Games aren’t that hard anymore, that’s an argument often thrown around these days by many gamers. “Well that’s why they put difficulty settings in!” – is often the retort.

I generally play a game the first time through on Normal, to get a feel of what the developers wanted the average player to see, when I find that it is in fact incredibly easy – I’ll replay it on a harder difficulty (especially when this results in a different ending or extra levels/bonus-dungeons.) Most of my reviews are on a game’s native, default, normal, medium settings of difficulty – because that’s what I expect the developers wanted the average person to play on and it generally seems to be what the average person starts out on (whether or not they finish up on harder ones is another issue all together.) (Such as this preview/review for Fire Emblem)

Along comes Dark Spire, the new DS dungeon-crawler roguelike. Now you may wonder, ‘Leighton – what the hell does that mean?’ Let me inform you — You are gonna get punched in the face and humiliated, potentially your mom will be insulted, as will your gaming honor. Lets take a quick trip down memory lane from the last time we had games like this (Yes I am a huge fan of Etrian Odyssey, yes it is similar, but it’s leagues away from the traditional feel that Dark Spire brings.) Might and Magic 5, Wizardry 3, Bard’s Tale (not that bastard child that was on the PS2,) Eye of the Beholder, Shining in the Darkness and if any of you guys remembered, or played them – pretty much half the games that SSI (Strategic Simulations Inc) did on the Amiga/Commodore/NES/PC.  I’ve probably put 300+ hours into Dungeons and Dragons : Pool of Radiance on the NES, and I’m still nowhere close to being done all the quests.

What does all that have in common? That’s all the 16bit era and prior.

Well along comes Dark Spire and it is here to tell you it is no cartoony joke that’s going to bring modern-day mechanics into an old genre. No, it is going to be that genre. It infarct has an option to PLAY it in 8-bit mode with vector line art – ‘Screw your graphics,’ it says.

I digress, I haven’t even explained what this roguelike dungeon-crawler is. Dark Spire is an RPG, except there is no giant vast scaling world, no cities to explore, no oceans to sail, no convoluted plot lines of love-interests between party members. You are a very forgettable group of adventurers, one of many bands of adventurers, in a bland city that offers the most basic commodities.

Then there’s the dungeon. The dungeon is this massive living thing. That’s what these old dungeon-crawlers are about, a kajillion floors, up, down, around, trap doors, treasure chests, pits, elevators, bands of briggands living on various floors, evil artifacts and ghosts and sorcerers. You are going to get lost more than once.

That’s half the fun and challenge with these games, wandering around, getting lost running low on potions and available spells and praying to the everliving gods that you can find your way out back to town to restock and sleep and get to the training hall to level up.

The other half of that is frustration, stepping on a trap-door, or pitfall or a revolving door or a one-wall secret wall and getting lost while trying to escape the floor you were on. Lost, with a bare minimum map (that does not show your location) hoping you remember which set of twists and turns you took, attempting to flee from battles…and..was that the door we came in through? Battle after battle as you attempt to reach freedom.

That is a dungeon crawler. They are all about number crunching and feeling brave to adventure further than you had before, without knowing what’s up ahead. Dark Spire brings you all this but does it very prettily.

The soundtrack is fantastic – well orchestrated, fitting the mood very well, in fact my copy came with a bonus CD full of the game’s music. I’m listening to it at my desk as we speak, that’s how good it is. Not only that but the graphics are fantastic too – in a style of game that we’ve come to expect to not have graphics at all (See above about the vector-line-art option.)

Which brings me to my original point (and finishes up my point about the art.)

This is your training master. The tutorial level if you will. First thing you do in the game is navigate a mini-dungeon and fight this guy. He hits really really really hard. My first time through he nuked my main tank in one hit on the first round. Training is learning how to die? Yes, it’s preparing you for the realization you will get demolished from time to time (I’m not joking.)

Nostalgia aside, there are two quick things to point out – the downside.

The menu is pretty clunky and a bit of a chore to navigate around at first – the quest screen is for some reason in the same menu as save/load/options. That seems a little ridiculous to me, in my mind it would fit better in with the equipment/spells/stats menu.

Second note – the learning curve. If you are not familiar with having your ass handed to you and figuring out a VERY simple class system (There are only 4 classes and equipment disables abilities of classes it does not agree with – ie: plate mail on a priest or multi-classed priest prevents casting,) as well as general unfamiliarity of not having blatant stat points on weapons (there are no +20 to attack on a sword vs +23 attack on an axe or anything like that,) you might have a bit of a rough start to this game.

Oh right – and saving often. I cannot stress this enough. I played for about 40 minutes my first time, hadn’t thought about saving, got murdered by a wandering group of bandits and had to start all over again, tutorial and all.

If you’re an older gamer like myself, you’ll probably feel right at home with Dark Spire, for people new to the genre – you might glance at it’s odd style of game play and think it’s not for you – give it a shot, you will fall in love with it’s quirky charm and the tension you get from delving too deep into the dungeon…unprepared.

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