If nothing else, Dungeon Explorer is aptly named. This action role-playing game first appeared on the TurboGrafx-16 in 1989, letting up to five players shoot monsters, collect magic items, and, of course, explore dungeons. Dungeon Explorer is now available on the Wii Virtual Console for 600 points ($6), which is a few dollars too expensive for a game that's little more than a rudimentary Gauntlet clone.
Dungeon Explorer takes place in the kingdom of Odessia, where a magic ORA stone has been stolen by a Devil King, and it's up to you--an unnamed hero--to retrieve it. You can choose to play as one of eight different classes, including a bard, a fighter, a thief, a bishop, and a "knome." The different character types all behave the same, except some are slightly faster or shoot swords or lightning bolts instead of axes or daggers. Each character also has two mostly useless magic abilities that can be activated by using certain items.
There are about a dozen different dungeons to clear in Dungeon Explorer, most of which end with a boss that is harder to get to than to kill. The multilevel dungeons are bursting with creatures for you to kill. The creatures spawn endlessly from portals that you have to destroy, and you'll often find yourself overwhelmed by thick swarms of monsters. All of the fighting and exploring takes place from a top-down perspective, and you can shoot in eight directions. You can shoot while moving, but you can shoot only in the direction you're moving, which is useless when enemies are coming at you from all sides. It's easier to just pick a spot and shoot until you've killed everything, then move on and do it again a few steps later. As a result, this game is best played with the Wii Classic Controller or a GameCube controller because it's much easier to aim diagonally with an analog stick than with the D pad on the Wii Remote.
With so many enemies to fight, you'll find yourself dying often. You start out with five lives, and when those are exhausted, you're given a password you can enter to start again at the first castle in the game. Usually, you'll have to make a lengthy trek back to where you were, often losing a couple of lives in the process. Having to cover the same ground over and over quickly gets tiresome. You're rewarded for your suffering with a colored jewel that each boss drops, which levels up your character. As a result, you do get slightly stronger as you play through the game, but the dungeons also get progressively tougher. The game is a bit more manageable if you can round up four other players to join you on your quest, but bear in mind that for a full five-player game, at least one person will have to use a GameCube controller. Also, as cramped as most of the mazes are, with five heroes playing together, you'll spend a lot of time simply shooting your allies in the back.
The graphics in Dungeon Explorer are colorful. The dungeons and bosses also show a good deal of variety in terms of theme and design. However, the enemies, characters, and towns all look blurry and lack detail, even by 16-bit standards. The music is good, with different, catchy tunes for most of the dungeons.
As difficult and mindless as the gameplay in Dungeon Explorer is, it can be oddly compelling at times. Unfortunately those moments don't last, and after a short time with the game, you'll be ready to move on.
