Legend of Dungeon | oprainfall
Title Legend of Dungeon
Developer Robot Loves Kitty
Publisher Robot Loves Kitty
Release Date September 13, 2013
Genre Role Playing Game; Rogue Dungeon Crawler
Platform PC
Age Rating ESRB – Everyone
Official Website

Roguelike dungeon crawlers have been around for a long time. The traditional dungeon crawler has players traverse through a dungeon with a limited inventory, treasure and enemies to defeat. Robot Loves Kitty is no stranger to this genre of role-playing games. Legend of Dungeon is their creation for fans of the rogue subgenre. Does the Legend of Dungeon live up to its legendary name or is better as a tale passed down from generation to generation?

Legend of Dungeon | Jacco Is A Wizard
Jacco became the powerful Wizard of Oz.

The Legend of Dungeon is a traditional, old-school dungeon crawler. The game has taken inspirations from the likes of Gauntlet, Wizardy and Rogue. Legend of Dungeon’s plot is very simplistic. The goal is for you to reach the 26th floor and obtain the legendary treasure hidden below. The game’s emphasis is not on the story, but, rather, on the gameplay. Players get to input their own name and customize their character. For my run, I created Jacco, the male blonde explorer. Jacco always started off with a sword in every attempt. At the bar, he can greet the NPCs, pick up some starting apples and beer, and then head off into the dungeon. The dungeon is randomly generated. Each attempt to reach the 26th floor will be different. This can be frustrating as the random number generator (RNG) will deal you a different deck of cards every time. There are many switches, traps, enemies and items scattered throughout the game. The RNG will determine your enjoyment of the game. Unfortunately, it seems I was always dealt a bad hand. Sometimes, I got farther down and other times, I was stopped on the second floor. Either I would run into a powerful boss or I would enter a room swarming with enemies with a low number of healing items. The equipment I received varied. On some attempts, I was able to find several offensive weapons and no defensive equipment and, in other ones, I found only items.

Legend of Dungeon | Tavern
The adventure always starts here in the Tavern.

The combat is simplistic in its design, but has options. Your character always starts off with a sword. By pressing X, you can use the weapon equipped on your character. Defeating enemies will grant your character experience points and money. There are also two other options. Your character can punch enemies with his or her bare hands. I don’t recommend the punch technique unless your weapons are not effective against an enemy. The other command is pet/high five. The pet command allows you to pet enemies or high five human enemies. If you are able to pet an enemy enough times, that enemy will be under your control. For example, I was able to tame a bear to maul down enemies in one attempt. Fuzzy the Bear was able to take down two bosses that otherwise would have killed Jacco quickly. Some other pets I encountered included snakes, bats, goblins and skeletons. There are hidden classes to find in Legend of Dungeon. Some examples include Wizard, Doctor, Knight and the Cowboy. The Wizard is more efficient with magic while the Cowboy is efficient with guns. By using a hot key, you can switch around your inventory. In order to equip defensive items, all you have to do is press the Use key to put it on. To remove the item, just select the icon in the inventory and remove the equipment. The D key allows you to toss any unwanted items. If the keyboard controls are not to your liking, you can also use a controller.

Legend of Dungeon | Pet Snake
I was able to tame this snake and have it attack enemies for me

Graphically, the game pays homage to the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. The use of shaded pixels is crafted with detail while remaining true to its old school roots. The detail on the weapons, equipment, dungeon layouts and walls makes it easy for players to distinguish what is in their inventory and their own surroundings. The game’s sound was underwhelming. While it gets the job done, there is nothing memorable about the soundtrack. The game needed some variety of sounds besides the enemies and the two tracks that play off and on during the adventure. Legend of Dungeon has some features. It supports the Oculus Rift. If you happen to own an Oculus Rift and want to try it out with the Legend of Dungeon, the option is available. The game has online leaderboards. There is also multiplayer, but, unfortunately, it is local only. Up to four players can huddle around your computer screen with their controllers. It would have been nice to have an online mode.

Legend of Dungeon | Bar Brawl Achievement
This was by far the best and easiest achievement in the game

Legend of Dungeon is an old-school roguelike experience that was more frustrating than fun for me to play, but results will vary from person to person. The RNG is the biggest weakness, as it will deal a bad hand most of the time. The odds of winning the lottery are higher than reaching the 26th floor to obtain the legendary treasure. Despite trying different strategies in my four-hour experience, I always felt the game was one step ahead of me. That said, I’m sure that hardcore fans of roguelike video games will enjoy the challenge Legend of Dungeon offers.

Review Score
Overallwww.dyerware.comwww.dyerware.comwww.dyerware.comwww.dyerware.comwww.dyerware.com

Review copy provided by publisher

This review only covers the single player campaign, primarily the Legend Heroes Expansion, as the author was unable to try out the multiplayer features

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