A great new name among dungeon crawlers!
Games like Disgaea, La Pucelle and Phantom Brave conquered people thanks their lovely characters, easy-going plots, and (overall) game mechanics able to satisfy either casual RPG gamers than hardcore gamers and indefatigable grinders.
All the games mentioned introduced themselves like not much challenging titles, with their easy plots, soft characters wonderful in their attitudes and behaviors (abusing with compelling and clever humor). Indeed all of them could be finished by everyone (with the right amount of level grinding), but under their soft skin they concealed a heart of iron with secret bosses and extra challenges able to make blush every hardcore gamer on the planet.
Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs Darkdeath Evilman (maybe the longest title ever seen in a videogame) is a totally new I.P. from the same authors of Disgaea & Co, but this time we have not a turn strategic, but a classical dungeon crawler following the wakes of games like Pokemon Fushigi Dungeon, or Shiren the Wanderer.
Maybe most people will sweat cold hearing the last two titles. Pokemon Dungeon's games was ridiculously easy created for little boys while Shiren, though a playing core extremely valid, was so difficult to raise questions about the mind sanity of his creators.
Luckilly Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs Darkdeath Evilman choose a similar approach to other NIS games dispensing fun to all want complete a game without too much complications, and pampering the hardcore gamers with extra challenges needing toooons of grinding and advanced game strategies.
Talking about humor, it's even more accentuate than past, and permeate every second of the game. Just know that the game begins with a powerful evil monster menacing a miracle super baby and the hero, late for the final battle, is knocked out by a car and before dying pass his hero belt to a mere bystander (the player). Obviously the Darkdeath Evilman beats badly the poor newborn hero (always the player) that instead to die is sent to another planet to undertake a series of training able to change him in a real hero. The plot is as much as fun I saw in the last period of time in a videogame and overall manages to reach stupidity heights similar to product like Excel Saga, thanks even to a series of compelling gags and an enormous number of quotes from comics, anime and other videogames. No one was spared, from Final Fantasy to Saint Seya, passing from Power Ranger (or Gogol Five… lol) and Ultraman.
The trainings of the player will be represented by a series of dungeons each with a specific setting and respective boss. The gameplay is not far from the 2D dungeon crawlers like the already mentioned Pokemon or Shiren. Your player will had to roam in multilevel dungeons framed by rooms linked by tight corridors killing enemies and collecting items and equipment, always taking a close look not only to vital energy bar, but even to satiety bar too, essential in order to don't starve and use special techniques. All the game is represented in isometric 3D with the possibility to rotate the visual angle. 3D implementation allowed to create more complex rooms than bidimensional games so this time will be controlled even the height of a platform and the weapons capacity of hit at different elevations. Movements and fighting are in real time (one action you, one action every other presence on the floor) with square movement classical of the genre.
Though the general gameplay don't show anything new respect the usual, the implementations of the dungeon crawling mechanics are well developed and employed; moreover to making all more exiting we had a special skill management clever and satisfying together with a crafting system well realized.
Each piece of equipment provides some special attacks and/or personal skills.
Firsts are outstanding techniques able to dispense great amount of damage often targeting more squares at once. Special attacks need to be casted with a normal action, then can be saved indefinitely waiting for the most favorable moment of activation, remembering that walking with a special attack casted make the player to use more satiety for his normal actions.
Personals skill are passive abilities able to give several types of support.
Either special attacks than personal skills can be transferred from a piece of equipment to another thanks to the crafting that is able to merge two gears of the same type. So Special and skills can be placed on a particularly strong gear but remember that each items will have a customization number impossible to overcome. Moreover merging several times a same item will give an enhancement of stats to the equipment used as base.
The adventure goes pretty smoothly without any frustrations or impossible enemy, at least during the main plot, but it's due point out that some bosses could bother the players not for their difficulty, but because often they will require some tricky movements in order to open their defense. Unfortunately the game will not give you any hint how to do that, leaving the player the burden to experiment solutions. Though not impossible, sometimes will be required preliminary actions pretty tricky to find out.
