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a guest Jun 8th, 2014 5,425 Never
  1.        
  2.  
  3. /EOG/'s recommended titles.
  4.      
  5. ETRIAN ODYSSEY series.NDS/3DS - ATLUS
  6.      
  7. One of the best places to start. Developed by ATLUS, these titles pack the main ingredients to be very solid Dungeon Crawlers: Difficulty, a fair amount of Strategy, customizeable classes that allow numerous party-building possibilities, a consistant and colorful art direction.
  8. The story is streamlined to let the gameplay and mechanics shine and the dungeons are well-designed, but the main perk about this series is the touchscreen mapdrawing: a feature loved by many, that really sets the franchise apart.
  9.      
  10.     =======================================================================================================================================
  11.      
  12.             ETRIAN ODYSSEY - NDS, 2007
  13.      
  14.             The title that started it, and one of the best places to start. As the first title of the series, it has its shortcomings but is very enjoyable nonetheless, it features very "classic" RPG character classes, yet allows for a fair variety in your teambuilding. Just like in any EO game, the beginning can be a bit unforgiving but you will most likely get sucked in really fast.
  15.      
  16.      
  17.             ETRIAN ODYSSEY 2: HEROES OF LAGAARD - NDS, 2008
  18.      
  19.             In spite of its refined mechanics, EO2 is still deemed to be a pretty hard title in the series. It brings back all the classes from the previous title and adds three new ones, the Beast, Gunner and War Magus. This title plays and feels quite similar to the first entry while still retaining notable subtleties.
  20.      
  21.             ETRIAN ODYSSEY 3: THE DROWNED CITY - NDS, 2010
  22.      
  23.             EO3 retains a gameplay similar to the previous titles, yet features completely new and revised classes and a Pirate-y makeover that may give the player a refreshing feel after having ploughed through EO1 and 2. Considered by many to be one of the easiest titles in the series, it definitely is one of the best starting places for players who are new to the genre, but it's still hard enough to satisfy experienced crawler players.
  24.      
  25.             ETRIAN ODYSSEY 4: LEGENDS OF THE TITAN - 3DS, 2012
  26.      
  27.             EO4 goes back to the setting and feeling of the first two titles by bringing back some of the earlier titles' classes, and adding new ones, to create a new yet familiar experience. Decent 3D models have replaced enemy sprites and the music has better-sounding arrangements and some nice themes.
  28.      
  29.             This title also features a Casual mode, making it the most accessible EO title to date, but it's not really representative of what the series is famous for. If you're comfortable with casual mode, you might find the normal mode to be harder than it really is and miss out on a variety of other great titles so it's only recommended to start with this title if you're new to rpg mechanics in general.
  30.            
  31.             If you have a 3DS, EO4 might make the other titles look and sound a bit dated so it's really recommended to start with them. That being said, EO4 is a must-play 3DS title so you shouldn't miss out on it if you have the occasion to play it.
  32.      
  33.     =======================================================================================================================================
  34.      
  35.     CLASS OF HEROES SERIES - ATLUS/ACQUIRE, PSP
  36.      
  37.             This series is an interesting take on the genre as it mixes a borderline cliché vn/anime art direction (which still offers some pretty damn good character designs and monster sprites) with the austerity of older paper-based dungeon crawler mechanics. Goofy characters, light-hearted dialog and difficult dungeons make this series stand out (remaking the traditional bard class into a japanese idol is one of the best and funniest examples) and progress can prove quite rewarding. Offers a nice alchemy system, and highly customizeable characters with a variety of races, classes, alignments and specializations.
  38.      
  39.             However, even though the refreshingly goofy anime aspect gives this series a great argument, the music is average at best, and the exploration and battle mechanics do show some issues, which can be worked around and forgiven if we consider that the titles are developped on a rather tight budget.
  40.      
  41.             Episode 1 and 2 are available in NA and feature an actually great localization. CoH3 is out in Japan and allegedly being translated. Play CoH2 first then dive back in with CoH1 if you liked the experience, since starting with CoH1 is kind of a hit-or-miss thing. It still is a great Dungeon Crawler franchise to grace the PSP, but previous Crawlan experience is recommended to make the most out of it.
  42.      
  43.     If you read Japanese, the series has three more titles published: CoH3 on PS3/PSP, CoH3D on 3DS and CoH:Final on PSP.
  44.      
  45.     =======================================================================================================================================
  46.      
  47.     THE DARK SPIRE - Success/ATLUS - NDS, 2008
  48.      
