ok game
ok game, got a bit boring after some time... couldt have been more variated
Reviews for "Monsters Den: Book of Dread"
Okay, but it has some big setbacks.
For one thing, the idea of a merchant is always good, but if you can only see him during choice points when you pick up a specific one-use item, it kinda kills the need to hoard items and just makes the game needlessly more difficult- not through strategy, but simply because you can't find enough decent items.
This leads into point two: When enemies defeat you and take some of your items, including a considerable portion of your best equipped ones, it makes it even harder for you to beat the monsters again, which means that you're more likely to lose, meaning that it just is going to be harder to beat them, and etc. If we can't beat them the first couple of tries, then you're pretty much F'ed in the A.
Third- and the shortcoming I saw as the biggest- the game offers no way to go back up to previous levels and slay the monsters that were originally too tough for you to beat. This is an essential part of all dungeon-crawling RPGs- the ability to go back to defeat enemies to get stronger so you can take on more tougher enemies. Without this ability, I just felt like I had no choice but to go on and miss out on whatever incredible hoard the Boss was holding.
Don't get me wrong- I like what you have here. It's a game that proves that you can still make a compelling and interesting game with only a little bit of art and graphics. However, it places too much emphasis on the idea of "If you lose once, then you get severely penalized", and because of that, a large part of the game lost its charm for me.
Bland, but pretty [how?]
Lots of detail, but random dungeons and equipment, without any real plot, just feels empty: clear one room, move to next, repeat. No real uniqueness to any items, just random stats (eg vitality on cloths) that detracts from usefulness. This combined with overabundance of crap items means you have to make pit stops to sell stuff, just to realize that Gold is useless, since any item he has is not anywhere near as valuable as their cost. Also, the equip compare tool at the shop just plain lies half the time.
The 2x3 grid you get to move around on is just too small for conjurers to be useful. If it were 2x4 grid I could actually have a full front or rear row [barbarian team :P]. And why is there no option to move spots for a turn? No potions during battle also means you pretty much have to have a cleric in your party, or risk dieing a lot.
Also, it just seems a bit too hard. Item loss on wipe on normal? I wish item loss was another check box for % points, so I can play against normal monsters w/o losing my weapon/shield for a dumb mistake. What, did you play Evercrack for too long or something? There's no way I could never get stoned enough to have the patients to play this whole thing through, especially when dungeon A looks exactly like dungeon B looks like dungeon... etc.
Fun for about 10-30 minutes, then irritating. Pretty much Icewind-Dale style.
takes too long to be fun
can see how it would be fun later on but starts out 2 boring
Aw, the older games are broken :'(