1.
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
2.
Gyromite (NES)
3.
Lucy -The Eternity She Wished For- (Steam)
4.
Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Famicom)
5.
Radical Dreamers (SNES)
6.
Video Games 1 (TI-99/4A)
7.
Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (Famicom)
8.
Exile (TurboGrafx CD)
9.
Exile: Wicked Phenomenon (TurboGrafx CD)
10.
Xak (PC Engine CD,
Xak I・II)
11.
Xak II (PC Engine CD,
Xak I・II)
12.
Neutopia (TurboGrafx-16)
13.
Captain Silver (Sega Master System)
14.
Märchen Veil (Famicom Disk System)
15.
Vanguard (Atari 2600)
16.
Kangaroo (Atari 2600)
17.
Front Line (Atari 2600)
18.
Mario Bros. (Atari 2600)
19.
Harmonia (Steam)
20.
Donkey Kong (Atari 2600)
21.
Jungle Hunt (Atari 2600)
22.
Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (TurboGrafx CD)
23.
Gorf (Atari 2600)
24.
Neutopia II (TurboGrafx-16)
25. Dungeon Magic (PlayStation 2, Taito Legends 2)After perusing some recent threads here I found myself longing to play a classic RPG 'em up. Yes I am going to continue using this term. It's not any goofier than "shmup" is it?
Taito's
Dungeon Magic fits the bill nicely. Released in 1994, not long after the similar (but inferior)
Arabian Magic,
Dungeon Magic remains one of Taito's final arcade beat 'em ups. For years I thought
Dungeon Magic may be a sequel to the similarly titled
Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements on NES (1989), especially in light of the fact that both appeared to be "made by" Taito. Turns out the NES game is unrelated, developed by Natsume and only published by Taito, with a title of
Dungeon & Magic: Swords of Element in Japan. Moreover,
Dungeon Magic itself was called
Light Bringer in its native land. Damn localizers. Always intent on fooling me.
There are four playable heroes of
Dungeon Magic, but naturally I can only vouch for one: the slim sexy elven archer Cisty. She looks like a more "realistic" version of Mail of
Popful Mail. Combat is fairly simple and traditional, with a single attack button and jump button. Cisty excels at close-range combat, but can also fire arrows with some "combo" style button presses. There's a dash activated by hitting left or right twice rapidly, but I rarely found use for it. Cisty is also equipped with a special attack (activated by hitting jump and attack simultaneously) that hits all nearby enemies; this can be used three times per life. I've always appreciated the spartan control scheme found in many older beat 'em ups, but after becoming acquainted with the god-tier
Guardian Heroes just last year I now find myself wishing there was a little more complexity and nuance to the combat in
Dungeon Magic. The game inevitably begins to feel button-mashy after those first thirty minutes or so.
Where the game truly shines is in level design. This is an isometric game (rather than a traditional belt-scroller) in the vein of Data East's
Wizard Fire. Don't expect awkward
Landstalker-y controls though, as characters can only face left or right. The stages are absolutely huge. There are multiple paths leading to the inevitable boss battles, dead-end treasure rooms, and even the ability to backtrack and revisit previous areas. There's no shortage of secrets here. Each and every room, in addition to housing the obvious chests, is also likely to contain a well-hidden switch, passageway, or additional spoils. Some breakable objects, like crates and barrels, can also be spared and stacked to reveal treasures high above the plane of combat. Another quirk about the game is that most enemies can actually be skipped, and some rooms will house foes that simply respawn infinitely. Thus, one can choose to avoid confrontation and make a beeline to boss rooms, or hang out, backtrack, and even level-grind.
Graphics are beautiful and detailed, and the battle animations are fantastic. There are lots of cool little background details, like the screaming demon faces that line the hallway leading to the final boss confrontation. The enemy cast is large and representative of your typical fantasy setting. There are orcs, lizard-men, dragons, sorcerers, skeletons, and so on. Most regular enemies pose but a small threat, especially in light of the fact that they can be skipped altogether. The bosses are another matter. They're huge and sport correspondingly large HP bars. I found that many bosses were needlessly tough due to ambiguous and vague hitboxes. This is where the special attacks become mandatory.
The musical score is quite competent. The beat and pacing of these tracks gets more and more frantic as you approach boss rooms, which was a nice touch. Of course, as is common with these games, the music itself tends to get lost under the cacophony of battle noise. As mentioned, this is a beat 'em up / ARPG hybrid type of game. A large bulk of XP is earned by collecting items rather than slaying foes. The RPG elements do admittedly feel a bit tacked on, as I've played the game several times and always seemed to level up at the exact same places (which, of course, is right about where tougher enemies began to emerge). Of course, as noted, I could take advantage of playing in a more non-conventional manner, by either avoiding conflict or revisiting old haunts.
One (potential) downside is that
Dungeon Magic is damn long for an arcade game. No, it doesn't reach the same levels of absurdity as, say,
The Super Spy, but expect your first single-player run to take 80 minutes or so. Whittle that number down a bit if you have some friends to partake in the action. Given its size, scope, and unique isometric viewpoint it's not incredibly surprising that
Dungeon Magic received exactly zero console ports back in the day. A shame too, I would have loved to see how this performed on the Saturn. Even though it lacks ports, the emulated arcade experience can be enjoyed by anyone today via
Taito Legends 2 on PS2, Xbox, and PC.
Taito Legends 2, by the way, is one of the best retro arcade compilations ever conceived. Anyone remotely interested in the developer's backlog needs this in their collection.
Ultimately,
Dungeon Magic remains one of my favorite beat 'em ups of all time. The actual "beat 'em" aspect may be a touch too bare-bones, but the game world crafted by Taito is a sight to behold. Highly recommended.
