Girls and Dungeons Review

Girls and Dungeons is an eroge that features top-down dungeon exploring with turn-based combat. Including that “grind”, obtuse save point, get ready for that type of game, where you die to something stupid, and restart to that point in the game, before you killed that annoying boss. The ero aspect of this game is somewhat low, especially if you’ve played some of the more well-known/infamous titles, but more on that later.

In a second stroke of luck, kind of, this is a mechanics-first game, where the core gameplay is front and center over the R-18 content. Honestly, it’s hard to criticise the game when most of it is polished and doesn’t have buggy mechanics. The only real complaint is how slow things feel and the unskippable animations. If you’ve played Bravely Default and grew used to that more modernised combat flow, then jumping into this isn’t what can be described as a seamless experience. From the journeying/exploring being somewhat dull and uneventful, it harkens to the type of game that belongs in handheld form. Although, just because it’s polished doesn’t mean criticism can’t be levied at its execution.

All heroes start from humble beginnings right?

Player movement is somewhat slow, or that the map design is too spacious. Especially with the lack of consistent checkpoints, where the opening section of the game lags behind. This isn’t as much of an issue later on, with a shortcut being opened to speed up the traversal. It doesn’t sit well, and feels like a waste of time. The same goes for the combat, which lacks any real impact or importance/value. With practically no form of customisation, the game doesn’t offer any form of inherent meaning. Even with the addition of new characters to bolster your party. The game struggles to be interesting and boils down into spamming for increased SP for your starting guy. That can be used to drop the main source of damage that the entire team can manage even if they did their strongest attack with the little SP they have. Also, the lack of save points in the game is punishing. With multiple reruns needed in order beat the same boss because of a chronic lack of saving.

As for the ero aspects, they’re few and far between. Being slightly hidden, their delivery is almost underbaked and lacks anything really thought or visually provoking. Being borderline ecchi anime, it just sits as something mundane. Any saving grace? It’s relatively cheap, being £3 (at time of writing). If you’re able to game on the go, and need something that fills the niche of opening paragraph. This your bargain bucket pick, like your supermarket used to do for VHS tapes, back when those were around.