Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This? Hands-On

NIS America certainly knows how to pick them. We had the opportunity to play around with this dungeon-digging game, originally known as Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida Or 2, at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show and enjoyed it immensely. The retro visuals and simple gameplay were incredibly addictive, and now that we have a translated version with a tutorial, we've realized that it's a lot harder than we originally thought. The demos we played with at TGS weren't nearly this mind-boggling, so be prepared for a tough 8-bit challenge.

The Story mode is broken up into stages, and there are also separate tutorials and short challenges that you can play through. You're not going to last long without acing the tutorials, so you're better off learning the intricacies of dungeon digging before you jump into the Story mode. You play as the God of Destruction, and with your mighty pickaxe, you must help the evil overlord excavate different types of monsters to create a nasty dungeon in order to ward off the do-gooders from the land above. The game takes place on a grid of dirt, and your job is basically to dig. How and where you dig is crucial, because this is a lot more complicated than it looks. You are given a limited amount of time to set up your dungeon, and then you must place the overlord in a safe place, ensuring that there are enough monsters to keep the heroes at bay.

Besides knowing where to dig, learning how the monster food chain works will help. There's a food pyramid in the almanac section of the menu that serves as a good reference tool. Dirt that is tinged with green will yield slimemosses, which are green blobs that will walk around the dungeon in a line, sucking out nutrients and distributing them elsewhere--like mobile fertilizer. Nutrient-rich sections of the dungeon will begin to change color, and once they do, you dig at them to uncover new types of monsters, which will then eat whatever is beneath them in the food chain. There are mana tiles as well, which will uncover more monsters that feed off the magic-related creatures rather than the blobs. Your goal is to manage this ecosystem of monsters and food source carefully so that you can create an army large enough to ward off the heroes that will come from above to take the evil overlord away.

After each stage, you are given points to upgrade your creatures. Points are based on how much digging you did, so it's better to be on the more conservative side. You are given a limited amount of dig power, so randomly digging won't help you create the optimum dungeon, and you'll lose out on upgrading your monsters later. There's a surprising amount of strategy and depth to this game, which might take a while to get the hang of, but it's fun and rewarding to beat a stage. There are no save points, so if the overlord is taken and the heroes make it out of the dungeon, you have to start over from the very beginning. It's merciless, but it's perfect for those who love a tough challenge. Once you've mastered the tutorials, there are also short challenges you can complete to hone your dungeon-digging abilities. It's probably best to go through the challenges first before attempting the Story mode.

Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This? has a simple but appealing style with its retro look. The zany overlord also has some hilarious over-the-top lines, and he makes a ton of random references that will make you chuckle. The music is pleasant to listen to and gives the game some medieval flair to go along with the assortment of knights and mages that venture into the dungeon. The game is set to be released in July, but in the meantime, we're definitely looking forward to using our God of Destruction powers for more digging.