Etrian Mystery Dungeon

Another crossover for the Etrian series, this time with Mystery Dungeon's roguelike gameplay, though it may not be the best fit for a crossover - roguelikes are generally built as single-character romps, so having a full party accompanying you throughout feels a touch unwieldy.  Particularly as enemies will almost always target your weakest characters by preference (like your squishy mages and healers) and will power up on scoring a successful kill, proving a much greater threat to the rest of your party.  Your fighters and mages will generally attack of their own accord unless you choose to take all their turns manually, though that does significantly slow down the action, and of course having multiple characters around makes it much easier to trigger traps as you move about (though other characters will at least avoid them automatically once they're uncovered).  You do at least have the ability to swap between party members and assign skills to hotkeys with combinations of buttons, though it takes some adapting.  The formula does work fairly well once you adapt to it, though in all honestly I'd rather just play an Etrian or a proper roguelike instead of a strange hybrid of the two.  A sentiment seemingly echoed by many who played it, as it didn't sell well enough for Etrian Mystery Dungeon 2 to be brought outside of Japan.

Developer: Spike Chunsoft
Publisher: Atlus
Released: 2015
Platforms: Nintendo 3DS

The Nightmare of Druaga: Fushinigo Dungeon

Arika, Matrix Software and Chunsoft attempt to revive a classic Namco franchise whilst mixing in many trademarks of the Mystery Dungeon series to boot.  But does this prove to be a strong combination, or is this one PS2 RPG that was overlooked for good reason?

Druaga is one of Namco's earliest franchises, seeing a number of releases in arcades throughout most of the 80s, but despite it appearing on several Namco Museum compilations and even being referenced in a couple of other Namco-published games like Tales of Destiny and Baten Kaitos, not too many people still talk about it today.  Fewer people still talk about the attempt to revive the series on the Playstation 2, which saw overall low sales and little coverage from gaming magazines owing to its punishing difficulty.

It was a difficult game by design, though, in no small part because it was another offshoot of Chunsoft's Mystery Dungeon roguelike series.  To that end, it features many hallmarks of the genre - having to identify items before they become usable, a large number of status-inflicting enemies and traps on each floor to trip up the player, and of course, very unforgiving deaths which force the player to redo the entire dungeon and rob them of all of their items (save for a small handful they may have "engraved" beforehand in town, which doesn't come cheap).  In short, a large part of the game is not only knowing how to deal with hazards, but deciding whether it's worth the risk to press on or whether to make a prudent retreat in order to minimize risk, even if that comes at the cost of having to retread all of the dungeon thus far.

Naturally, being an ostensible sequel to the Druaga franchise, Nightmare works in some elements of those games as well.  The player can actually knock down walls by attacking them with their weapons, which can give them a shortcut to their destination or allow them to make a quick escape from enemies; however, this also depletes 5% of their maximum HP every time they do so, so it's best used only as a last resort.  A persistent mechanic is that the lighting in the dungeon will slowly weaken, eventually leaving the player completely in the dark, unless they periodically Offer an item to Ki to restore the light; the rarer the item, the longer the light will come back on for.  Dungeon floors, unlike most roguelikes, are not fully randomized, but do have the player and enemies start in a different position each time they re-enter.  Each floor also has two hidden chests to find - one silver, one gold - and they will only appear after meeting specific conditions, such as defeating a particular type of foe or collecting the door key without smashing any crates.  Each one is different (and the game rarely provides clues for what will make them appear), but as they often contain powerful equipment or just useful items, they're worth getting nonetheless.  Several iconic Druaga enemies appear as particularly dangerous hazards as well - Will-o-Wisps will explode and reduce the player's HP to 1, while Ropers tend to be high-leveled for the dungeons in which they appear and drain HP with each hit they land, making them very dangerous and difficult to kill alike.  Having a good supply of potions on hand, as well as throwing items to destroy dangerous enemies before they get a chance to attack you, is an essential part of the overall strategy.

