Is it Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? – INFINITE COMBATE Review
Initial release date: November 28, 2019
Developer: 株式会社MAGES.
Genre: Action role-playing game
Publishers: PQube, 株式会社MAGES.
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Vita
Links to Purchase
Nintendo Switch: https://amzn.to/3l7kzZm
"Review Copy Provided By PQube"
I’m going to be honest here, I’ve never watched DanMachi or Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon nor have I read the manga so going into this game I had no expectations good or bad. Anime/Manga that are converted to video games are often turn it terrible…..there’s no two ways to put it as rarely, and I mean RARELY are they ever good (with some notable exceptions being Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot and Samurai Jack A Battle Through Time) so typically my expectations are very low when I find out that there is going to be a new anime video game. Enter DanMachi which is a mix of a visual novel, dating simulator, and dungeon crawler all mixed into one with the question being can this effectively work or will it be another anime game dud? Let’s find out.
Story
Danmachi takes place in the city of Orario where gods come down to seeking excitement, limiting their divine powers to perceive and experience the hardships that thrives on the lower world. Offering mortals to fight monsters assorted in an underground labyrinth known as Dungeon Adventurers visit the dungeon to defeat monsters and take their crystal shards, which are used to craft magic items, among other treasures; however, they can also be exchanged for the world's currency. The people of Orario join groups called Familia who serve a range of functions from dungeon crawling to crafting items. Each Familia is named after and serves a resident deity. In a fashion similar to role playing games, the adventurers are grouped into levels, increasing their levels and abilities according to their achievements.
Gameplay
So there’s 2 styles of gameplay here; Visual Novel & Dungeon Crawling. The visual novel aspect of the game is very much by the book as the story only unfolds in these areas as it covers the events of the mangas. There really isn’t much for you to do in the visual novel section other than continuing the conversation and the rare occasion where you have the opportunity to select a dialogue choice.
You can do upgrades to your stats and equipment but that’s about it outside of the dungeons aside from the dating mechanics incorporated in the game which are neat if you’re into that kinda thing.
The second half of gameplay……. The dungeon crawling. It’s incredibly bare bones in every sense of the word with you doing nothing more than running from point A to B, get a key item, and killing a certain amount of enemies all of which wouldn’t be a bad thing if it wasn’t for the fact that when you attack you commit to the action and can’t move out of the way and with the fact that enemies don’t have many stun frames, you will end up getting them in one stun animation of which they will immediately come out of and start attacking you so the tactic you have to take is to attack them and then do your backflip out of the way; rinse and repeat.
You will control Bell, Aiz, and other characters and honestly, they all play the same with no differences at all other than cut in special attacks.
Moving around in dungeons is fine enough with no delay and you have your triple attack which has you stuck in the attack animation, a backflip, a dash, and that’s about it. With such limited gameplay it should be a lot better than what it is.
Graphics
This game’s graphics are 2 pronged in that you have the visual novel animated stills with voice overs sections and then the actual dungeon crawling sections which……look very simple to the point of looking like they were made in the PSOne era. The models are incredibly low poly with no texture details with dungeons looking incredibly barebones with again low poly textures.
The thing that gets me is why so little effort went into the games graphics especially when this is a series that is dearly loved by fans. You’d think more effort would be put into this game the way that Bandai Namco does with their anime games. It’s just incredibly disappointing that the game looks the way it does
Outside of the games terrible dungeon crawling graphics are the cutscene stills which look great but if you’ve played any other visual novel style game then you know what to expect with the presentation.
Audio
Yeah what audio aside from generic dungeon music and superb voice acting in Japanese? Moving on
Downsides
This game is only redeemed by its story as other than that this is not a good game and then you have to deal with the grammatical errors which are the same as the original Japanese release. There was really no effort into making this a good game let alone a good visual novel experience.
The Wrapup
The only reason I would recommend this game would be if you wanted to experience a good story but even in that I’d steer you towards the manga and anime and away from this game as it’s just not a good game. Terrible gameplay in the dungeon sections, numerous grammatical errors, terrible graphics, and occasional unresponsive controls have this sitting at being a game that is hard for me to recommend to anyone save for fans of the franchise as it’s not a game for those expecting to run into it for a normal dungeon crawling experience but if you’re willing to take a chance and want to experience a fun story then this’ll be a lot of fun for you as I did enjoy my time with it.
The Verdict
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