Take Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, take out the Pokemon, add Ninja's and monsters, and you have Izuna.
I like some dungeon crawler games. They’re interesting, they’re strategic, but most of all they can be fun. For the first five minutes of Izuna, it’ll wrap you in this little world with all kinds of possibilities, right until you get slaughtered by one of the easiest enemies in the game to kill. Then you realize what you’ve gotten yourself into. Izuna, at heart, is a dungeon crawler game that’s taken Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, took out the Pokemon and added Ninja’s and monsters. Did it fix the flaws in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, you ask? Well yes and no. Instead of worrying about separate moves and trying to rescue Pokemon, you’re sent off to the several dungeons in the game to challenge the god’s and cure the curse that has befallen the village and your companions. What are still left are the randomized dungeons, items, and the fact that if you die, you lose all your items and money. Graphically this is a GBA game stuck on the DS. It even sounds like a GBA game, which isn’t bad, though the level of difficulty really hinders on the fun factor in this game. Once you get passed the second dungeon and understand the basic strategy of the game, you can blow through it in about five hours, assuming you don’t stop to restock in weapons, items, cash, or experience. Combat is simple, all you do is smack the A button to attack, much like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. You can access your inventory with X, have an array of sub-weapons by holding L and selecting a button, that is if you have any, and press the B button to move faster in the turns.
This game isn’t bad. If you can get passed the difficulty and the uninspired game play, you can find a strategic dungeon crawler that’s not as bad as Tao but makes Pokemon Mystery Dungeon look like the greatest dungeon crawler on the DS. All in all, if you’re looking for a decent dungeon crawler for your duel-screened buddy, wait for this one to drop in price before picking up.