Dungeon crawlers have been around for years. There’s something classic about their punishing formulas in which you gather a group of unnamed troops and venture into dark, dangerous labyrinths that are filled with traps, treasures, and treacherous foes ready to make your visit short. At the same time, it’s easy to find this formula stale. The trips back and forth can be tedious, especially early on. Making your troops stronger is an exercise in patience. And a lack of accessibility makes it hard for newcomers to find the right fit for this subgenre. Labyrinth of Zangetsu is one of those titles that lacks that accessibility. So, first time or new dungeon crawlers won’t have as much fun with it as someone who’s more experienced. Now, for those that do have the experience, then this is a game I highly recommend. The only downside is that it’s recommended (from personal experience) to keep a guide handy. Otherwise, you could permanently mess yourself up.
But, I’ll get into issue later in the review. For all I know it could have just been me being unaware of what I was getting into. Labyrinth of Zangetsu takes place in an alternate version of ancient Japan called Ido. Ido’s lands have been overrun and tainted by a black substance simply called Ink. The Ink has destroyed the environment and birthed Ink Beasts that will attack anyone on sight. Luckily, the Ink is only confined to areas dubbed labyrinths. The higherups in Ido have sent out a plea for Conscripts: warriors capable of withstanding the Ink’s evil. The player will establish a team of Conscripts, venture into each labyrinth, destroy the source of the Ink within, and return to Ido for fantastic rewards. That’s basically it. It’s not until the very end of the game you learn the truth behind the Ink and why it’s smearing all over Ido. The story takes a very hands-off approach. If you’re a fan of something like Experience, Inc.’s approach to storytelling then you’ll be disappointed with Labyrinth of Zangetsu. The party you develop is comprised of blank slates, so you won’t be getting to know the team that’s venturing into the darkness. There are just NPCs that have a few lines here and there.
When the game begins, you’re introduced to a robust yet classic setup system. You have a variety of races and job classes to select. Creating a Conscript starts with a roll of the dice. The points you get from this roll can be used to boost base stats. After that, you can select the Conscript’s alignment: good, neutral, or evil. Starting jobs are warrior, samurai, cleric, wizard, and thief. Somehow, I still have no idea how I was able to make my initial classes get upgraded to the advanced classes, but they consist of monk, ninja, sage, and paladin. I’ll talk more about my experience with these classes later. You head off into an introduction dungeon after you make your party of six Conscripts. This dungeon will give you a general idea of how all the dungeons in Labryinth of Zangetsu are. You’ll navigate winding corridors, flip switches, find shortcuts, deal with traps, and more while moving in a first-person perspective. It’s standard stuff. Some of the dungeons can be a bit tricky to solve, but it’s nothing that thorough exploration can’t fix. If you find yourself not sure of what to do next, then chances are you missed a hallway or room.
Combat is where things can be hit or miss. It’s straightforward: pick your commands and watch the action play out. There are regular attacks, items, skills which require HP and magic spells that have limited number uses. There are no magic points in this game, so magic usage is best left for emergencies. There’s a nifty fast-forward feature where all actions happen at once to expedite combat. After enemies fall, you’ll be rewarded with money, experience points, and a treasure chest that has its goods hidden behind too many traps. Pro tip: always have a thief in the party. In my experience, one of two things can happen with combat. The first is that you always find yourself at a severe disadvantage, and barely survive the onslaught from regular foes. You end up going back to Ido to restore your health and restocking on items. You also hope that one of the party members you raised doesn’t end up getting killed/petrified in combat. Money is very difficult to get at first, thus the cost to resurrect a Conscript will break the bank. And of course, there’s the fact there’s a chance resurrection can fail, resulting in you permanently losing your Conscript. This is most apparent during the start of the game and when you enter a new Labyrinth for the first time. It’s even more apparent if you have wizards in your party. For some reason, they just don’t gain HP upon a level up; the epitome of a glass cannon. Many of the enemies throw Ink at you, which reduces your maximum HP. It’s not a good look for squishy mages. You can remove this curse at the temple back in Ido.
The second thing that can happen is that your party finds its groove and absolutely massacres the enemy parties. It takes a while for this to happen, but happen it does. It took a lot of back and forth before my party was powerful enough to survive the treks. But man, it was satisfying seeing the team of Conscripts work together so well. Even imposing bosses were felled thanks to the synergy of the party I formed. Unfortunately, near the end of the journey, there came a point where I had to rely on level grinding and brute force to see victory. Remember how I said I had no idea how I was able to get my characters upgraded to new classes? Well, because of me trying to mix and match classes, I ended up with a really poor combination of Conscripts. Also, since alignment impacts how effective certain classes are, I was unable to take full advantage of the ones I was able to upgrade. All this to say that it’s recommended that you have a guide with you when you build your team and when you need information on how to class change. Otherwise, you’ll be in the same situation I was. I didn’t have a good strategy other than grind and hope for the best.
Many of the enemies that you’ll be facing are inspired by ancient Japanese mythology. This choice combined with the woodblock style artwork that’s primarily in black and white make Labyrinth of Zangetsu one of the most unique looking games I’ve ever played. There are pops of color here and there, but most of the labyrinths, enemies, and even spell effects are displayed in black and white. It’s a bold choice that worked well given the game’s setting. The music is also quite good. Going with the theme of a fantastical, ancient Japan, you can expect to hear a lot of woodwinds and percussion that make you feel as though you’re in a timeless, Japanese castle or temple. Thankfully, there isn’t any voice acting.
And thankfully, there are two modes of difficulty. Along with having a guide on hand, I highly recommend playing on normal difficulty. Otherwise, the slightest mistake will put you in a world of hurt. That’s not to say the standard difficult is a cakewalk. Remember my struggles? Yeah, that was on standard mode. But, live and learn, as they say. Even with all the struggling, Labyrinth of Zangetsu is a short game that lasted about 20 hours. At some point, I’d like to go back (with a guide) and try out new classes and see if I can manage to build a better party that didn’t have to brute force its way to victory. Fans of dungeon crawlers with the challenge level that they’ve come to expect will eat this inky title right up.
Overall, 7.5/10: Become a Conscript. Remove the ink. Challenge yourself! Labyrinth of Zangetsu can be a bit obtuse, but it’s still a fun dungeon crawler.