In order to don't create a power player from the beginning of the game, programmers find some clever solutions. In the beginning each equipment pieces will not add a fixed number to a characteristic, but a percentage improvement (or loss); for example a sword could give a boost to physical attack of 10% and at the same time a loss of ranged attack of 5%. So the equipment choice will be done bearing in mind the type of template you want to use: melee fighter, ranged, special attacks based etc. In other words will be useless make a ranged attack based hero if after a gun you equip it with an helmet or an armor that decrease ranged attack percentage damage.
Maybe you are asking why the percentage system: well… your hero quickly gains level in dungeons, so his stats boost up significantly soon taking advantage of the equipment boost. A cleverly developed hero with the right equipments matched with the current situations can easily do more than 100K damage after 50 dungeon floors. To level this outstanding power we have two different types of hero levels: dungeons levels and real levels.
The level ups gained in-dungeons are, how said, temporary. Each time you will be killed, completed a dungeon or exit from it your level will go back to one, but you will gain a boost in your real levels that will improve slightly your stats allowing to face next battle with a little more strength than before.
A NIS game would not be completed without the extra hardcore challenges we are used; so here welcome a series of additional dungeons.
The Dengeki Dungeons are brief but challenging each with a specific setting and often with precise instructions to follow. Each Dengeki has a single boss taken from famous anime of the last period of time, from Durarara! to Oreimo etc.
The Hero Dungeons are real survival stages with a high number of floor where you find as a boss characters taken from other NIS games.
Dengeki and Hero dungeons will had variety and longevity to the main plot since it not shine in length, moreover, especially the seconds will give you the opportunity to use the full power of your template.
This last challenges are absolutely hard but pretty satisfying since just in the deepest floors of the Hero dungeons you will find the most powerful equipments.
About the out-dungeon management the game is pretty rich. During game you will discover a series of facilities able to simplify some initial hardships of the game. Starting with a Prinny wife (yes, I said wife) that will run a depot for your items, we'll have even an insurance in order to don't lose your equipment in case of death, a delivery system to save important equipment directly from the dungeons and more.
Most important facility will be probably the clinic where you be able to modify the shadowgram of your hero.
This feature ends to be one of the most important tool for hero empowering and customization. Basically is a grid of 135 slots that can be filled with panels each of them adding point to the hero basic stats. Panels can be obtained converting useless items and equipment and other than give some stat boost get two other great use. In the beginning the panels can be used as bases for placing special chips giving a wide range of new features. From stat bonus for pieces of equipments to increasing gain in experience or gold, as well as the possibility to carry more items or cast multiple special attacks. Special chips bonus can be improved further connecting them with one or more Hero Energies, five source of power releasable on the board. The second feature etching widely on the in-dungeon development of the hero influencing on your template's creations. Adding more panels of the same type it will change the state of the hero giving a specific bonus to that stat for each in-dungeons level up. So adding mainly melee power panels will aid to boost physical power of the hero making him more and more powerful each level gained. Same for ranged attack panels, or melee defense panels. Obviously you'll need to match your character's equipment to his primary stat. A system original and effective, but really handy and ductile.
Final Line
Dungeons crawlers belong to a specific videogamecological niche (lol), so obviously even a game like this is mainly direct to lovers of this genre. However NIS make a great work in creating a new I.P. able to make really milder the typical lacks of those games (like the repetitiveness often common in the genre), thanks to a series of good ideas and a game model light for the newbie but with a hard core for veterans.
In other words I think Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs Darkdeath Evilman will not let down NIS fan and will surely like to RPG gamers. If you never played an RPG maybe this game should not be your first while if you hate with all your heart the dungeon crawling you could easily pass over.
Pleasant surprises like that should come more often in the videogame world.
Final Score 8