Feels More Like a Copy Than a New Game... Disappointing to Say the Least...
But this isn't a review for "Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground" now is it? No, this is a review for "Master of the Monster Lair".
I picked up this game for the DS because, as I said, I loved Dungeon Maker for the PSP so this game sounded like something I'd be interested in. So that night I got home and tried it out. Boy was I disappointed.
"Master of the Monster Lair" really does nothing new or different. In many respects it feels like an overly-simplified version of Dungeon Maker, with slightly more detailed monster graphics and much less customization and imagination, and an extremely dull combat system.
The story itself is almost exactly the same as Dungeon Maker, with only very minor differences. In Dungeon Maker you were on a quest to rid the town of dangerous monsters by building a huge dungeon to lure them into-- and them kill them. Monster Lair has nearly the same story where the town has a monster problem as well and you're expected to build a dungeon to lure the monsters into and kill them, but this time a greedy mayor also wants to use your dungeon as an attraction to draw sight-seers into the town. Some attraction.
Everything else in the game seems like almost an exact clone of Dungeon Maker. In both games you don't level up by fighting monsters but rather you increase various skills by cooking and eating food (which you gather the ingredients usually by killing monsters). Weapons and armor are gathered from monster drops (though unlike Dungeon Maker, decent loot drops are few and far between). In both games the weapon/armor shop is relatively useless as it never stocks any new items unless you first loot the item from a fallen monster or treasure chest and than sell it to the weapon/armor shop which defeats the whole purpose of a shop in the first place. In both games you gain magic attacks by buying them from a magic shop, in both games you're given simple quests every so often to loot an item from a certain monster, and in both games there is a store to buy materials for your dungeon. As I said, Master of the Monster Lair feels almost exactly like a Dungeon Maker clone, but "dumbed down" to make it easier to play... perhaps more child-friendly?
The main differences between the two games are these: the combat system and dungeon customization. Well, the graphics too, actually.
First off, the combat system. The combat in Dungeon Maker, I think, was much more interesting as it was more real-time and less of your standard turn-based RPG. Monster Lair, however, is your standard turn-based RPG combat system, which would be fine with me, but the system in this game is extremely simple, clumsy, and outdated. It's slow, tedious, and boring to a fault. You click an attack, you wait, your character attacks with a badly-animated move, than your enemy attacks you, and than it starts over again. It's nothing fancy, it's nothing different or interesting, and it feels very old and very slow. Even more frustrating than this is the annoying text messages you keep getting throughout the battle such as "your attack missed" or "your enemy hits you with a powerful attack" which pauses the game completely for a few seconds each time they come up, and pressing a button doesn't make them disappear much faster. If your enemies are asleep than instead of saying "all enemies are asleep" and only getting one message, you get one "___ monster is asleep" message for one monster, pause for a couple seconds, than the next "___ monster is asleep" message, pause a couple seconds, and than again. This means that if you're fighting more than one enemy, combat can really take quite some time and isn't a smooth or enjoyable experience. It's more frustrating and boring than anything. I find myself looking forward to the battle ending and dread being dragged into combat with a monster simply because it's so woefully boring.
Next off, dungeon customization. For a game that focuses on dungeon-building the customization options are greatly lacking. This is something that I think Dungeon Maker did extremely well. In Dungeon Maker you could not only chose which rooms you wanted to place, but you could also decorate your hallways with different styles such as magic, marble, wood, dirt and so on. Changing the styles of a hallway would draw different monsters to it, meaning that if you put different walls in various sections of just one floor, you could get a wide variety of monsters spawning on just that one floor alone. It was interesting, and you could make an extremely unique and fun-to-explore dungeon with even just one dungeon floor.
In Monster Lair, however, it's not this enjoyable. While you are able to chose which rooms you want to place and where you want to put them, that's all the customization there is. You can't customize how they look or anything like that. It's basically you select the room you want and drop it and leave it... that's it. The next game day a monster will spawn in the room, and you go and kill it.
As for the graphics, well, the graphics aren't really all that bad to be honest. Some of them I might even have to admit are even nicer than Dungeon Maker. The player's character is detailed very well and looks great, and the dungeon itself looks fairly decent too, for being bare, uncustomizable walls.
The animations aren't too bad, but the combat animations for your character aren't much to speak of. The best way I can think of to explain the combat animations of your character is... think of the really old "PokeMon Red" and "PokeMon Blue" games for the old Nintendo Gameboy. It looks and feels a lot like that where the attack animation is basically just a quick jagged slash, explosion, or something similar shown on your enemy when you attack. It's something like that, anyway.
And I should also mention that the graphics seem to be recycled from other games (and used in other games). Take a look at the recently-released DS game called "My World My Way". Take a look at the monsters in the game... notice anything familiar? From the screen shots I've seen of My World My Way, it uses the exact same monster models and textures from Monster Lair, it just changes the names (Dog Wizard = Dog Warrior). Even the combat HUD looks very similar. Weird.
Now, how about loot? Maybe it's just me, but decent loot items seemed to be much more frequent in Dungeon Maker. Yes, I know that the amount of loot depends on the quality of your dungeon and how many monsters are in it, but even so the drop-rates seem to be very, very low unless you're fighting multiple monsters. When you fight three monsters you're pretty much guaranteed a loot drop of same kind from the last monster killed, which in itself I suppose isn't all that bad, but doesn't allow for much excitement of wondering what you'll be getting. If you kill a goblin, for example, you know you'll either be getting a shield, a helmet, or a club. If you kill a cat warrior you know you'll be getting either a helmet, a dagger, a piece of armor (that you can't equip because it's for females) or a fish. Like I said, it's not all that bad in itself, but it doesn't have much variety. Not to mention that the stats are the same each time, so most likely you'll just end up selling your loot at a shop once you leave your dungeon.
And it wouldn't be as bad-- and you probably wouldn't even notice it so much-- if the combat system wasn't so dang crappy.
While the game itself is mildly entertaining and is good for killing time, it's not something different or engaging, and it's not something that will amuse you for hours at a time. It's a game best played for a few minutes at a time. It lacks depth, imagination and creativity, and feels simply like a clone or a recycled game with a horrible combat system. All-in-all I'm very disappointed with it. If you're expecting something fun and engaging, and something like Dungeon Maker but for the DS, you too will be disappointed in this game. But perhaps I was just expecting too much from it...