"A good concept lacking background and more complicate strategies"

Family Computer Disk System Deep Dungeon Review:

OVERVIEW:
For those who don’t know, the Family Computer Disk System was a peripheral-like hardware for using with your Famicom (NES), pretty much like N64 Disk Drive. However FDS was pretty more popular than the 64DD. Many software companies made high bets on the FDS, and good games were released for it (like The Legend of Zelda, launched in cartridge form on US). Deep Dungeon is the beginning of an average First-Person RPG series that followed to the NES until its fourth title, just to die before the next generation success.
I don’t know why, but this game actually resembles me of Shadowgate, a nice, classic First-Person Adventure for NES. Sometimes I think this game could get MUCH better and really entertaining if more memory space were available and the developers (DOG, Square’s FDS development division) were more dedicated to their creation. I compare Deep Dungeon to Shadowgate because I see Shadowgate as a perfected Deep Dungeon (with lots more of puzzle-like stuff :). Sometimes I feel the only thing missing for this game to be a hit is a good scenario, something that could give life to the game’s environment. (I’d love to see a port of the series on next-generation consoles, however this is probably impossible).
If you like the feeling of adventure, exploring and battling, plus have patience for the background lacking, I would recommend this game; it can keep you entertained for quite a while if you can use your imagination to help out on the design section. The game isn’t anything big (scored 5), but is indeed a noteworthy title. If you compare to other FP-RPG/Adventure games for FDS/NES, it's actually a good thing DOG did.

PLOT: 6
Save the princess! Hehe, what a cliché, huh? Well, this is surely a boring concept nowadays, but back in the ‘80s, hmm, what’s the problem? :) Spoiling the intro, after the princess was kidnapped, lots of warriors trying to save her (and, of course, marry her, get a nice reward...) were deceased, and now it’s up to you to bring her back from the Deep Dungeon (that’s a really deep dungeon, see), where she’s kept. Of course killing the Evil Emperor of the Underground World, who did the dirty job, would be nice as well.

GRAPHICS: 4
The design area is practically what the game really lacks. Although the enemies are nicely drawn, the background doesn’t exist at all. You’ll only see plain colored walls while playing through the dungeon, and that’s what the game misses the most. There’s a good environment concept, with the cemetery, flooded sections, and the prison block. If you can use your imagination, things can get interesting, but not every people would like to have to. On a flooded floor, e.g., the water sections don’t differ form the dry ones, and it’s disappointing you have to rely on a message to know there’s water in front of you. As I said, if you can overpass this, you can actually have fun on the game. Just a pity they didn’t have the needed memory for improving this.

SOUND/MUSIC: 6

Sound effects are something you’re not listening on this game, he. Some slices and that’s what you get, probably the shortest sound effect collection on a FDS game :) But the music helps a lot on the sound sector. Some samples are pretty good, well fit on the dungeon, resembling Phantasy Star style (kinda). Unfortunately, the track you happen to hear the most of the time on the game – the battling music – is one of the worst :/ You may want to turn the sound off after a while. I still give a six for this factor because I appreciated some of the nice work done for the game.

REPLAY: 2
I’m pretty sure you won’t come back for more once you’ve finished it. There isn’t a thing you can do after finishing it to turn your second play more interesting: it’ll be the same thing. If you like battles, you may keep gaining levels just for fun. I bet you have better things to do though :)

GAMEPLAY: 7
The game’s concept is pretty simple; you can’t get yourself lost. The menu layout is nicely uncomplicated, making it really easy to navigate the options. You won’t have much of a problem through the game, since your main actions would be ‘check’ and ‘attack’.
But there’re other matters that really put down the game. A thing that pisses me is that hitting odds on this game are frustrating low comparing to RPG’s in general, mainly when you’re fighting stronger enemies. Maybe they get a point here, since high levels enemies could easily dodge an unprepared knight, but sometimes combats are won by pure luck.
Another bad feature I was forgetting of was the weaponry/armory choices. You can only equip a weapon, armor and bracelet, and still don’t have many variety options on this section. I think there could be more stuff to choose from, what could be possible maybe if the game had more than two shops :P Yeah, that's it, two shops is what you get... but, once again, this is understandable: who would run a shop inside a Deep Dungeon, huh?
Now the worst: since magic is limited to a few options, battle strategies actually don’t exist. It’s a pity you’ll be only attacking with your weapon or a single magic the entire game without any problems. Anyway, as I’ve stated, the game’s simple, let’s make this an overall opinion. It just looses points because it didn’t need to be simple on every aspect!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/02/01, Updated 10/02/01