Dive into the macabre and
devilish 3D realm of Deathtrap Dungeon. Fight to the bloody end against
over 50 fiends and foes ranging from fire-breathing dragons to
slithering serpent women in a variety of dynamic 3D environments. Swords
and hammers are a few of the weapons at your fingertips as you battle
at close quarters in 10 tortuous levels. Based on the multi-million
selling Fighting Fantasy book series by Ian Livingston, Deathtrap
Dungeon is the ultimate dungeon hack and slash thriller.
If I was going to splurge and use two words, I'd say it's 'Really Savage'.
I
like 'Tough' or 'Savage' when it's challenging and rewarding of your
improving skills in the game, and fortunately, Deathtrap Dungeon is in
this category. This adventure has true longevity, if you have the
stomach and, yes, the masochistic streak required for it. I will say
this up front - if you decide early on in playing that you find
Deathtrap Dungeon too harsh, you probably won't revise that opinion.
The
easiest reference point would be Tomb Raider, also by Eidos.
Superficially, both games have an athletic heroine (or hero) springing
their way through dangerous environments, with a roving 3rd-person
perspective of the action. Beyond that, the games part ways. DTD (I'll
refer to Deathtrap Dungeon as 'DTD' from now on) is a bigger game, far
more combat heavy, with nastier and more focused puzzles, and a solid
dose of fantasy RPG elements - hit points, magic potions, weapons and
armor, spellcasting etc.
You have a choice of 2 adventurers to
take into the dungeon: Red Lotus (female) and Chaindog (male). Your
choice won't change the play of the game, but obviously changes who
you're going to be watching, guiding and listening to the death screams
of for months to come. Red Lotus is wearing some amazingly skimpy black
'mistress' outfit ('clothing' is too generous a word), but fortunately
everything else about her behaviour suggest she didn't graduate from the
EIDOS bimbo academy (unlike Lara Croft...) Things like the way she
cuts heads off and emits guttural warcries.
The game concept
comes from the eponymous Fighting Fantasy novel. If you've never
encountered Fighting Fantasy, it's a 'choose your own adventure' novel
with a dice-rolling and roleplaying element. They were a real phenomenon
for many years (and are favourites of mine) and spawned a thousand
clones and their own spin-offs. DTD was a critical favourite. The ideas,
atmospheres, monsters, and of course the traps, have come intact from
the book. Anything cerebral has not - the game is gothic hack and slash,
puzzling, and survival.
The core storyline of the book
launches the game. The title dungeon is the location for a competition
for hardened adventurers held by Baron Sukumvit. You play an adventurer
who has taken up the challenge, and now must hack and puzzle your way
thru 30-something very severe levels to ultimately overcome one very
mean Red Dragon, Melkor, and win fabulous riches. Oh, and you'll be
freeing the town of Fang from the Baron's grip.
It starts out
reasonably easy, with basic switch-finding/door-opening puzzles to deal
with, and only a handful of enemies ever attacking at once. Controls are
of the action-adventure/survival horror kind - left and right to turn
your character, forward and back to start walking. The camera chases you
about and mostly does a decent job of showing the perspective you want.
You can also run, leap and climb up and down. Before too many levels
have passed, you will begin your baptism by fire: Pits, spikes and
crushers, monster ambushes, arrows and spears launched from the walls,
deadly falls. It's savage, it's dark, and you have no map. You have a
supply of chalk with which to make marks on the walls etc.. an
atmospheric innovation, but not a really useful one. I find that to beat
these hard levels, you must grow to learn them to the extent that the
chalk marks are gonna be redundant anyway!
Graphics aren't
spectacular. I got this game early in my PSX experience, and have since
seen how much nicer a game can look. People and objects are sometimes
jagged and the textures aren't really inspiring. The majority are stone
and wood, with the banners of your enemies hung about and furniture
scattered. Still, it works. The atmosphere is successfully created
(lucky the dungeon didn't have to be too well lit). Probably the most
important factor overcoming any graphical shortcomings is the scale of
the levels. There are tiny tunnels, but there are also huge rooms with
openings on multiple floors where you can look up and all around and
sense the enormity of the world around you. The levels themselves are
huge too. Overall... it's a big game.
Combat is juicy. To me
it's the most important ingredient in DTD, and you will get major
thrills out of the bloodsoaked medieval chopping that goes on here. Your
basic weapon is the sword. With the X button and directional pad you
can send your character into a series of stabs, slashes, whirls and
leaps which will decapitate goblins, send limbs flying (yes you can see
them flying) and spurt blood on all 4 walls (yes, you can then hang
around and watch the blood dripping, if you're as sick as I am). Some
timing and parrying skills are required, as is judgement of the best
kind of attack to use in the circumstances. It's exciting and very
satisfying. Your character is a good fighter, but you're not superhuman.
