ATLUS, I love you. You’ve brought me endless hours of joy with your RPGs.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about Dungeon Travelers 2. Without a doubt, Vita has had its fair share of controversial titles (I’m looking at you, Criminal Girls), and DT2 is one such game: hailing from Japan, ATLUS have had to censor some images from the game to secure a “M for Mature” rating here in the West. Fan rage ensued, as did the usual “oversexualization” debate.
I, for one, like kinky games. I’m 30 years old, I can admit to it. Gotta censor 4 images to bring almost 100+ hours of gameplay to the West? Hell, it’s still business. Do it.
Now that you know where I stand on that issue, let’s move on to the actual game.
Dungeon Travelers 2 is a first person dungeon crawler. Think Etrian Odyssey but with a hell of a lot of sexual innuendo. You play as Freid, protector of the kingdom of Romulea. The lore in the game is rich, quite deep and it shows care and craft. This is not a kinky JRPG that relies on kinkiness rather than delivering a good story (looking at you, Criminal Girls).
The battle system very complex but not overly so (at least for someone familiar with JRPGs), and it has a very unique feature: you can build up your character with skill points, and then re-distribute those skill points differently should your build not be up to par. This opens up a ton of customization possibilities.
All the anime cutscenes and character drawings look amazing, but the actual dungeons look almost PSP-ish, as does the general interface. You won’t find “Ys: Memories of Celceta” levels of polish when it comes to the navigation here. I personally don’t mind the dungeons that much, but I wish they had spent a bit more time on the menus, as the game is quite grindy and you use them a lot.
Finally, the voice acting (in Japanese) and music are absolutely fantastic. I always prefer my JRPGs with Japanese voice-acting (unless we’re talking P4G, in which case I love you Erin Fitzgerald), and DT2 doesn’t disappoint. You will have, of course, English subs to guide you through it all.
I have to say, I’m liking this game. This is an experience closer to what I wanted Criminal Girls to be. It’s long, but it doesn’t feel repetitive. There’s decent enemy variation, locations change and the battle system evolves.
It’s not perfect, but… I am having fun with it. And that’s usually a good sign.
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