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It's dangerous to deliver alone! | UnderDungeon - Review

2K View2023-01-13

What UnderDungeon lacks in color, it makes up for with an aggressive monochromatic stylized 1 bit graphics full of life, energy, and a highly stimulating retro music. UnderDungeon is an adventure game inspired by classic dungeon crawlers; brimming with humor, wit, and charm.

Our character is the cat-slash-magician Kimuto who is on his first day of work. Applying for a delivery job, the sudden appearance of monsters on his town Kutopia complicates things, and Kimuto will have to face them first day on the job.

UnderDungeon is hilariously fun and has a deep story that is borderline satirical in nature. Kimuto’s friendly workmates and allies are highly oblivious to the dangerous nature of the monsters and just treats the task at hand like a normal day at work.

Deliveries are always not as straightforward from point A to point B with lots of mini-stories in between. The silent witty dialogue between the characters are charmingly brought to life by its stylized use of animated text and speech boxes.

UnderDungeon features a classic Zelda-inspired crawler gameplay wherein we travel from room to room, battling different monsters and bosses, uncovering new weapons, powerups, and secrets on the way. There are also simple Zelda-inspired puzzles that you must solve sometimes in order to progress in the levels.

Continuing the simplistic trend of the art-style, the combat is rather simple yet surprisingly addictive, highly enhanced by the amazing sound effects coming from basic interactions like opening doors, or chests; even the combat with its slashes and hits.

The combat features many types of weapons and abilities, starting with a magical summoned longsword, the eventually getting more stuff as you go along like the magic bubble where you can temporarily trap enemies, floating them around. Killing monsters will drop gold which you can use to buy items and revive you when you die.

Dying allows you to meet the Grim Reaper who has the ability to revive you, sometimes giving you random bonuses and penalties, adding a dynamic and what I would call a “reverse roguelite” element to the game.

When you’re not battling monsters or solving puzzles, UnderDungeon also features a plethora of out of place sardonic mini-games like a shooting game or dancing game that really livens up the gameplay and ups the variety factor.

Even if you add this all up, UnderDungeon is still a very short game, it includes a total of 6 chapters, beatable in four to five hours. Giving us a condensed but substantial story, a fun addicting gameplay, and gives a good laugh for good measure.

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