Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
Although the JRPG has remained the de facto king of the RPG space for the past few decades, it could be argued that the popular genre would never have existed without DRPGs. What started centuries ago with titles like last and in an effort to translate a traditional D&D gaming experience to the screen, it gave way to more accessible dungeon crawlers like Etrian Odyssey and Demon Gaze. In 2018, Nippon Ichi dabbled in the subgenre with the fun Labyrinth Of Refrain: Coven Of Dusk and has now chosen to continue that experiment with Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society. Although clearly designed for a relatively limited audience, there is a group I love the Galleria Labyrinth.
Labyrinth of Galleria puts you in the role of Eureka, a bright-eyed young woman who responds to a job posting that sees her visit an unfinished abandoned mansion in the woods. Here she is greeted by the witch Madame Marta, who quickly connects her to a cute green ghost Eureka names “Fantie” and invites her to use her spooky new friend to explore the vast maze beneath Galleria Manor in search of powerful magical artifacts as the wishes of the mysterious owner of the mansion. No human can enter the maze and come back unscathed, so Marta teaches him how to use Fantie’s powers to bring various puppets to life and direct them to explore the dungeon on his behalf. So Eureka sets off on a vicarious quest into the depths below, while slowly learning more about her eccentric employers.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
While it seems like the narrative isn’t exactly the focus here, the various visual novel-style scenes at key milestones help inject a bit of charm into Labyrinth of Galleria. The writing and voice acting for most scenes is amazing without being terrifying, and there are some genuinely dark and sudden twists that help elevate the story beyond a mere showcase for the exploration action of dungeons. We won’t spoil anything, but suffice it to say that this plot goes where you wouldn’t expect, and we commend the developers for their willingness to shake up convention and keep the player guessing.
Gameplay in Labyrinth of Galleria follows the typical DRPG structure where you explore grid-based dungeons from a first-person perspective. Each stage will advance time by one unit, which usually means enemies take another stage, and you gradually complete a dense but simple map that makes revisits easier. Along the way, you’ll find treasure to build your party with, enemies to defeat, and stairs that will take you to other floors filled with all kinds of good and bad. It’s a fairly simple build, but still a compelling one, especially when you factor in the special abilities. For example, you get a wall-breaking ability early on that allows you to walk through most walls like the Kool-Aid Man, creating all sorts of new strategies for evading enemies or discovering new, more convenient routes through. the dungeon.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
Or, in another example, some sections require you to use a skill that allows you to go underwater, where you have to manage your air. There always seems to be something dangerous around every corner, whether it’s a powerful enemy looking to ruin your day or a trap that will cripple most of your party, and it results in a delightful tension as you progress more and more. .
Every few minutes you’ll fight enemies (although you can avoid them, if necessary) and combat here takes place using a standard turn-based approach. The main gimmick is the Coven system, which lets you control possibly a few dozen characters at a time by letting you place a small party on each of your party spaces. Covens act as a sort of training for a group of characters and each acts as if they were a single character, and these can be modified and experimented with to suit a variety of roles and character types. stock. Sometimes you’ll want a DPS team, while other times you’ll want to mix up a tank or two to add more options and boost survivability. It’s a lot to handle, but we felt this unconventional approach to extended team building added a lot to an otherwise mundane fight.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Offline)
In fact, once you start digging into it, it’s easy to see the Disgaean influence on Labyrinth of Galleria. incredibly Extensive character customization. Each character you create is drawn from the same growing pool of base classes, but they can be differentiated by changing things like their “stance” or “nature” to alter parameters like specific stats or skill gains. XP. From there they can be assigned to a Coven which in turn can be assigned a pact which will determine which active abilities they can use and level up independent of them, something like a job of the Final Fantasy Games.
Building an effective team, then, is all about using trial and error to find the niche you want each character to occupy. And it goes beyond the typical general decision of whether you want a character to be a DPS or a Tank, as there are many different types of DPS or Tank units you can create.
Fortunately, most trash mobs don’t test your team composition too much, but each boss acts as a rough skill test that will happily send you back to the drawing board whenever you fail. And while grinding can help smooth out some poor planning on your part, it’s not as reliable a method of forcing progress as in other RPGs. Labyrinth of Galleria is more like Disgaea in that its gameplay is just as much (if not more) about what you do in the team building menus as it really is. playing the game. There are few things more rewarding than watching a well-oiled squad crush the opposition after countless painstaking attempts to compare stat charts within the squad and weigh the benefits of changing squad members. team and coven pacts, but the other side of that is where those who aren’t so drawn to min-maxing in an RPG can feel a little left out. Labyrinth of Galleria is a game for those who like looking at spreadsheets and adjusting numbers to see how it affects other numbers; if that’s not you, then this headline will probably struggle to hold your interest.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
Even if you adapt to this more analytical approach to an RPG, one big gripe we have with the gameplay loop is that some progression-based mechanics and milestones can be too opaque. For example, one of the first quests asked us to find and collect a specific treasure. He didn’t tell us what floor this treasure was on, nor did he have any clues or clues to give us a general idea of where to start looking. After spending an hour or two going form too deep in the dungeon for this point in the story, we finally cracked and turned to an online guide, who showed us that the treasure was hidden in a secret room behind a wall that was completely unmarked and otherwise ordinary than we had to cross.
While we really appreciate that Labyrinth of Galleria is a wonderfully dense and complicated game, it’s not uncommon to find instances like this where we wish it were a little less obtuse. It’s the kind of game that expects you to try to break through all the dungeon walls until you find the one that allows you to progress the most. You could say, of course, that the first full run of the game is, in effect, the “walkthrough” for the next playthrough, but if you’re not ready and willing to approach it in those terms, it chances are you feel that Labyrinth of Galleria is unwieldy and confusing at times.
In terms of presentation, Labyrinth of Galleria applies Takehito Harada’s signature anime art style to brilliant effect, with each character item looking crisp and brightly colored. Additionally, within the various scenes, the backgrounds feature beautifully detailed painted locations that often have a perfectly otherworldly fright. And while 3D dungeons are a slight step up in visual excellence, they do a great job of projecting a kind of endless, oppressive presence onto the player that adds to their mystique and intrigue.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Offline)
The soundtrack matches these visuals perfectly with a special goofy Halloween track branding that helps set an effective tone. It’s scary without being scary; stupid without being stupid. And while it does seem like some of these tracks can get a little repetitive considering how long you spend crawling through certain dungeons, we felt the music was on par overall.
conclusion
Galleria Labyrinth: The Moon Society does a fantastic job of providing a dense and devastating journey into the depths of the dungeons, even if it sometimes comes at the expense of accessibility. An engaging art style, plenty of team building options, and a truly amazing story all combine to make it worthy of recommendation, but with the big caveat that much of its appeal is lost if you don’t. don’t like min-maxing in high-end games. or you don’t have the patience to properly digest and understand all of its systems. However, if it seems like it’s up your street, Labyrinth of Galleria is definitely worth your time and money.