Labyrinth of Zangetsu Review

First-person dungeon crawlers have always been a bit of a niche genre that has some great titles, well-revered by fans. Developer ACQUIRE attempts to capture the magic of similar games with Labyrinth of Zangetsu, a Japanese folklore-inspired dungeon crawler with a fantastic aesthetic and traditional gameplay for the genre. But does this game have enough going for it to make it stand apart from the rest? Let’s take a look.

The Ink of Ruin, a corruption set on destroying the land and bringing forth an eternal darkness, plagues the region of Tokinokuni. Who will stop this blight and put an end to the nightmarish fiends it brings forth? Well, you, obviously. In order to fight back against the Ink of Ruin, you’ll train a force known as the Blightbane Conscripts and lead them to victory. The last bastion of defence is Ido, with its magical Zangetsu Barrier, repelling the mysterious force for the time being.

After the opening cinematic, it’s time to create your party of conscripts. You’ll choose things such as their race, starting class, and base stats before venturing through the Fort of Trials. This is Labyrinth of Zangetsu’s tutorial, and it does a good job of showing players the basics of traversal and combat before setting off to put an end to the Ink of Ruin. As for the rest of the story? It’s passable, but certainly not anything amazing, and I was always more eager to hurry past any of the story beats in order to return to navigating through the dungeons.

Labyrinth of Zangetsu has a wonderful aesthetic, inspired by the Sumi-e art style that creates a unique monochrome, watercolour effect. Likewise, the enemy designs have also been created with Sumi-e in mind, and are haunting depictions of grotesque monsters and otherworldly abominations. It works really well for the tone of the game, especially since the relative safety of Ido has a more varied colour palette, creating this stark contrast of an area that's yet to be infected by the Ink of Ruin.

I found most of the music to be very fitting with the eerie tone that the visuals create, even if there was never anything that truly impressed. Whilst there is no voice acting, and the repetitive sound effects can become grating, the themes heard throughout each dungeon, and the battle music in particular, are hauntingly immersive, creating an almost horror-like atmosphere.

Once you’ve created your party of six (with each class having their own unique passive abilities) and triumphed over the Fort of Trials, it’s time to set out on your journey through the labyrinths. This being a typical dungeon crawler, Labyrinth of Zangetsu has you moving one square of map at a time, slowly uncovering the area as you progress. Keep your eyes peeled, though, as secrets are hidden everywhere, and would be easy to miss if it weren’t for subtle hints popping up on the heads-up display, and the use of a search function to uncover anything on the tile currently occupied.

It never takes too long before you encounter a thick fog, which will trigger a battle once you come into contact with it. Combat is a fairly standard, turn-based RPG system, viewed from a first-person perspective. If you’re new to the genre, think of something like the earlier Dragon Quest titles and this is practically it, albeit with a little less depth to the mechanics. You’ll select whether to attack, use an ability, defend, and so on. With your six-person party, only three members are on the frontlines at any one time, but these can be swapped in and out in the middle of a fight, to allow for some defensive strategies.

Dying in Labyrinth of Zangetsu isn’t quite as simple as reloading a checkpoint and starting again, as your characters can permanently be killed off. Sort of. When returning to Ido, you can opt to spend a hefty amount of gold to potentially revive a fallen team member (providing you collected their corpse on the battlefield). I say potentially, because it appears to be random, and so many times I spent a good chunk of my money only for the resurrection to fail. You can choose to recruit a new party member, but then you’re stuck grinding away to get them to a similar level to the rest of the team. Either way, it’s a frustrating mechanic that just doesn’t work all that well.

When not out adventuring, you’ll be resting up in Ido, which acts as the Blightbane Conscripts’ home base of sorts. Your party will be fully healed — making grinding close to a labyrinth’s exit the smartest option — and you’ll be able to purchase new equipment, as well as revive fallen characters as previously mentioned. That’s about it, meaning the majority of the time spent in Labyrinth of Zangetsu is navigating the creepy dungeons and fighting off monsters.

Whilst I never felt that Labyrinth of Zangetsu broke any ground to become a must-play for the dungeon crawler genre, the art style and oppressive atmosphere certainly drew me in. The staying power to see it through wore off after a few hours, though, thanks in part to the lack of an interesting narrative. Coupled with a frustrating death system, and gameplay mechanics that feel almost outdated, this is a title that is worth a look if you’re a fan of similar games, but won’t do much to tempt new players into sticking with it until the credits roll.