  49.             Yet another title proving that the DS family is the best system for Crawlers. This title is a must-play, underrated Dungeon Crawling GEM. It has been directed as a tribute to the very first Commodore 64-era RPGs, offering two design options. The main option offers a really nice dark art direction with very decent music and great dungeons. The other one is an imitation of the aforementionned C64 games that lets the player's imagination take over and populate the world of the dungeons he plows through, just like a tabletop RPG. Create a party, roll your stats and start saving up for those healing potions. Hard as balls but never has a game been more rewarding to progress into. Recommended for the veterans or those looking for a refreshing challenge, or basically, just something different.
  50.      
  51.      
  52.     =======================================================================================================================================
  53.      
  54.      
  55.     DEMON GAZE - Kadokawa/NISA - PS Vita, 2014 (as if anyone here actually has a Vita...)
  56.      
  57.     (disclaimer: review based on an incomplete playthrough of Japanese version, with less-than-expert Japanese skills)
  58.      
  59.     An extremely well-polished, challenging, and aesthetically pleasing crawler in which you play the role of a Gazer, a guy (or trap) with a crazy eye that can entrap demons. While the protagonist is always referred to as male, you can assign yourself a female name and portrait if  you want. Your party is entirely customizable, with a delightfully wide variety of character portraits to choose from (45+), including busty catgirls, bikini berserkers, armored shield maidens, and flat pettanko witches, as well as an equal number of manly men. Party members can be fully re-customized at any time (name, portrait, voice), and characters can be swapped out for other classes.
  60.      
  61.     Classes have fairly standard Wizardry-like level-based progression, although these abilities are significant and useful, and allowing them to fufill certain roles effectively. These roles can be further reinforced or tweaked with customizable stat allocations and equipment setups. Dungeon and area maps play through with the same mechanics and tricks of the Etrian Odyssey series, with the added twist of luring out the specific demon of that map. Capturing demons allows the player to summon them in battle (extra healing, attacks, meat shield), or give the party passive benefits like typical defense/offense, the ability to walk over damage tiles, or see secret walls.
  62.      
  63.     The story is entertaining enough to drive the gameplay along, with a colorful cast of characters in the inn/tavern that serves as the player's home base, resulting in amusing dialogue and scenarios for some entertaining intermissions. Not surprisingly, the game features a number of fanservice-y situations like the resident spunky panty-sniffing catgirl who has a crush on the inn's manager (hopefully not censored for the US release).
  64.      
  65.      
  66.     =======================================================================================================================================
  67.      
  68.     LEGEND OF GRIMROCK - Windows, Mac, Linux
  69.      
  70.     A spiritual successor the famous classic Dungeon Master, LoG is highly accessible, challenging, and immersive. The premise is simple: Assemble a party of four prisoners and escape from 13 levels of a devious and cunning prison labyrinth, and discover the secret of the dungeon. There are secrets galore, and mind-wracking puzzles and riddles. LoG and Dungeon Master are somewhat unique in that they are semi-real time. The game is grid-based, but at short (but manageable) intervals, everything will advance a turn. This may be a turn-off for some, but I highly recommend looking past it as a detriment, as it adds a level of pressure and intensity that you simply will not get from turn-based games. People have likened it to the frantic nature of combat, like digging through your pack in the middle of combat to dig out that potion or weapon you forgot to equip, or a spellcaster fumbling through their rune bag to cast a spell, or the horror of realizing that while you've been fighting, you've been flanked and your escape route cut off. With practice, the player learns to master the game as much as their characters do.
  71.      
  72.     Comes with a fairly robust modding toolkit to allow players to create their own dungeons. Sells for $15, and often much less during sales. Extremely highly recommended to serious dungeon crawlers.
  73.      
  74.     Also check out Dungeon Master (PC, SNES, other) to see Grimrock's roots, and also Dungeon Hack (DOS), which features a single character fighting through a procedurally generated labyrinth, also semi-realtime (smells like Diablo!), and manages to be surprisingly playable even to modern standards.
  75.      
  76.      =======================================================================================================================================
  77.      
  78.     LABYRINTH OF TOUHOU - PC, 2009
  79.      
  80. Labyrinth of Touhou is an overlooked dungeon crawler, with amazing gameplay. Fielding a party of 12 characters, with 4 active slots, any character can take a turn to rotate any party member with another. There is a cast of 40 characters to choose from (while they aren't all unlocked at the beginning I'll provide a link to a save at the start of the game all lvl 1 with them unlocked) with varying abilities.
  81.  
  82. The skillsets of each character are predefined, and well-designed. Having a party of 12 gives you room to include very narrow-design characters, leading to your party having a very 'toolbox' feel. Some of my favourite examples of characters include
  83.  
  84. Iku, who has an absurdly powerful +80% ATT/MAG buff, which also paralyzes your ally. Build around her (Take characters naturally resistant to Paralyze, and characters that can cure paralyze) and your damage will skyrocket.
