Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon: Infinite Combate (English) · Test

Light Novel, Anime, and now the Video Game to the Anime!

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon: Infinite Combate or the western full title Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon: Familia Myth Infinite Combate or ダンジョンに出会いを求めるのは間違っているだろうか abbreviated as Danmachi (Portmanteau of Dungeon und Machigatteiru, in this case, translated as “Wrong”).

It’s well known that turning licensed titles into video games isn’t always easy. The story and characters are already fixed and there’s also a need to balance everything it contains to synergize with existing media.

As the title already mentions Dungeons, you can expect some dungeon crawling in this adaption but maybe with an unexpected way of progression.

To offer more to both Fans and Newcomers there’s a split into two parts: Main Story and Extra Mode. The latter offering new side content exclusive to the game.

Whether it manages to satisfy all sides, that’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself and that’s why we’re giving you a little bit more in-depth review of it!

About Danmachi and Light Novels

Many fans of Japan know Anime and Manga but there’s something else brooding in there: Light Novels. These Light Novels are a lot of time the source of Anime and Manga adoptions. They are small Novels at a page size of about half of DIN A5 and they are sold at under 10 bucks or that’s how it was a few years ago. Zero no Tsukaima, Shakugan no Shana, Sword Art Online, Overlord are just a few examples.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

The story plays out in a world where gods have descended onto the worlds of mortals because… they were bored and at the same time intrigued by the struggles of humanity. The point of interest is in this case the Labyrinth City Orario. A city that was built on top of a dungeon.

Adventurers around the world are traveling there to explore the famous dungeon but not everything is as easy as it sounds. The dungeon is more challenging than humanly possible which is why you have to sign in to a Familia. These are guild-like groups with one of the descended gods supporting them and make it possible to level up and go beyond the limits.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Our Hero Bell Cranell is wondering about this. As a newcomer at Orario, it looks like none of the Familias were ready to take him in, except the fated Goddess Hestia when he was down in the ditches. This event was the beginning of the heroic tale of Bell Granel.

But there’s another story to tell. On the other side, we’re seeing the heroine of the story: Aiz Wallenstein. Also known as the Sword Princess for her fighting prowess who is also part of the Loki Familia. The stoic veteran Aiz puts on a stark contrast in comparison to Bell as she’s already on her way to floor 59 with her Familia group. In a twist of fate, she saves Bell from a mighty enemy. This fateful encounter was the beginning of a romance and his drive to become stronger to stand side by side in battle with Aiz. Inadvertently, he also has a positive effect that helps her to break down her long-standing limits.

The Main Story of Danmachi consists of two storylines: Bell and Aiz. Though the latter is much stronger and shows the gap in skills. The good news is that you’ll be following the story close from the beginning, making it easy to follow for everybody. This means you’ll be following Bell’s Hero’s Journey of a rough beginning, meeting Aiz, and finally gets into gear after being confronted with his weakness.

While Bell’s growth is in the spotlight, it also covers Aiz and her changes after the meeting.

This specific telling of the story is focused completely on the main parts. Some cuts might be more noticeable than others but it still manages to bring out the most important story beats and thus easy to follow. Optional quests and conversations are giving some additional small details but nothing too noteworthy.

There might be one or two rare cases of the story having trouble matching the gameplay segment leading to a filler like feeling.

Overall it seems to be a shortened retelling of the story with a focus on all the major plot points, which neither bad nor good but just an alternative. Story and Gameplay are strictly separated into their segments that means no mid-gameplay story.

The Extra Mode is a collection of short events. One is for dating and another is for sleep dates when you finish the Extra Dungeons and their bosses. There are limits to this since there’s already a source material that it needs to adhere to.

Gameplay & Controls

It’s important to note that this isn’t your traditional RPG. Yes, there are stats and levels but those are there for story purposes. The stats do affect the gameplay but that only affects mostly Bell because his stats are very low that makes him very rigid in attack and dodge recovery. Equipment and skills are where it’s at.

Dungeon Action

Since the game is also available for the PS Vita in the Asian region, L2 and R2 are not utilized due to the unwieldy touchpads on the back. Gameplaywise it’s kept very simple with light, heavy attacks, dodging, magic, support attacks, and a Special Mode where your attacks become critical hits.