Sidequests can occasionally grant you some extra gold and items, though they are somewhat strangely handled as well in that you must undertake them with a completely empty inventory.  Your level is also temporarily reset while on a quest and any experience earned is not carried over when you complete it, making them useless for gaining experience and powering through the game and more as a last-ditch way to build back up your gold and equipment after you get wiped out in the dungeon during the main quest.

Thrillseekers can also elect to take on Bonus Dungeons, which can be undertaken in any dungeon floor the player has already completed by approaching the exit and choosing to "break down the door".  This puts the player in a mirror of the next dungeon floor with far higher-leveled enemies and more dangerous traps (and no option to easily escape using a Feather), but the tradeoff is that they have a much higher chance of dropping rare and powerful items.  In essence, a high-risk, high-reward excursion.

Of course, like any good roguelike, Nightmare of Drauga has an in-depth item combining/crafting system as well.  This time it comes in the form of combining equipment of like type (weapon+weapon, helmet+helmet, etc), sacrificing one piece of gear to power up another.  This affixes a numbered modifier to the equipment as well as adding some of the sacrificed items' stats and attributes to the primary gear.  Once a particular piece of equipment reaches "+15" (having added other weapons' attributes to it at least fifteen times), the player acquires the ability to transfer over abilities as well.  Abilities come in the form of either attack skills (for weapons) or defensive abilities on armor such as making certain status effects less likely to affect the player.  But like any other equipment in the game, the player must take care to engrave them or retreat from a dungeon if they are in danger of dying, because they are just as much at risk of being lost forever as any other piece of equipment.

A more traditional crafting system also appears in the form of the Alchemy shop, letting the player combine leaves, roots and other items together to make potions.  There are two characters who do this for the player; Aziel is the cheaper option and will reliably produce useful items, while Sajia costs much more and has a high probability of creating something weak or even entirely wortheless; however, she also has a small chance to craft rare and powerful items that Aziel cannot create at all, so it may be worth taking a chance on her if you have the cash and items to spare.

Nightmare of Druaga is also wise to the fact that difficult games tend to invite savescumming to circumvent some of the challenge.  As a result, the game auto-saves each time the player transitions between screens, and if they reset the console without doing a hard save, the player will be greeted with a long and unskippable dialog scene upon loading that makes save scumming both annoying and inefficient.  One can also make temporary saves as they progress through a dungeon, but these are erased as soon as they are loaded from the memory card, preventing them from being abused as well.  One nice detail is that after creating a hard save, the player is disallowed from continuing the game right away; instead, they must either reset the console or power it down entirely and turn it back on to continue playing, a la several old RPGs from early computer platforms and the NES.

In conclusion, it's not hard to see why many console gamers and gaming journalists alike shunned Nightmare of Druaga; its punishing design, only passable aesthetics, somewhat slow gameplay and heavy emphasis on random elements is very unlike the Japanese-styled RPGs that were the hallmark of home consoles at that point, and it didn't even play a whole lot like the Druaga series it was allegedly a followup to.  Regardless, it is a very competently-made title, capturing the feel of an old-school roguelike to a T, even its more detrimental elements. Certainly not a game for everyone, but those looking for a title with a lot of content and some steep old-school challenge should definitely give this one a go.

Developer: Arika, Chunsoft, Matrix Software
Publisher: Arika, Namco
Platform: Playstation 2
Released: 2004
Recommended version: N/A

Chocobo's Dungeon 2

Released at the height of Square's popularity in the late 1990s, Chocobo's Dungeon is a Final Fantasy offshoot that combines a cute and colorful visual style with the hefty challenge of roguelike gameplay.  But does it prove to be a competent adventure, or does this spinoff title just tarnish the name of Final Fantasy?

Chocobo's Dungeon 2 is sort of an odd man out in Square's late-90s lineup.  While the other games had taken on a darker tone and more modern fantasy settings, it retained a more fantasy-based world and characters and even still utilized 2D sprites a la their 16-bit titles.  Despite being touted as a Final Fantasy offshoot, it carries over only a few familiar elements of the series, with the gameplay primarily being that of a turn-based roguelike (in fact, it's actually an offshoot of Chunsoft's Mystery Dungeon series).  It also had the dubious distinction of being released as "Chocobo's Dungeon 2" despite the original never being released outside of Japan, which probably led to some confusion and contributed to the game's relatively low sales.

