Dungeon Gate Review

Important question first: do dungeons even have gates? They have doors surely, it’s castles that have gates (at least imposingly enough to get in a title). It’s not hard seeing a name like Dungeon Gate and feeling like it’s just been pulled from the Random RPG Title Generator. Coming up next from developer Wild Games Studio: Final Scrolls, Dragon Siege, Game of Rings and Knight Nights. The game that follows isn’t much better.

The story goes as such: the land of Barrilian has been conquered by an evil wizard who can control dragons. In a burning village two babies are protected by inexplicable magical barriers. One child is found by a wizard, the other is taken by dragons. Cut to 20 years later and the green and very prosperous land with barely any troubles barring spiders, bandits and the odd rabbit-stealing mad scientist needs saving presumably. Luckily hero Dysan is about to enter the fray for no reason other than he has a sword and some magic powers apparently.

Hi, I’m Dysan. You may remember me from Dragon Ghost Ninjamon Hunter of the Planets X: Battle.

There are no customisation options, so you spend the entire game looking like a permanently confused preteen anime character. You can’t even enter your own name, despite there being no voice acting whatsoever (barring the odd bit of Simlish). The game doesn’t stop denying players the things they expect in every game ever there, either. There aren’t any save options (only ‘Save Points’ which are few and far between), in-game options, and there isn’t even the ability to change the damn resolution. Even Dead Space 3 with it’s “all PC games should look as crap as current-gen console games” stance had the option to change the damn resolution!

I really could just do this review as one big bullet-point list of every single thing wrong with Dungeon Gate, for it is nearly endless. This is clearly an iPhone game ramped up to fit on a PC’s monitor after Wild Games found they needed buttons, and since they tried their best to use as many random ones as possible I quite understand (more moaning about that later). Trouble is, while on an iPhone a game like Dungeon Gate would probably do quite well. On PC it’s up against the best RPGs around for regularly silly-low prices. Standards are far higher, and we like our RPGs not staggeringly terrible.

In general Dungeon Gate plays a bit like Fable. Similarly to Lionhead’s series the world is cartoony and a bit less serious than most RPGs, combat is real-time, and exploration is kind of open-world but in a funnelled “not at all like Skyrim” way. As you level up you can boost Dysan’s attributes as usual but also which magic spell you want to learn or increase in power. If that sounds okay to you then you clearly haven’t played the game, well done. There isn’t a single facet of Dungeon Gate that hasn’t been made with the utmost level of incompetence.

Take the Save/Load system for example (please, do). Not content with checkpoints, autosaves, or just being able to save wherever the hell you want like in every RPG ever, Wild Games went for the Save Point system. You have to locate and use one of the glowing beacons dotted around the world to save. This is fine when death isn’t around every corner and two basic spiders don’t offer an unfair challenge, but it’s unacceptable when you’re expected to traverse a pretty big area full of boring but deadly dangers.

Furthermore when you die (or load your game) Wild Games thought it’d be cute to put Dysan in a room where you can choose one of eight savegame “portraits” to load – but the problem with this is that it’s not always obvious which one is your most recent. If the background is remotely bright then you can’t see the date attached. Finally these Save Points are regularly surrounded by enemies that respawn on reloading a game, so if you cleared the area but left your health low saving is possibly the worst thing you could do.

I don’t normally complain about Maps in games, but could you at least tell me where I am guys!?

Combat is also equally tedious. It consists of spamming the left (normal attack) and right (heavy) mouse buttons while occasionally pressing numbers 1-3 in the hope that they actually let you use a spell you’d assigned to them, as well as occasionally use a magic shield (that drains your mana faster than spells) and either a health or mana potion. Make sure you use them sparingly, since you’ll run out fast and there doesn’t seem to be any sort of economy in the game to buy more.

Consequently, following the boring fights you’re forced to sit still for up to a minute while your health recharges, or risk dying on the next fight and having to respawn at the last Save Point (which was undoubtedly miles away). Combat is basically all the game is, and it’s both overlong (even simple enemies take far too long to defeat) and without any strategy. Plus those spiders that web you to the floor are beyond irritating.

Graphically the game is… okay, I guess, but utterly derivative. You’ll be hard pressed to find anything in Dungeon Gate that you couldn’t see better in dozens of other RPGs. Just basic 3D modelling all over the place. Worse though are the technical aspects of the game.

Controls are bafflingly obtuse. WASD for movement is fine, as is 1-3 for Spells, but there are more than three Spells in the game so this number-tightness is utterly inexplicable – plus changing into other forms (more on that shortly) is assigned to Number Pad 1-3! Why not 4-6?! Then there’s the fact that Dysan has two speeds which are changed through Shift – too fast and too slow.

I could fill an angry list with technical problems alone. The Map is utterly useless, as it doesn’t show features, markings, or even where you are on it. Dysan (and enemies) can run up sheer cliff faces. You can attack and kill civilians in towns but none of the other townsfolk pay you the slightest bit of attention. The in-game Menu screen is utterly unintuitive and even several hours in you’ll still not be able to discern which of its Page Tab icons will take you to the page you want to go to. Loading times are at least 30 seconds, often more, and you have to face them every time you die.

The Quest Tracker often points nowhere near where you need to go, plus as it doesn’t show up on the Map (like everything else) it’s utterly useless – like most of the systems in Dungeon Gate. Enemies don’t drop items when they die, yet another RPG mechanic from every RPG ever that Wild Games have ignored. Oh, and every time I exited the game my hard drive went mental and I couldn’t do anything for several minutes – that might not be the game’s fault admittedly but no other game has done that.

Early uses of Dysan’s ability include these chicken races. A rare moment of fun.

What saves Dungeon Gate from being a total frustration-filled write-off is the one innovation the game has: Dysan’s ability to scan and turn himself into every single person, animal or creature in the game, and then use their powers and even upgrade each form. I was getting very angry at the game early on as every metre I’d be attacked by spiders, scarabs, wolves and weird blobby things, but after scanning a spider (only takes a second or so) I could turn into one and make short work of any enemy I met – especially when using the previously-excruciatingly-irritating web attack that pinned me to the floor for seconds on enemies. You also don’t get attacked by that species if you walk around in that form.

This whole ability changes Dungeon Gate from a total irritating disaster to at least a bearable game, but it’s still not enough to hide the bad design on display with every other aspect. There is really no reason for anyone to buy Dungeon Gate, unless you think Dragon Age II, Final Fantasy XIII or Game of Thrones: The Game are the worst the genre has to offer. They’re masterpieces in comparison to Dungeon Gate. Still, I don’t want to end this review on a negative note, so I’ll offer Wild Games Studio a little advice – make a few improvements then put Dungeon Gate on iPhone/iPad. You’ll make a killing there. Just, please – get it off of my system right now.