  85.  
  86. Reisen, who has a variety of aoe attacks that inflict status drops, as well as a very fast self-targetting buff that enhances ALL of her stats. I believe it leaves her ATB at 80%, allowing it to be quickly spammed, maxing all her stat buffs at +100% in the time an enemy might get one turn. She also has Discarder, a decent single target nuke that debuffs ALL of the enemy stats.
  87.  
  88. Lots of super interesting characters, paired with bosses that make anything in EO seem like a cakewalk. We're talking multi-phase, brutal fights.
  89.  
  90. The game's grind is similar to EO. As long as you fully explore floors of the dungeon you will only occasionally have to grind in order to beat a tough boss, and that will only happen in the very late-game. In addition player skill has a significant impact on whether or not you win boss fights. Proper tactical swapping of characters can make a HUGE difference in how well your party performs.
  91.  
  92. So instead of mashing your best heal/attack and hoping the boss dies before you, you're actually making interesting decision of who to swap in/out at what times.
  93.  
  94. Game can be found here : http://moriyashrine.weebly.com/labyrinth-of-touhou.html
  95.  
  96. NG+ patch with all characters unlocked at level 1 can be found here (account may be required): http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=7188.0;attach=15055
  97.  
  98. And the wiki can be found here: http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Labyrinth_of_Touhou
  99.  
  100. If you're an EO fan and seeking more of a challenge or are just bored, highly encourage you to check it out.
  101.  
  102. LoT2 has a menu / combat translation completed, that is fully playable to the end of the game.  Very few of the events/plot are translated.
  103.     =======================================================================================================================================
  104.      
  105.  
  106.      
  107.     MIGHT & MAGIC SERIES - Multiple platforms (mostly PC, some console)
  108.      
  109.    Spanning ten core titles since 1984, Might and Magic one of the most renowned and longest-running dungeon crawling series, and was the basis for the Heroes of Might and Magic spinoff series. Most games have fairly simple combat -- buff up, find good equipment, and use brute force to solve most of your problems. However, there are many quests, puzzles, and riddles to keep things interesting.
  110.      
  111.     Might and Magic 1 and 2 are pretty "old-school" and will require you to use DOS or an emulator. There are also console ports for those who prefer to use a controller.
  112.      
  113.     Might and Magic 4 and 5 are two parts of the World of Xeen and arguably the best balance between classic gameplay and modern accessibility (mouse cursor, clear graphics), although they still run off DOS(box). MM3 is similar in style and gameplay, and also has console ports.
  114.      
  115.     MM6-MM9 were developed and published under different companies, and made use of a new 3D engine, allowing the player free non-grid movement, as well as the ability to switch between real-time and turn-based combat. These haven't aged as gracefully as the previous few installments, but not so badly as to be offensive. MM6 was the best received, although 7 and 8 look and play very similarly. We don't talk about MM9.
  116.      
  117.     Might and Magic 10 is actually quite a masterful entry in the series despite the baffling graphics performance and surprisingly long (but not unbearable) load times. Unexpectedly to many long-time fans, combat has been made more involved, requiring actual tactics to best tackle enemies who often have potent defenses and counterattacks. Absolutely recommended if you can stomach the Ubisoft Uplay DRM, which to be fair is mostly unintrusive other than requiring a Uplay account. Retails at $25.
  118.      
  119.     Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is not quite a dungeon crawler, rather more of a first-person RPG along the lines of the Elder Scrolls series or maybe Ultima Underworld, although with more action and a more on-rails storyline. Nothing amazing, but it is a solid game and can be found for cheap.
  120.      
  121.      
  122.     =======================================================================================================================================
  123.      
  124.     PAPER SORCERER - Windows, Mac, Linux
  125.      
  126.     Review incoming, if it's any good. Can't say no to a five-dolla crawla.
  127.      
  128.      
  129.     =======================================================================================================================================
  130.      
  131.      
  132.     SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI SERIES - ATLUS, various platforms. Refer to /smtg/ for further information.
  133.      
  134.             The SMT series is pretty popular among the Crawlan players since Dungeon Crawler mechanics have been included in more or less all of its entries, at different degrees. It offers a Dark, deep apocalyptic setting and makes you negociate and battle with demons to save or burn the world. If you haven't played an SMT game yet, refer to /smtg/ as they are quite helpful and constitute an interesting community.
  135.      
  136.             SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI - STRANGE JOURNEY - NDS, 2010
  137.      
  138.             This title is similar to the Etrian titles in a number of ways, great dungeon design, first-person crawling and battles, and a decent difficulty. The SMT coating gives it a nice darker tone that may satisfy those who were driven off by the happy lolis of EO. It features the SMT-signature demon negociation and fusion, which is pretty great, and you get to save the world from a demon invasion in a nice B-series SF setting. Definitely a great title to play even for those unfamiliar with the genre.
