every monster has its own weaknesses. Each enemy class also has its own strength, and you'll quickly learn which one to prioritise, also based on available characters before the monster's turn.
It's a nice system that requires some thought, although boss battles so far haven't gone past the usual buff/heal/use-best-attack-possible routine; DT2 still lacks the depth and enemy characterisation that the Etrian Odyssey series has, but it's far more engaging than Ray Gigant.
There are a few problems though: like your party, enemies can spawn in two rows, but the game doesn't clearly distinguish between the two; you don't know how a delayed an action can be; damage, for both sides, seem to have a rather huge random component; within a dungeon, there are only an handful of enemy types, and it's easy to get bored. So far these flaws haven't been crippling, but the first ones could have been corrected without too much effort.
Same goes for menu navigation, way too many submenus that can be reached in just one way; thankfully loading times are nonexistend and it's not as terrible as other games (like the first Class of Heroes, or Mana Khemia on the PS2), but certainly the UI could have used more refinement...like the item shop resetting the chosen category every time you sell an item; still on items, splitting healing items from random monster drops would have uncluttered menus a lot.
DT2 also features some mechanics that are never fully explained, like a character's mood. At first I though that portraits during battles reflected a character's status (like heavily hurt, poisoned, and so on), but in truth it indicates the mood, and the mood actively influences to-hit and dodge chances. The game features some 4th-wall breaking skits between a penguin and a bear to explain some mechanics, but those explanations usually come in late or are unnecessary (did you know that you could sell items to get money?); same goes for the Secret Classroom, a spoof on Persona's Velvet room, where a maid will explain other mechanics. I'd say that DT2's biggest problem is that it's not entirely clear on its system, and some aspect are left unexplained for no good reason.
The game also has a lot of random events, like merchants: from time to time the party will encounter a human merchant selling items, a bear selling ramen, or a penguin selling ice cream. All three can or cannot be in the dungeon you're exploring, and all of them move around; there's no indication on the map, or no representation in the dungeon itself, you move around and might be greeted by one these sellers. The bear and and the penguin sell food to remove status effects, restore HPs and TPs, or cure a character's mood. And it's thanks to them that I've learned about moods, but no one took the time to explain how this influences a character.
I won't say it's a mess, but again, more clarity would have been appreaciated.
Strangely enough, graphics have a lot of down points. The girls joining your party are lovely, as are the various illustrations, but portraits of the various monster musume greatly vary in quality. Your character's portrait isn't as good looking as the girls, too. Dungeons offer a good graphical variety between them, but only a token number of tiles and walls within a set. Again, the interface is barren, and more icons to represent different weapon types, for example, would have greatly improved it.
Almost every dialogue is voiced, and BGMs are a rather wild mix of genres. Voices are on the cutesy side, so might end up hating some of them (hello, Alisia); taking a page from visual novels, you can mute voices independently.
Despite all of that...I'm enjoying DT2. I must confess that part of the enjoyment is derived from the lovely portraits the game has, but it's no slouch on the dungeoneering side either. Not as good or original as other titles, but not a complete waste of time.
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