Hearts of the Dungeon List Reviews

TLDR: 7/10 - Simple and entertaining dungeon-grinder. Worth the time and money spent. Graphics and interface are pretty simple in a clean "retro" style. The spritework monsters are (mostly) well done, and look much better with their in-game animations than the simple screenshots suggest. Many of them feel like a reference or joke of other common monsters in early NES-era games, but have far more character. I've not seen many games that bother with a separate "injured" picture or animation for every single enemy, which is a nice touch. Combat system feels very basic at first (essentially just Attack or sparingly Heal). After clearing several dungeons, it unlocks the ability to customize your skill loadout, which opens up some additional options. Strategy mostly comes down taking out the bigger threats first, resource management (HP/MP/SP), and dealing with your buffs / enemy debuffs throughout each fight. Visual Novel segments are brief, but entertaining; and they can be skipped through quickly if you decide you're not interested in a particular character. Even the forced VN segments only take a minute or two. Not once did I find myself wishing I could tell a particular character "shut up and let me get back to the gameplay" like in some other games with heavy-handed VN segments. Music is probably the weakest part of the game. Not to say it's bad; what is there is alright, but there isn't much variety. You will hear the same track repeatedly through... I think every single dungeon? I can honestly only recall 3 music tracks, "Town", "Dungeon", and "Fishing". They are each alright on their own, and match the mood without being distracting.... but after clearing dozens of different dungeon environments to the same exact theme - I found was tuning it out. It was a decent tune, but not after many repetitions. Only significant complaints: 1) The "Hard" mode Fishing mini-game is incredibly frustrating - it feels brutal or sometimes unfair, in what was otherwise a very chill "play at your own pace" game. It's also tied to multiple achievements, so while I had fun beating all the dungeons without resting between floors to "full clear"; I gave up at about 41/60 of perfect catch collection. 2) This may be nit-picky, but a few monsters feel like they didn't get the nearly same artistic attention as the others. This isn't a surprise with 100 distinct monsters through the game (not counting a few corrupted variants), but some just felt out of place. #77 Swoggy, & #83 Gewbear were especially jarring, like they didn't fit in the same game as the other 98 monsters. Overall, 7/10 - Good entertainment for a fair price of admission.

This game is perfect for those looking for a laid-back, turn-based RPG to play for 30-60 minutes at a time. It has an addictive game play loop that allows the player different avenues to strengthen their character, develop relationships, and build their base. The battles are fast paced, simple, and engaging. The way they handle status effects in this game is quite unique and adds an additional layer of unique complexity. The real gem in this game though, is the fishing mini-game. It's hard to explain why its so addicting, but it could easily be its own standalone title. It's obvious that the developers have put a lot of heart and soul into this title. It has a basic framework, but its filled to the brim with attention to detail to make the game an exciting and enjoyable experience. They also seem to regularly add content to keep the game fresh and engaging. I'd highly recommend this game to those who enjoy turn-based RPGs that find themselves with short intervals of free time throughout their day. Perhaps in-between virtual meetings or a short break from work. This would honestly be a fantastic mobile game and would encourage the developers to investigate that to see if it is an option.

This is a reasonably well fleshed out "streamlined" RPG. You play the entire game with four buttons (mapped to your controller's D-pad or face buttons). To be clear, literally the entire game solely uses those four buttons; for battling, fishing, romancing the locals, and buying items. Battling is pretty simplistic. It starts out reasonably difficult, but once you level up a few skills you can steamroll entire dungeons by repeating simple command patterns. Unfortunately, the game doesn't do a great job of introducing new enemy types, and battling winds up trivial and formulaic as a result. All said, still fun for the first few hours though! I had a blast for the first ~7 hours or so, then slowly inched towards completion afterwards. Note the game isn't entirely finished yet: there's a missing casino locale, and the game's bestiary is only ~half complete. Maybe wait for the dev to release the remaining content, or grab the game on sale if that's a nonstarter for you.

A nice simple turn-based rpg with a great gameplay loop presenting nice art and good writing. Just solid overall and I'm happy that it got finished, slots is hard as hell tho. I hope more people manage to find this game. P.S. It would be cool if there was an option to play the game using the UI that was shown in the original trailer, that simplified look is interesting to look at. Also if the dev's ever has time it would be cool to see a mobile port and if the they want to be weird this would be perfect on a 3ds.

incredible art and monster design, fun gameplay, and tumby. 10/10

Disclaimer: I know the person who made this game. That said, this game's great for RPG lovers with OCD. Lots of satisfying checklists to work through and bars to fill. That wouldn't mean anything if the content wasn't enjoyable, and luckily it is! Lots of different dungeons, monsters, abilities to mess with, like-able characters, and some really charming animations. Also fishing is fun. My one gripe is that the character specific story-lines aren't very long, but the dev has promised that more will be added with time, so hopefully we see that.

I think this is not a game you play a lot all at once, but a game that you play a little bit for a long while. There really is a lot of content between the girls and the dungeons. The girls are cute and well written and I like seeing what outfits they wear. Seeing the new monsters is interesting, they have nice designs and can be surprising. The gameplay can feel like a grind if you play too much at once, since it is one dungeon after another. Fishing is fun, but only lasts so long. I see a new fishing update is coming soon, but I have not tried it at this time. The developers update pretty often and responds a lot though, and it seems like more interesting stuff is coming. This is the perfect game for playing for 10-15 minutes as a break.

Short and sweet, and also very fun. While the current price is a bit steep for the current content, I can confidently say it's a game I think is worth purchasing just for what I feel it might be in the future. Already a fantastic concept with lovable characters and relaxed but interesting gameplay. Really all it needs is to be fleshed out some more. I'm looking forward to keeping up with this game as it gets developed!

Simple and fun game. Very short, unless there is more stuff to do Im not aware of, but I found it enjoyable for how laid back the game is. The controls were hard to get used to, but once I did there wasn't really any issue. Definitely an early access game as certain things don't seem to be there or got weirdly cut off, but from what I see the dev updates the game often so Im sure it will be fun to keep up with. :)