If you get outnumbered and surrounded, you'll need to get a bigger
boat, uh, I mean, bigger weapons.
Let's stop here for a moment
and consider the awesome number and variety of foes you will get to face
in DTD. In 'Resident Evil', to make a comparison, we're pretty happy to
have maybe 10 different kinds of monsters to fight with. In DTD, there
are about 45 entirely individual monsters to deal with. And that's not
45 variations on a theme. Here are some examples -
Imps, the
basic enemy soldier, are as tall as your waist. They giggle and chuckle
(think Beavis and Butthead and you're there), move in erratic dashes and
stab you with little knives. Compare these guys to Warrior Priestesses.
They're your size, they're fanatical and somersault and scream on their
way into battle. Medusae slither around, trying to smack you from out
of your range with long ball and chains. Hive insects can be heard
buzzing from a great distance, but attack with frightening suddenness,
closing your range in the time it takes to blink. There are gigantic
enemies too, who for a change, really are gigantic! 'Automatons'
(animated robots) who are 3 stories tall and brandish flamethrowers.
Rats that fill a tunnel. A giant hand. Dragons that occupy a whole
level. Spiders who spit poison. The list goes on. It's got to be the
best lineup of enemies in any similar game I own, or have played, and
they really are different to one another.
The game comes with
an EXCELLENT 70 page booklet entitled 'The Bestiary', describing all the
monsters in detail, suggesting strategies and weaknesses, and with
great illustrations too. More games should have genuinely interesting
and attractive accompanying documentation like this.
How to
deal with all these monsters? There is an equally impressive array of
weapons, both melee and missile, normal and magical. There are
categories of magic, from black to red to white. Early firearms feature
here, as do different kinds of blades which are more or less effective
against different enemies. There are 6 missile, 7 melee weapons, and 8
offensive spells, plus 8 more special items which will do all kinds of
things - give you psychotic strength or speed, protect you from magic or
dragonsbreath, make you invisible etc etc. You will need to command
them all. Some of the firearms will make you smile and think of Doom,
such as the 'Infernal Device' which is a rocket launcher at heart.
Ok,
so that's a lot to think about! But the game is so long you will have
time to deal with each element as you are introduced to it.
Well,
you also need to negotiate the deathtraps. They can be arbitrary.
Remember, this is Deathtrap Dungeon, built by a sadistic baron. He's
rarely going to warn you that the door is about to lock and that the
room will fill with fiery death. The surprises are often cruel - that is
the idea. You may bang your head. But the save points are well chosen.
Before a really nasty enemy or trap, there will generally be a save
point. It's not one of these games that will force you to do lots of
really hard work, And kill a boss, before it will let you save. So if
you keep that in mind, and get into the cruel spirit of the game, you
will enjoy the heightened sense of danger. You'll need to like it, for
few games are as dangerous as this one! If you don't like the idea of
this (and it's somewhat atypical game design) - you will not like this
game one bit.
Sonically, it's a fairly blunt game. Basic sound
effects are all solid enough, your own screams and grunts, your
footsteps, and the sword shreddings of combat - but the enemies' sounds
aren't as varied as the enemies themselves. The majority are of a fairly
guttural quality, and won't key you in to the presence of a particular
enemy, with a few exceptions.
The music is never very
sophisticated either. In a way this doesn't worry me - droning, slightly
unremarkable music is suitable for levels of this length. You will
spend a lot of time exploring, and more involving music might distract.
Though the 'charging battle' music is just downright annoying. It's
the supernatural sound effects that are the best - the sounds made by
your spells when you launch them, or the pulsing of a save game area.
Maybe these needed to be a bit more focused. You can often hear the
pulsing from too far away for it to be useful in tracking the source of
the sound down.
So the looks and sounds of DTD are a bit
ragged. If you demand the 'highest tech' graphics and sounds, that might
put you off. But basically, DTD has got supreme and very challenging
gameplay. It has huge levels, tons of combat action and blood, tons of
enemies, tons of spells and tons of weapons. It can keep you busy for
months. If you can complete it, you can feel pretty macho and brag about
it, as I know for a fact that many many gamers give up. The game has an
unpopular reputation in that respect. Many players even make it through
all the levels, only to give up on the last battle in the game, with
the red dragon Melkor. Yes, Melkor can be that hard. Hence, I suggest
the masochistic streak in your personality. DTD is always hard, but
never ridiculous. So you will feel an amazing sense of toughness and
achievement if you can best it.
In my final score for DTD, I
subtract a couple of points basically for the slight rawness of the
technical qualities of the game. Everything else about the game is huge,
numerous, and tough, and completely absorbing. I think Deathtrap
Dungeon is a great fantasy adventure game. Just remember that it
requires a certain kind of hardcore mentality to see it through.
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