At the start of the dungeon, you’re starting with full resources.

The Basics

• Items/Consumables (D-Pad)
  You can take up to 4 consumables with you. Each with a maximum stack of 9. HP, MP Recovery Items, stat buffs, or element changes are all part of your choice. It’s important to use them strategically because there are no alternative ways to recover HP or MP. All of the items you find within the dungeon are only available once you finish it and the tally comes up.

• Light Attacks
  Both characters have individual attack strings. The last attack initiates a recovery period where you’re immobilized. This isn’t much of an issue for Aiz because of her high stats but Bell will initially struggle against it. All Light Attacks can be canceled into Heavy Attacks, magic, or a dodge seamlessly but keep in mind that there are limited cancel periods.

• Heavy Attacks
  These attacks are comparable with the final attack of the Light Attack string. It covers a lot of the immediate area around your character and does about 2.5 more damage than light ones. It comes with the caveat that it cannot be canceled and has a long recovery period which is especially lethal for Bell at low levels.

• Dodging
  You’re completely invincible while in the dodge animation but you have a recovery period after it that immobilizes you. When you’re attacking with Light Attacks, your prior attack will decide the direction you’re going to dodge. It’s quite a strange design decision as it makes it much more difficult to use.

• Magic Attacks
  There’s not much to say about them as they are your ranged attacks and are very limited by your MP. From a resource point of view, it’s not worth it to use these attacks frequently since the use of consumables is rather costly.

• Support Attacks
  You can have up to 2 sets up before entering the dungeon. Each is set at R1 or L1 and do AoE attacks. You recover the support gauge by successfully attacking enemies. Some recover faster than others do. They also differ in attack damage and the Area of Attack. Most of the time these are useful against low HP enemies like those with ranged attacks or when there are many enemies on the screen.
  Aside from the attacks, there also passive effects like attack buff or drop rate increase.

• Character Skill
  By pushing R1 and L1 together you activate an attack boost that turns your attacks into critical hits. The gauge recovers with each successful hit so it’s possible to replenish it fully even before your charge runs out. Technically, you could be in this mode permanently as long there are enemies around for you to hit.
  The knife has fast attacks so that’s at least one of its advantages.

Enemies

There are only a handful of different enemies with color palette swaps. Aside from the standard enemies that have different ranged attacks, there are 2 noteworthy enemy types.

• 1) The ramming type. They can be fast and attack by dashing at you. Here’s the catch, they like to move away from you and thus are out of your attack range. One example of these is the ant types that brought me to the first Game Over.
• 2) Enemies with projectiles are possibly the most dangerous ones when you combine them with other enemy types. They not only damage you but also tend to inflict poison or burn. Poison works slow but long and burn is fast but short.

Once you have enemy types of 1) and/or 2) in the mix you’ll be pressured to the extreme.

Boss Fights

These are your standard fare boss fights that come with fixed patterns you have to figure out and find the timing for attacking. After losing half of their life, they’ll have a change in pattern that is even more difficult than the initial one. Theoretically, it should be possible to defeat the bosses without even getting touched. The biggest challenge will be the very first boss as you will be challenging it with a weak Bell.

3 Weapon Types

All 3 types of weapons have different attack strings though they are similar. There’re good reasons why you would want to prefer one over the other.

• Knife: Fast attacks but short-range
• Sword: Moderate attack speed and range
• Longsword: Slow attacks but long-range

Bell and Aiz have their attack strings though they are not that different. The knife gives you a higher DPS (Damage Per Second) but the short-range makes you vulnerable from attacks from the second row. The sword is the compromise between speed and range that can hit enemies in the second row.

The Longsword is good against the normal mobs but will have a difficult time against quick enemies as they can move away from your attack string.

It’s not easy to find the right tool as it’s fixed and can’t be changed mid-dungeon. There’s also the fact that Bell gets very good weapons gifted along with the story.

Dungeon Action Impression

Danmachi is all about simplicity. There are no complex combos or importance on reactions. It’s more important to position yourself strategically and plan how to tackle different enemy compositions. Don’t think it is easy, you’re bound to see the Game Over screen.

Granted, there are some strange design decisions like the dodge mechanic and the extreme weakness of Bell as it leads to early frustrations.