Probably also not aiding matters was the fact that the game was quite challenging despite its cute aesthetics, retaining many of the hallmarks of the roguelike genre.  Even early on, the game is pretty relentless with its difficulty, requiring the player to carefully manage their inventory, health and energy levels in order to survive.  Traps that weaken or disable the player are common, and enemies can actually kill other enemies in order to level up and drastically bolster their own power level, which can put them well beyond the player's current one.  Unidentified items (generally nuts and magic cards) are commonplace, with the only way to identify them being to use them and see what they do, which can prove hazardous to one's health.  Even then, though, the Cantrip and Spell books one finds always have random effects which can help or hinder the player, so gambling is as much a part of the experience as raw skill.  And of course, as per Roguelike standards, dying is very costly, robbing the player of all the items in their inventory and forcing them to redo the entire dungeon from the beginning.

Another thing that failed to win points with JRPG fans was the fact that most everything in the game was not a permanent addition to the player's repertoire.  In addition to losing your inventory when you die, weapons and armor also wear down over time and eventually break.  Even spells come in the form of single-use spell books or summon stones.  The closest one comes to permanent equipment is "feathers", which are earned either as rare items or awarded when the player's equipment is broken.  These can have a large variety of useful effects when equipped - boosting maximum HP, increasing the effective range of certain spells, or even allowing you to summon monsters at any time (at the cost of a hefty Stamina drain for as long as they remain in play).  Some items and effects can even reduce the player's level, which only puts the odds less in their favor, particularly late in the game.  The notorious "recycle boxes" littered throughout the dungeons are another element of this - sometimes you can throw in junk items and get something useful (such as a spell book or piece of equipment) in return, while other times you throw stuff in and get junk back.  Either way, there's no takebacks, so you just have to hope the dice land in your favor - a stark contrast to the more concrete, strategy-driven Japanese RPGs that were becoming popular around this time.

As a result of all of this, mastering the game's mechanics quickly becomes an essential part of survival.  One key element of this is the game's crafting system, allowing the player to combine two items together, along with a magic spell, at one of the stoves in the dungeons in order to create new equipment.  Weapons can be combined to create more powerful variants, while armor can be combined to grant greater boosts or transfer abilities to new, stronger pieces of equipment.  Of course, this all relies on the random element of finding items to combine, a stove to combine them with, and having the proper magic to do so when you do find it.  Shops do afford the player the same service with less risk, though of course you do have to pay money for the privilege there.

Another unique element of the game is that virtually any item or object can be "kicked", removing it from the player's enemy but utilizing it to attack an enemy.  This gives some use to otherwise useless items such as the LostChild cards - normally these will erase the minimap when used by the player, but they will inflict Confusion status on enemies when kicked at them, giving them a practical purpose.  This ties into the game's crafting system as well - kicking empty bottles at enemies will capture their "essence' in them if a killing blow is dealt with the damage they inflict.  This Essence can in turn either be used as a potion to restore some HP or Stamina, or it can be used in combination at a crafting stove to give extra stats and abilities to equipment.

Basically, Chocobo's Dungeon 2 is a game caught between worlds, seemingly made for a younger demographic with its cuter and more colorful visual style.  Its gameplay reveals this to be anything but the case, however, proving to be just as unforgiving and luck-dependent as any well-regarded roguelike title.  Basically, it alienated both Final Fantasy fans with its lighter style and and younger/more casual players looking for an easier game to play, and as a result it was generally shunned by gamers of the time.  It's a polished and enjoyable experience for those who can adapt to its high degree of challenge and complex mechanics, but it's easy to see why it's one of the less-talked-about Square games of the Playstation 1 era.

Developer: Square
Publisher: Square
Platform: Playstation 1
Released: 1998
Recommended version: N/A