Hot take time - I’ve never been a fan of ’s dungeons. I know, I know, I should hand in my Gamer card right now and walk shamefully out of the door, but I just can’t help it. Whether it’s the more tightly-focused dungeons of games like The Wind Waker or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ocarina of Time, or the more unique but basically-still-dungeon-ones like the Divine Beasts in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Breath of the Wild, they’ve just never been my cup of tea.
I prefer just chatting to other characters and advancing their stories through social elements, like in . Being nosey and talking to people is absolutely my jam, and I’m willing to push through parts of a game I don’t like just to be able to sit down with a party member and natter. I’ll struggle through as much of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ tactical combat as I have to if it means I can flirt with Pete𒊎r Parker.
Dungeons of Hinte🍰rberg is just like that It combines two things that I couldn’t feel more different about, all while being set in a beautiful cel-shaded world. After trying around half an hour of the game out for myself, I’m happy to say that I came away pleasantly surprised by its dungeon crawling just as much as I was by its social elements.
The demo kicked off with protagonist Louisa going on a hike through the mountains, which acted as🦩 a tutorial to the game’s combat and movement systems. Here, I learned the basics of the heavy yet satisfying sword fighting, and a few of Louisa’s abilities, which include being able to throw out a grapple to hit enemies from afar and, just like in Breath of the Wild, summon a bomb that could be detonated remotely.
Although the sword-fighting part of the combat was a little simplistic, it became a lot more satisfying as I learned to chain attacks together with summoned bombs, rolling away to detonate them and then hitting enemies from afar with my grapple. It wasn’t anything too complicated,𒀰 but it felt good to master and added a layer of depth I wasn’t expecting.
After figuring out the combat, I made my way into the dungeon, which mainly focused on using summoning bombs to use as weights and placing and riding minecarts to reach different areas. There were a few sections of the dungeon that made my head start heating up and my smile twist into a frown, but I eventually figured it out with the tools at Louisa’s disposal, making me feel like the smartest gamer alive and 🉐giving me that unbeatable rush of serotonin from beating a puzzle. Maybe… maybe dungeons can be good?
There’s an indescribable quality about Dungeons of Hinterberg’s dungeons that made me stick with it when I’d otherwise dump them at the first roadblock, but the one I got to try out had just the right amo𝔉unt of puzzles and combat to keep me from groaning whenever I reached an impasse. I’m hopeful that the ꧃ones in the full game will have a similar balance that keeps my attention until the real juicy bits.
Once I got done adventuring through the dungeon, I finally got to see Dungeons of Hinterberg’s other half - the social elements. After making my way back to town, I was able to spend my evening hanging out with one of three people, with my choice not only giving me a diff🥂erent bit of backstory for the world and its characters, but also upgrading one of my stats.
This will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s played Persona and experienced its Social Links before, which are easily the best bits of𓃲 those games. Here, I chose to meet with one of Louisa’s hipster friends in a bar and chat about the people hanging out there, with a few different dialogue options to help guide the conversation.
Like with the dungeon exploring and combat, there wasn’t anything majorly unique about the socialising gameplay here, but it was well-written and charming in a way that had me wondering how the other encounters might have gone. Dungeons of Hinterberg isn’t doing anything too ground-breaking, but everಞythi♈ng that it is doing, it’s doing with a ton of charm and energy.
I only got to experience a small vertical slice of the game, meanin💞g I wasn’t sure what the overall impact of my choice was (even though I was always going to choose to go to the bar, come on), or just how many people there were to choose from overall. But I’♈m intrigued to find out more about what I missed, and everything else that Dungeons of Hinterberg has to offer in the final game.