I’ll leave you with an advise in that regard, sometimes it’s useful to finish your attack string since it does a quick AoE attack that hits 360° but leaves you open to attacks, especially early on with Bell. The attack is very fast and therefore you can do a back turn, still hit the enemy, and dash away into safety.

VN/Menus

Aside from the Dungeon Action, you get a story delivered in VN format that comes with the typical options such as auto-forwarding, removal of the textbox, and a text log.

Then there are the Menus that is your central hub for everything. The good news is that it’s interconnected to other parts outside of the Story Mission. Depending on where you are you can talk to specific characters for some extra bits.

3 important areas affect the gameplay.

Guilds/Sidequests

You can take on sidequests there. Many are one time only that offer some extra talk with the clients and others are repeatable for grinding materials, money, and skill points. The latter are simple missions of going from one floor to another like 1 to 10.

Equipment/Smithy

This is the place if you’re looking for everything regarding items and equipment. Buy new equipment, upgrade them, and add elements to them.

Upgrades can get up to +5 and requires materials. The good news is it’s not complicated since all materials are put in a point system and you only have to bring the value to 0. This also applies to Elements though they are more particular with materials to match the specific element. Have the correct element against the corresponding enemy and you get 20% extra damage.

The initial selection is modest but still covers at least all 3 cost segments that are enough to help you through the story mode. More weapons and armors are unlocked by selling materials, if you want to know which and how many you need to talk to the smith who gives you direct hints.

Familia/Skills

According to the lore of Danmachi, you need the Gods to help you become stronger. Since Levels are story dependent, it leaves us with skills. Every time you defeat enemies in the dungeon, you get skill points to spend that can be used to unlock skills that buff your damage, HP, MP, Status resistance, etc.

Extra Mode

After finishing the main story you’ll enter the Extra Mode. New content and loot are awaiting you.

A separate endgame part where you have new dungeons that give you date points upon completion. These are used to unlock special character scenes that are comparable to small mini-stories.

After you finishing the floors you unlock more difficult boss fights that unlock sleep events (Just literally sleeping!).

Gameplay Overall Impression

Aside from the action gameplay we already have touched upon, loot, skills, and equipment are the major elements that affect it. It’s nothing complicated but offers some additional incentive for dungeoning.

It’s clear that the mix of Action and VN is meant to be an interactive take on the story and you could say it’s achieved to a certain degree as both are more like separate entities rather than a combination. If you’re looking for something with a lot of depth then you probably won’t find much. It’s focused on simplicity that anybody can play the game.

Graphics & Sound

Since this game has a Vita Version you’ll have to keep your expectations modest. The Dungeon Action utilizes the typical SD design to keep the needs of details lower. The dungeons themselves are also nothing special visually and are made like putting blocks together. This results in very same looking floors until there’s a change in theme.

As for the VN side of things, it’s your standard fare of character art, backgrounds, and seemingly screenshots from the anime at a good resolution with original Japanese voice acting.

The music is good but it’s missing some Variation. You’ll notice it pretty soon when you’re hanging around a dungeon longer than 10 minutes because the song loop is pretty short. Though it makes sense that each dungeon has its music, it would have helped if they were either longer or having multiple songs.

Danmachi is partially voiced in the story scenes and the additional scenes in the Extra Mode. Optional conversations like when you talk to them individually in the menus are not.

Verdict

Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon: Infinite Combate is a game that sets out to be easy to play and does exactly that. The simple action coupled with VN storytelling is offering a light game that ready for some short pick up and play sessions. People who’re not used to action games won’t meet many barriers but it isn't offering anything special either.

The biggest source of frustration is probably the weak Bell in the beginning. The extremely low mobility makes him difficult to play and potentially even frustrate. The Heroes Journey is an important part of the story and it’s obvious why it’s like this but one can’t help but ask why it couldn’t have been done without pulling down the fun.

Action or RPG veterans won’t find themselves being challenged. Danmachi or VN Fans on the other hand are being offered an easy to pick up and play package.

Considering the relative budget pricing of 39,99€, it’s a solid game that comes with about 10 hours of main story playtime and a lot more in the Extra Mode. 20 Hours or more are certainly possible.

Wertung

7.0Gut

Kaufempfehlung

50% Kaufempfehlung

50%Angebot abwarten