Deep Labyrinth

"Two tales of one mediocrity"

Not so Great Expectations

I believe it is safe to say that we should not always approach a game with high expectations. The higher your expectations, the higher your disappointment will be if the game is not any good. With that in mind I approached Deep Labyrinth with care. Somehow I knew I was going to embrace a journey of mediocrity from the moment I put the game in my DS on.


The Life and Adventures of Shawn and Ace

The story behind Deep Labyrinth is that you (Shawn) has been sent to a world where memories are erased by fantastical creatures. In this world you will have to find not only the way back home, but also your mom, dad and your dog Ace. Rule number one: if the game has a mediocre name, you can very much expect this game to have a mediocre plot. However, nothing (and I mean nothing) prepared me to what I would actually see in the game.

While I can expect strange creatures dwelling in a world where memories are disposed, I was not prepared to see talking mice, an ornithorhynchus and a human body with an elephant head. As if these were not weird enough, these characters seem to be colored by a child. The mice are yellow, the platypus is violet and the elephant-head-in-a-human-body is light red. And most of them wear weird clothes or hats too.

Nevertheless, I bravely decided that I still should give a chance to the game. It would be plausible to expect Deep Labyrinth to be a dungeon crawler in the veins of Diablo or Shiren, but actually the game is a first-person action oriented role playing game, more akin to The Elder Scrolls or System Shock. As I started to move my character around, to my surprise, I found out that the graphics are actually quite decent.

The characters you can interact with are composed of a surprisingly high number of polygons and, though not artistically pleasant, the textures are quite good and fit the mood of the game. The enemies, however, are textured in low resolution and their design is completely generic. The environments are comprised of long corridors that interconnect square shaped rooms where you fight enemies in real time.

Though often nice looking, the environments in the game are so repetitive and generic that at some point you will undoubtedly become bored of wandering around the same place. Most of the time you can't see very far thanks to the fog, but the map on the top screen helps you navigate your way into the game without much difficulty. Aurally, the game verges on mediocrity once again, with repetitive scores and uninspired sound effects.


Easy and Hard Times: For These Times

The first time through the game is a breeze. You will not have problems to reach the conclusion of the first story in 7 or 8 hours. That's quite short for a role playing game, but thanks to the extreme repetition you will actually be glad it did not last any longer. All you do in the game is wander around the corridors and the rooms moving the stylus through the screen to slash enemies and occasionally cast some magic. While slashing enemies you enter in a "lock on" mode similar to the one used in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time, but this time in first-person. It means that your view will be fixed to the enemy and it is lot easier to slash the foe with the stylus. If you have to retreat, just tap "off" on the screen and you are able to move freely to a safer place.

In order to use magic you have to draw special symbols on the screen. While this is a somewhat innovative system, the execution leaves much to be desired since you will often face the message "miscast" in the heat of a battle. It is less troublesome (and feasible) to make your way through the game mostly using healing items. You have to cast magic in order to open some doors, but this process is a lot easier if done outside of a battle.

After completing the game for the first time, you will be prompted to play a different scenario. The second play through is a lot harder than the first, to the point of being frustrating. There are not many healing items, save points are few and far between and not always restore your health, and enemies are somewhat tougher.


No Welfare

In the end, Deep Labyrinth is an innovative game for the DS, thanks to the heavy use of the stylus in battle and the ambitious first-person view throughout the whole game. The problem, however, is that little effort was put into making the game. Everything, from the title of the game to the character designs, is utterly generic and uninspired. Surely the game had a lot of potential, but it never lives up to it. This is a sad example of interesting concepts that go to waste.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/01/08

Game Release: Deep Labyrinth (US, 08/15/06)