First person dungeon crawls are one of the oldest styles of video games, going back to games like Moria and Oubliette on PLATO mainframe computers in the 1970s. The early games had wireframe graphics depicting their dungeons, generally laid out as a series of corridors in a regular square grid. Players would have to draw their own maps to avoid becoming hopelessly lost, and this was facilitated by movement through the 3D world taking place in fixed length steps and turns all at 90 degree angles. Needing an external piece of paper seems hopelessly outdated in the modern era, but I’ve had good times in recent years playing old games this way (but not so good that I won’t use an in-game mapping system if it’s present, which it usually is in modern games).
Combat has as many variations as any other type of rpg, but typically involves forming a party of player characters each with different abilities and equipment and fighting enemies in a menu-driven turn-based interface separate from the exploration interface. Individual encounters aren’t usually too difficult, but dungeoneering is a marathon, not a sprint, and the player must be careful not too consume so many resources in each fight that they’re left unable to make it back to safety. That said, these are often unforgiving games, and it’s very possible to encounter an enemy that can send the party packing in the first round of combat, either by its out of depth overpoweredness compared to the player, an unlucky critical hit, or (particularly in older games) by inflicting a status ailment (e.g. petrification, level drain, or death) that can’t be cured in the dungeon. Making it out of the depths of the dungeon with a weakened party and inadequate resources can be the most exciting (if it succeeds) or frustrating (if it fails) experience in the game.
New games in the genre continue to be released to this day, some of them featuring optional wireframe modes to recall the games of yore. Most feature in-game automaps or, as in the case of the Etrian Odyssey series, the tools to draw your own maps in-game. Many games stick to the old grid-based movement and turn-based combat, but there are also games with real-time combat, free-form movement, or both. My personal tastes tend towards turn and grid based movement and turn based combat.
This sort of game can be pretty off-putting at first. When I was a kid my PC game collection was a bunch of in retrospect clearly pirated floppies from my uncle. I remember finding one of the Might and Magic games in there, giving it a go, and almost immediately getting lost and giving up. I played Shining in the Darkness but didn’t make any maps and eventually gave up. I played through Phantasy Star, but only by closely following guides and maps I got online. Having to get out the paper and make maps was a step too far for me. The gateway came in the form of Etrian Odyssey for DS, which uses the handheld’s touchscreen as a sheet of graph paper. The player party’s position is shown on the map, and squares you have stepped on are (optionally) automatically filled in, but otherwise you draw the map yourself with the stylus. This removes a couple of the big barriers to the genre: you don’t need external paper, and you don’t have to meticulously keep track of where you are on your map, but it maintains the connection to taking notes, drawing maps, and figuring things out for yourself.
Once the Etrians had their hooks in me I tried some older fare: I replayed Phantasy Star and Shining in the Darkness, this time drawing my own maps, and enjoyed them way more than when I’d played them before. I went back further and played the Bard’s Tale. I played games that do the mapping for you, like Strange Journey, Shining the Holy Ark, and Stranger of Sword City. In short, I grew to like these games.
I’ve just started playing Etrian Odyssey IV. I made seven units, one of each class, named after the members of my family (and our cats). Who was allocated which class was determined largely by the character portraits. I was looking to avoid a situation where my wife might glance at the 3DS screen and see a highly sexualised and apparently quite young character named after our young daughter. This was unfortunately pretty limiting, but I managed. I then made my party out of the units named after people, leaving the cats in reserve. This got me the pretty boring party I probably would have chosen anyway: Landsnkect, Fortress, Elemenalist, Archer, and Medic (I don’t have the game open to check the class names, but I’m sure you get the idea). I’ve got the first two in the front row, and may promote the medic to the same once I can afford some armour for him. I’ve completed the intro dungeon and gained access to warp wires, and so far it’s an Etrian game. After the dungeon I sold all the drops and loaded up on new gear, then went to the inn and realised I hadn’t left myself any money for the fee, so I’ll be venturing back into the dungeon with pre-reduced TP. Whoops.
Combat has as many variations as any other type of rpg, but typically involves forming a party of player characters each with different abilities and equipment and fighting enemies in a menu-driven turn-based interface separate from the exploration interface. Individual encounters aren’t usually too difficult, but dungeoneering is a marathon, not a sprint, and the player must be careful not too consume so many resources in each fight that they’re left unable to make it back to safety. That said, these are often unforgiving games, and it’s very possible to encounter an enemy that can send the party packing in the first round of combat, either by its out of depth overpoweredness compared to the player, an unlucky critical hit, or (particularly in older games) by inflicting a status ailment (e.g. petrification, level drain, or death) that can’t be cured in the dungeon. Making it out of the depths of the dungeon with a weakened party and inadequate resources can be the most exciting (if it succeeds) or frustrating (if it fails) experience in the game.
New games in the genre continue to be released to this day, some of them featuring optional wireframe modes to recall the games of yore. Most feature in-game automaps or, as in the case of the Etrian Odyssey series, the tools to draw your own maps in-game. Many games stick to the old grid-based movement and turn-based combat, but there are also games with real-time combat, free-form movement, or both. My personal tastes tend towards turn and grid based movement and turn based combat.
This sort of game can be pretty off-putting at first. When I was a kid my PC game collection was a bunch of in retrospect clearly pirated floppies from my uncle. I remember finding one of the Might and Magic games in there, giving it a go, and almost immediately getting lost and giving up. I played Shining in the Darkness but didn’t make any maps and eventually gave up. I played through Phantasy Star, but only by closely following guides and maps I got online. Having to get out the paper and make maps was a step too far for me. The gateway came in the form of Etrian Odyssey for DS, which uses the handheld’s touchscreen as a sheet of graph paper. The player party’s position is shown on the map, and squares you have stepped on are (optionally) automatically filled in, but otherwise you draw the map yourself with the stylus. This removes a couple of the big barriers to the genre: you don’t need external paper, and you don’t have to meticulously keep track of where you are on your map, but it maintains the connection to taking notes, drawing maps, and figuring things out for yourself.
Once the Etrians had their hooks in me I tried some older fare: I replayed Phantasy Star and Shining in the Darkness, this time drawing my own maps, and enjoyed them way more than when I’d played them before. I went back further and played the Bard’s Tale. I played games that do the mapping for you, like Strange Journey, Shining the Holy Ark, and Stranger of Sword City. In short, I grew to like these games.
I’ve just started playing Etrian Odyssey IV. I made seven units, one of each class, named after the members of my family (and our cats). Who was allocated which class was determined largely by the character portraits. I was looking to avoid a situation where my wife might glance at the 3DS screen and see a highly sexualised and apparently quite young character named after our young daughter. This was unfortunately pretty limiting, but I managed. I then made my party out of the units named after people, leaving the cats in reserve. This got me the pretty boring party I probably would have chosen anyway: Landsnkect, Fortress, Elemenalist, Archer, and Medic (I don’t have the game open to check the class names, but I’m sure you get the idea). I’ve got the first two in the front row, and may promote the medic to the same once I can afford some armour for him. I’ve completed the intro dungeon and gained access to warp wires, and so far it’s an Etrian game. After the dungeon I sold all the drops and loaded up on new gear, then went to the inn and realised I hadn’t left myself any money for the fee, so I’ll be venturing back into the dungeon with pre-reduced TP. Whoops.
