"One of the better DS RPG's so far"

Story 8/10
The game starts of with a movie of Shawn (the protagonist) driving along a road with his parents when suddenly BAM his dad gets a flat tire. When his father goes to check out the tire, Shawn's dog Ace runs into a conveniently placed spooky house just to the side of the road. His parents go to look for him and when they don't come back Shawn goes to look for them and ends up getting sucked up into a super psychedelic vortex which teleports him to a land occupied by monsters where humans cant venture…yada…yada…yada…As you can see its your typical story of a child ending up in a magical world different from theirs. So why did I give the story an 8? Well that's because of the well written dialogue that you get from npc's. Unlike many other games the characters in this one all have different personalities and unique things to say.

Gameplay 6/10
Deep Labyrinth is a first person dungeon crawler. In this game you don't really have a party, it's just you against all the monsters. The combat in DL is a bit on the boring side suffering from a lack of variety. I never really cared much for inputting the magic spells during real time combat, but more on that later. The other problem with the combat is the lock on feature which keeps you facing your opponents. This can become a pain when you are trying to run away from your attackers for instance. Overall the game is on the simple side. It never bogs you down with pages of character stats, or limits your inventory, as many dungeon crawlers tend to do. Another welcome sigh of relief for newbies and casual gamers alike is the abundance of save rooms. Oh and for those who have problems with spacial orientation the game provides you with not one but two maps on the top screen.

Controls 7/10
This game uses the D-pad for movement, and sidestepping, and the touch screen for combat, and menu navigation. While using the stylus to bludgeon things with your sword is fine and dandy, using it to input spells could have been handled better. In order to use a spell you must first press the spell button on the side bar, then input the appropriate figure on the grid that appears, and then press the attack button at the bottom of the screen(keep in mind that the this is all done in real time while the monster is gnawing away at your flesh).

Graphics 7/10
My only problem with the graphics is that the environments are sparse and repetitive. Otherwise the graphics are great. The real eye candy is in the character models with both monsters and npc's looking gorgeous and diverse.

Sound 10/10
The music in this game is wonderful. This is one of the few DS games I played where I kept the sound on the whole time. The sound effects aren't too loud or annoying so perfect score.

Overall:
I would recommend that you rent this game because it is on the short side with the main quest being under 10 hours long. This game would probably appeal to the fans of Japanese RPG's more so then to the D&D fans because of a lack of depth.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/06