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Octurbo: Dungeon Explorer 2

by mento

This first week of Octurbo-CD has involved a lot of revisiting the TG-16 franchises of last year's Octurbo and getting some obvious choices out of the way. While that'll persist into week two somewhat, it has less to do with a lack of imagination but rather ensuring that we start with a sure and steady first footstep before wildly sprinting off into the terrifying unknown. In that vein, Dungeon...

This first week of Octurbo-CD has involved a lot of revisiting the TG-16 franchises of last year's Octurbo and getting some obvious choices out of the way. While that'll persist into week two somewhat, it has less to do with a lack of imagination but rather ensuring that we start with a sure and steady first footstep before wildly sprinting off into the terrifying unknown. In that vein, Dungeon Explorer II is one of those games I left as a "stay tuned" while penning the original Octurbo, and was one of the few items I had on a list of potential TurboGrafx-CD games to cover a year in advance. (Yeah, I actually plan out this stuff ahead of time. I feel like I might be killing the magic, here.)

Dungeon Explorer II is the sequel to Dungeon Explorer (well, doy), which was a game I found more enjoyable the more of it I played and the better acquainted I got with its systems. A then-modern take on a multiplayer console version of Gauntlet (the timing of this blog with the recent release of an even more modern take on Gauntlet is entirely coincidental), Dungeon Explorer merged that top-down frenetic Arcade action with standard RPG trappings such as leveling up and talkative NPCs and an overworld and an overarching narrative. Those trappings were largely superficial in some respects -- leveling up simply entailed finding gems after each boss fight, or collecting the occasional permanent stat boost through exploration -- but it enhanced the standard "shoot at monster spawners and move on" gameplay beyond a repetitive slog. I don't mind spelunking a few floors of beasties to shoot at, but knowing it would eventually culminate in a cool boss fight, a boost in stats and some additional story made it all the more enticing.

Dungeon Explorer II appears to be more of the same from what little I played, even graphically, though the addition of redbook audio music and overdramatic voiceovers has certainly improved my affection for the format. I'll save the rest for the screenshots themselves.

Dungeon Explorer 2: The Explorening

Welcome to Dungeon Explorer II! What, no elaborate anime intro this time?This is a really cute way to do a selection screen. As this little skit involving all the heroes in the game plays out, it gives you a fair sense of their personalities, which the game proper doesn't spend much time considering. You obviously need some type of multitap peripheral for most of these options, but it's cool you can play with four other people at the same time. I have to wonder how you would settle arguments about who gets what power-up.We recount the ending of the first game, when the brave heroes fought the dread lord Natas and recovered the Orb of Ora.Hilariously, they play this fight out in real-time, as the three heroes run around in circles and manage to hit the bad guy every so often. I'm not sure if it was meant to look this uncoordinated.Oddessia enjoyed a period of peace until... whatever the hell this is turned up.Monsters! From every direction!Man, they aren't sugarcoating it. Oddessia seems pretty boned. A brave knight puts up a defense in the palace's throneroom, but...He's no match for this white-haired androgynous bad guy. Goddammit, hasn't he ever been in an anime game before?The King refuses to capitulate the Orb of Ora to this bishounen baddie. "You know how many Game Overs my ancestors went through for that thing?"Pretty Elf Man respects the King's wishes, promising to only take the orb over his cold, dead body.One cold, dead body later, and he walks off with the Orb of Ora, laughing maniacally. This is probably bad, right? It seems bad.Meanwhile, we're on another continent somewhere talking about princesses getting kidnapped by Man-Bull. Man, that's some bull.The King implores us, in wonderfully overwrought voiceover, that we need to rescue his beloved Princess Miriam.Hunting around the castle, I find out a couple of things. The first is that the game has kept the black/white magic system, giving you some one-shot items for when the chips are down. Each character has a unique effect.I also find some white magic and accidentally use it, but fortunately this barrier sticks around until I take enough damage to dispel it. It's pretty sweet.This is what I like to see. The Royal Library gives you a whole bunch of backstory if you want it (beyond the intro cutscene), or you can just walk right on by.It also apparently has this sweet home entertainment system. I couldn't get it to do anything, but I suspect this is where you'll be able to listen to music and watch cutscenes. Maybe that's an end-game thing.Continuing my peregrinations around the starting town, I discover that I can teleport to other areas of the game. I'm guessing I need to visit them first. I also assume that this means that this town is a hub of sorts, sitting centrally surrounded by all the game's dungeons.Here I am playing cards with the Grim Reaper. Seemed like a good idea at the time.Death loses, naturally ("Um, best two out of three!") and I get an extra life. The lives system carries over too, it seems: the player can die a finite number of times, but they lose all their temporary stat boosts each time they do.We've been repeatedly told to head west to Norville: The Death Maze that the Princess is in lies somewhere to the northeast of that town. The ferryman is being a dick however. He asks us to kill the monster south of the village, because the princess of his kingdom being in mortal peril is apparently no big deal. So now we finally see some gameplay. These red orb things are actually portals, which is to say they are monster spawners. We don't need to destroy them all, but it's the best way to avoid getting swarmed.I'm going to assume the guy meant whatever creature is inhabiting Demon's Claw. Couldn't they have named it something less intimidating? It's my first dungeon. How about "Wuss Cave"?The music gets noticeably more badass as we start on our first dungeon.These boots are one of those temporary stat boosts I told you about. It increases AG (agility, I'm guessing) and makes me a little faster. Handy, but I'll need to avoid dying to hang onto it. Shouldn't be hard with all these barrier potions I'm picking up.No, no, that's quite all right. It seems perfectly natural for you to be here, random NPC. He gives us a cryptic hint about some other monster that I hope I wasn't supposed to remember.I can't get across to where those two power-ups are, but I then recall how dungeons work in this game. I'll be grabbing those on the way back to the surface, I surmise.The boss cryptically talks about an entirely different enemy before deciding that the questions can wait until after I've been eviscerated. I suspect this guy isn't a master of interrogation."This guy" being a giant wolf. Though there's two of them, the beige one is simply a doppelganger that I can't hurt in any way. I guess the developers thought this fight was too easy with just one wolf.And they'd be right. These XP jewels return from the prior game: they cycle through the four stat colors, letting you choose your preference. I'm going for AT (attack). I also get a huge boost to HP too, for the greater dangers ahead.Told ya so. The axe was even more AT, while the crown gave me an intelligence boost. Not sure what I'll need that for, perhaps it governs the power of my magic?Impressed, the ferryman drops us off on the other bank, at last. Happy I beat your tutorial dungeon now, jerk? (Honestly, I probably could've used the health boost.)And our next destination becomes clear. I'd almost be tempted to detour to check out some of these other dungeons, except I expect to be killed immediately by all the high level monsters. I think this is a good point to stop, at any rate.

Well, that's Dungeon Explorer II. If you've gone back to check the first game's LP, you might've noticed how closely the two games resemble each other. I guess Atlus didn't feel like fixing what wasn't broke, but at least this one seems a lot more forgiving. Not that you could expect the first dungeon to be brutally unfair. I've also spent less time wandering around lost, so that's a plus too.

And, again, there's the music. It's a lot of fun, switching from schmaltzy town muzak to rockin' dungeon/boss themes, and it all sounds pretty good for 1993 (I say that, but 1993's Mega Man X and Secret of Mana have awesome soundtracks too). Have a listen, and I'll see you all next time:

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