If you’re in the mood for Dungeons & Dragons style gameplay for your iOS device, Dungeon Crawlers is a cell-shaded offer you can’t refuse for a USD $1.99. Unlike other game that offer a lot of customization for your dungeon-crawling party, this game takes a more cookie cutter approach to traditional dungeon games by letting you into the depths with a set party of four classes: a tank class, a damage dealing mage, a thief and a white mage / healer class. With this in mind, you can already tell that the crawl will involve a lot of strategy in planning out battles to mitigate each class’ weakness and augment their strengths in different situations.
The turn based combat brings me back to the sweet 90’s where tactical RPG’s like X-Com: Enemy Unknown, Betrayal at Krondor, Fallout: Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics reigned the gaming scenes. In these games, the AI was usually a b*tch to play against as you move along a grid, positioning your characters in order to deal the most amount of damage while protecting your healers. Your characters progress through different levels with a boss battle at the end of every area. They are rewarded with new gear and abilities. As I said, it’s pretty much embedded into a deep classic tactical RPG experience. When one of your party members dies, you proceed without him until you finish the level. And really, that’s just nearly impossible (and that’s why you should always protect your healer).
Another old school element was that the environment was unforgiving: unlike current RPG’s that reward you with random loot, the treasure chests are, as far as I can tell, pretty much set with the rewards in each. So if you miss out on a treasure, it’s basically gone forever. Just like real life.
For USD $1.99 you can’t go wrong. The game will bring you on a nostalgia trip back to the days when gaming was unforgiving, yet still immersive and fun to play because of its smooth cartoon graphics and humor. This game is single player only
Get Dungeon Crawlers for USD $1.99 [iTunes Link]