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Dragon Quest Heroes: Torneko’s Mystery Dungeon -Classic HD- Review
Torneko's Mystery Port
Despite there being many entries in the Mystery Dungeon series over the years, the game that spawned it has never made its way outside of Japan. With the release of Dragon Quest Heroes: Torneko's Mystery Dungeon -Classic HD-, that has finally changed. A spin-off of Dragon Quest IV starring fan-favorite character Torneko, the game sees the merchant exploring randomized dungeons for loot. Sadly, a combination of age and a disappointingly mediocre port does the game no favors. By the end of the relatively short main campaign, many players will be wishing this game had stayed in the past.
Torneko's Mystery Dungeon does not have much in the way of a story. The merchant Torneko sets off with his family after hearing about a treasure hidden in a mysterious dungeon. After setting up a small shop and visiting the king, Torneko is eventually given permission to explore the dungeon after completing a trial dungeon for the king. That is essentially the totality of the story in the game. Though new events pop up when the player escapes the dungeon with enough gold, and Torneko's shop grows larger, there really isn't much more to the plot. Even for a game in a genre that focuses much more on gameplay than narrative, it feels extremely light. There aren't even any cameos or references to Dragon Quest IV to spice things up. Worst of all, as the protagonist, Torneko never speaks, removing much of his appeal as a character. It all undercuts the mystery of the dungeon.
[caption id="attachment_201120" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Torneko's shop grows as the adventure progresses.[/caption]
Like all games in the Mystery Dungeon franchise, gameplay directly follows the pattern of the original Rogue. Players move in a turn-based fashion through randomly generated floors in a dungeon, where monsters move whenever the player does. The player must collect items and gain levels fresh each time they enter the dungeon, making each dungeon exploration a different experience. Combat is extremely simple, with one button for melee attacks and another for ranged attacks, provided Torneko has collected any arrows. Though this sounds quite simple, positioning, carefully using chokepoints, and careful use of items make it anything but. Monsters always hit hard, and surviving the many dangers requires a careful approach. Thankfully, the items Torneko finds along the way are quite useful. In addition to weapons and shields, he can find everything from magic staves to herbs that make him breath fire when consumed. The actual names of many of these items are often hidden when acquired, so using them can be its own adventure unless Torneko has an identification scroll on hand.
Dangers in the dungeon come in a variety of forms, from monsters in the dungeon to traps to status effects that can greatly increase the risk of death. Status effects include making Torneko fall asleep or causing him to move or attack in random directions. Hidden traps can trigger while exploring, causing damage and status effects, or even randomly teleporting Torneko to a different location on the current floor. The biggest danger is the series staple "Monster House," where the player walks into a room that is packed to the brim with monsters and traps. These can often lead to doom, but carefully clearing them is a great opportunity to gain valuable experience and loot.
Learning the various types of dangers is an essential and fun way to navigate through the challenging dungeons the series is known for, and this game shows where these ideas were shaped.
[caption id="attachment_201116" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Using items carefully is essential for survival.[/caption]
Unlike other games in the series, Torneko's Mystery Dungeon gives players a series of simple objective to complete. After a ten-level introductory dungeon, the game provides the player with gold goals that increase the size of Torneko's shop. Sometime along the way, after completing these objectives, the King will request Torneko retrieve a specific item in the dungeon. Completing this is the game's final objective, though players are free to explore the entire mystery dungeon after rolling credits. It makes for a remarkably short affair, and, with no story mysteries to discover within the dungeon, makes it feel pretty flat. Despite being the game immediately preceding the first Shiren title, it is quite startling how lackluster the whole experience feels compared to any other entry in the Mystery Dungeon series. New options to tweak the difficulty of the game, such as increasing item drops or even removing monsters altogether, do little to make the experience more interesting or enjoyable. This release also introduces odd pausing issues when enemies die, and when Torneko levels up that destroy the pace of exploration.
The visuals in Dragon Quest Heroes: Torneko's Mystery Dungeon feel like a step back from the original. It uses a mix of 2D character sprites and 3D environments somewhat similar to recent HD-2D Dragon Quest remakes, but the randomly generated dungeon environments just look extremely bland. They were also bland in the original, but look even worse after the transition to 3D. This, in turn, makes the character sprites look more out of place, though they still look and animate just fine. Even worse is the audio in the game. Certain attacks seem to be missing sound or even hit animations, making it less clear whether or not attacks are hitting unless the player is watching the text log closely. Though the game was never a visual powerhouse in its original form, the seemingly token attempts to improve the look and feel mostly have the opposite effect. Bringing in the issues with the combat pacing, the game just isn't nice to behold. The music at least sounds fine, but there's not much in the way of good songs, even in the original.
[caption id="attachment_201124" align="aligncenter" width="637"] The dungeons look even more bland than in the original release.[/caption]
In the end, Dragon Quest Heroes: Torneko's Mystery Dungeon feels like a giant missed opportunity to properly celebrate the origins of the Mystery Dungeon series. Though the core original game is there, the updates mostly make the game look and play worse. Considering the game is already overly simple compared to even the first Shiren game that followed it, the lack of new content or major new features makes it hard to recommend outside of being a historical curiosity. While this might be a dud, one can hope that this there are future, better handled re-releases of the various Dragon Quest entries in the Mystery Dungeon series, because those that followed were far better. Torneko's Mystery Dungeon is hard to recommend to anyone outside of the biggest fans of Chunsoft's venerable series.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
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