  139.      
  140.             SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI - PERSONA - PS1/PSP, 1996-2010
  141.            
  142.             A word of advice: play the PSP version. The PS1 version is horribly localized and buggy. Now that PSP emulates great you won't even have to resort to it even if you don't have a console.
  143.      
  144.             This title is definitely not the best Persona, yet it's an interesting one to play because it's the only one to have 1st person crawling. The battle system is comparable to the Persona 2 duology (PSP/PS1) and is quite enjoyable once you get over the quite dated look that this game has overall. Somewhat hard, but has great plot and music to make up for the rest. If you didn't like it, do try Persona 2. For more exhaustive information on the Persona series, refer to /smtg/.
  145.      
  146.             SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI 1 & 2 - SNES, 1992
  147.      
  148.             As you can tell from the date, these games will feel quite dated, yet they feature a rewarding 1st person dungeon crawling experience once you get past the age, along with great plot and music, and are regardless key entries in the SMT series.
  149.     Links and infos for the translation-patched roms can be found on the /smtg/ OPs.
  150.      
  151.             SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI IV - 3DS, 2013
  152.      
  153.             The community is divided as to whether this game is truly a dungeon crawler or not. While it does feature dungeons, most areas can be quite linear (or at least, not labirynthic at all). This title features 3rd person exploration with great graphics and 1st person battles with a press-turn system nice sprites who will remind some of Strange Journey. The negociation and fusion systems have been revamped and made a little easier to master, but the game still retains a decent amount of difficulty, great plot and music, and an NG+ Hard[as balls] Mode for those unsatisfied with this "nonsensical Normal-mode Casualfaggotry". A must-play 3DS title.
  154.      
  155.             SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI: DEVIL SUMMONER - SOUL HACKERS - Saturn/3DS, 1997-2013
  156.      
  157.             Soul Hackers is the 3DS remake of an early entry in the SMT series (good luck in finding a translated Saturn ROM?) It takes place in a Cyberpunk setting and features signature SMT elements like demon negotiation, fusion, and fast-paced 1st person battles, this time with a six-man party. The dungeons range from simple to pretty large and labyrinthine, and the characters are interesting. An extra layer of depth is added thanks to demon personality, which contributes in making the fusion and negociation systems interesting, and set this title apart from other entries in the series.
  158.      
  159.            
  160.      
  161.             The rest of the SMT series features a number of really good JRPG titles with a certain degree of Dungeon Crawler mechanics, and if you haven't played them, well, you should. /smtg/ has all the answers.
  162.      
  163.     =======================================================================================================================================
  164.      
  165.     WIZARDRY SERIES - Multiple platforms (PC, PS3, consoles)
  166.      
  167.     You simply can't talk about dungeon crawlers without mentioning Wizardry. Perhaps not the first, but arguably the most successful crawler series, it spans eight core titles since 1981, twice as many spin-offs, and even an MMO. Wizardry had many firsts, including things like prestige/advanced classes, multiclassing, and menu-driven/animated image combat as seen in Dragon Quest. Wizardry's influence can still be felt strongly today, and is especially apparent in games like Dark Spire, Class of Heroes, and Elminage.
  168.      
  169.     Japan has quite the hard-on for Wizardry (perhaps even more than Dragon Quest), as can be seen by the many Japan-only spin-offs. Luckily, English fan patches are available and let the more modern player play updated versions of PC games via console emulation, with the comfort of controller input.
  170.      
  171.     Wizardry 8 is the most recent PC entry (2001), and features a new 3D engine with free movement, although the game is entirely turn-based (enemies stop moving when you do). Wizardry 7 can be found as a Windows adaptation in the form of Wizardry Gold, albeit with some changes. Also of note are the numerous console ports for which (not always complete) English patches have been made, allowing players to play older games via PC emulation or on hacked handheld consoles.
  172.      
  173.     The easiest Wizardy for the modern console player to get is probably Labyrinth of Lost Souls, available on PS3 via PSN for $15. Despite its anime makeover, it is still at its core a classic Wizardry game. Japan may like their anime, but they don't mess around when it comes to the Wizardry formula, apparently.
  174.      
  175.     Custom portraits for Wizardry 8 and instructions for install them
  176.     http://wizardryvault.com/file-downloads/?did=24
  177.      
  178.    
  179.     =======================================================================================================================================
  180.      
  181.     Here are the first versions of the "/eog/'s recommended games" pastebin, feel free to improve on it, add titles and descriptions, edit the content, or better, submit suggestions for an infographic. Hopefully this will make it into the OP and help the newcomers enjoy this great genre.
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