Dungeon Smash - Dark Isles (XBLIG)

The developers at  Haiku Interactive have created a game that is both simple, and somewhat complex in design. This overhead dungeon crawler known as, "Dungeon Smash - Dark Isles" mixes both RPG elements, and the simple controls of a twin-stick shooter to breathe life into a basic plot driven story mode. At the heart of the game you'll find a visually enhanced tale of 5 kingdoms that have been at war with one another for quite some time. The five different princesses of each kingdom decide that peace is long overdue, and have their champions to accompany them to the signing of a peace treaty. Unfortunately to everyone's surprise each princess is captured, and taken away by a horde of flying demons. Following in pursuit of the princesses' captors two heroes, and two heroines (Balbak, Xan, Alandro, Shayleah) venture out on a quest to rescue the damsels in distress, so that peace can finally be realized. Each hero/heroine carries with them a certain set of skills with which they'd dispatch their enemies, and must use these skills to traverse the shadowy depths of the underworld for the kingdoms' sake.

Dungeon Smash is a game that could visually be compared to games like the old "Baldur's Gate" RPG series, or even "Gauntlet". It is filled with semi-overhead visuals that most retro RPGs usually have. The graphic design itself is enhanced by current-gen textures as well as shadow effects that add depth to the appearance of each layer/stage of the game's dungeons. As the gamer you take on the role of one of four different heroes/heroines as you traverse the labyrinth-like dungeon areas of the game in search of your princess, and the loot to fund your journey. Included in the roster of available characters is a gladiator named "Balbak" who has traditional melee style attacks/defenses, a female assassin named "Xan" who can use stealth as well as well as set traps, a holy armored paladin named "Alandro" who deals damage with a mighty hammer, and "Shayleah" a female elven warlock who uses arcane magic to dispatch her foes. Each character has their own unique prologue (shown through illustrated storybook pages) to set the mood for the adventure at hand as well as an additional set of in-game path decisions associated with the main story of the game.

The gameplay in "Dungeon Smash" is fairly straightforward. You'll take your chosen champion through each level of the maze oriented dungeons dispatching the baddies in the process, and ultimately destroying the spawn holes that they all originate from. Should you not clear out the spawn holes quickly enough you will be swarmed to death by a vast ever-growing army of small, and large creatures (goblins, trolls, skeleton archers, demons ...). You must use your upgradeable weapons, and skills as well as the maze around you to rid yourself of the threatening situation you find yourself in. Health, and Mana potions are also available for instances when you need a quick fix for a dire predicament. Initially you'll choose one of the four available characters to play as. You can also choose to go solo, or have up to three other friends join you in co-op as the remaining champions. The goal, or aim of the game's main story mode ("A Princesses' Tale ) is to make your way deeper into the dungeon while searching for the princess in the various maze-like structures. Along the way you can gather gold from broken objects as well as unlock treasure chests (by holding down the "A" button) that contain mana/health potions as well as additional gold.

The secondary mode type titled "The Dark Tower" is entirely void of description, or plot prologues. As such I did not understand whether it was meant to be the second half of the game, or some sort of survival/score based mode. I did play it without having to unlock it though, and found it to be almost exactly like the gameplay in "A Princesses' Tale" (Minus the Princesses). All the enemy threats were the same as was the dungeon/labyrinth navigation. Your character levels up via an RPG-like XP system as he/she would in the "A Princesses' Tale" mode. You can apply your found gold to upgrade each attribute (speed, health ...), and skill (weapons, projectiles ...) however you see fit. You can even spend your gold on mana, and health potions for the tougher stages as you do in the "A Princesses' Tale" mode. Both the "A Princesses' Tale" mode, and "The Dark Tower" modes are score based (XP), and as such you will find your current highscore on the game's global leaderboard (All, Tale, The Dark Tower).

Aside from the two main modes of play, and the leaderboard offerings you'll also find unique "Gallery" filled with unlockable artwork from the game. Each piece of art, or achievement as I like to call it requires that a certain task be completed in order to obtain it. This can range from collecting a certain amount of gold to going through a level without killing a single enemy. There are a wide assortment of gallery items to unlock, and they'll no doubt have you returning to the game at least a few more times to unlock everything.

Graphically "Dungeon Smash" is decently presented. The multi-layered art that graces the animated plot during the early parts of the "A Princesses' Tale" are definitely a nice source of eye candy. I will admit that some of the characters look a little disproportionate in comparison to real human anatomy, but the artist did an amazing job regardless. In particular the group picture featuring the five princesses signing the peace treaty was gorgeous. I definitely liked the layered story book appearance of the art panels (Think "Battle-Block Theater) included. As far as the actual in-game appearance goes it's pretty darn impressive compared to a lot of other RPG dungeon crawlers I've seen in the XBLIG marketplace. The level designs honestly seemed similar in nature (just different layouts) though, but at least the hero/heroine/champions all were brilliantly animated. The sound on the other hand was a little lacking in quality. While the soundtrack was fitting of the dark plot, and nice when I could actually hear it, but I often times found that the music was almost nonexistent throughout the entirety of my short playthrough.

Now for the verdict ...

Dungeon Smash is a decent game for what it is, and what it is is basically a twin-stick score based shooter with RPG elements. You could definitely say that it was a hybrid experience with all that was included. The finer points to the game such as the art driven intro, and the story book prologues were great, but could have been longer/better in my personal opinion. I really enjoyed the artistic quality of the game's initial intro, and the interesting character design that the artist of the game had implemented. I know some of you will likely complain about the characters looking deformed, but I for one thought they were nice. As far as the actual gameplay visuals go they were decent for an XBLIG title. I will say that every level of the dungeon did look very similar though. Things were basically just rearranged for the most part.

Apart from those things I did notice one thing in the game that was nothing like what the Youtube trailers had shown. The story book prologue animations were much smaller in size in the actual game, and did not include the audio narrations that I heard in the Youtube video trailers. This was a huge disappointment for me. I had honestly expected them to be included, but they unfortunately were not. It's truly a shame that some players will miss out on the excellent voice acting that was included in the Youtube videos. As far as really bad issues go the only other feature I found to be unappealing was the deaths in the game. If you died while making your way through the dungeons the game would remain as it was with creatures continually swarming around your dead body. It would not bring up a pop-up menu, take you back to the menu screen, or anything of that sort. You had to press the "START" button just to find the option to "Restart the Level", or to end the game. Like the addition of the "Dark Tower" mode this feature left me wondering whether this game was actually completed, or not.

With all things considered I can't really recommend this game, especially at the 240 msp price mark. It just does not feel like a complete game to me. I did love the art style, and the gameplay itself was decent, but overall it felt like an incomplete experience to me. If "Haiku Interactive" could patch in the storybook prologues the way they were presented in the Youtube trailers, and if they could explain the modes better within the game then this game would likely be worth the asking price. Of course some higher volume music, and more engaging music tracks would be nice as well. Until such is applied I'm gonna unfortunately have to say skip this one.