Title: Lapis x Labyrinth
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software America
Release Date: May 28th, 2019 (NA)
File Size: 714MB
Review copy provided by Nippon Ichi Software America
Here’s another more indie-style game from NIS. This time it’s a 2D hack and slash JRPG featuring uber cute characters and a hint of World of Final Fantasy in it. Does the stack of cute characters rise to the top, or does it tumble down like Jenga? Let’s find out!
A look at the Hunter class. I named mine Serena!
This game has you creating a team of adorable adventurers via a limited character creation system. You can pick from a variety of classes, including a Hunter, a Maid, a Gunner, a Witch, etc. Each have their own attack styles and weapons of choice they use. Hunters have quicker attacks, while a Gunner obviously specializes in long ranch gunfire. The Witch class is my personal fav since she can attack upwards by default (it’s very handy) and also unleashes a big projectile move at the end of a combo. Also you can choose from different colors and voices for each, as well as their name. So there’s a decent amount of choice to be had here.
After you go through a tutorial level to get a hang on the combat and controls, you’re dropped into a tiny town where you can talk to a few NPCs (who always only have one thing to say at a time). You’ll find some places locked for the time being. To start, you talk with the Mayor and her Butler who basically say they need help fighting monsters and there’s tons of treasure to be collected. There’s not much in story here, but it works.
Here’s the party menu, featuring Isabelle the Witch!
To start a dungeon, you have to speak to the Guild person who shows you a screen of quests you can take. You need to be at a certain rank to take on higher ranked quests. Things actually get VERY Monster Hunter-like in this manner, so try picturing that if you can and it might be easier to understand. Once you pick a quest, you speak to the person at the bottom of town who will let you depart on your quest, and now the fun begins!
You start with your full up-to four-person team literally stacked on top of one another like a totem pole. This matters since your attacks are more powerful this way, but also when jumping with the A button, each character gives you an additional jump! You attack enemies with the Y button and just literally go ham on any enemy you come across. What’s very important is not getting hit, I’ll explain why in a moment.
The screen between floors in a dungeon. Also featuring the Maid Lana and Gunner Hunter.
When enemies are killed, they often drop a treasure chest containing anything from weapons, to armor, or just regular items. A big attack you can do is tapping R when a massive group of enemies show up, but this has I’d say a 30-second cool down period so use it wisely. Back to the no-damage thing, if you try to avoid getting hit as much as possible, your combo meter will get higher and higher the more enemies you defeat. This will reward you with better and better rewards as you progress through the dungeon.
Another big key feature is the fever mode. When you kill enough enemies, the fever meter on the top right of the screen maxes out and fever mode activates. In this, you’re invincible, your attacks get more powerful, and you can collect a shit ton of gems of lots of different colors. This is the best time to really rack up the combo meter and get as much money and loot as possible. It’s super satisfying when it happens and lasts again for about 30-seconds.
Not fever mode, but even during normal gameplay IT GETS CRAZY!!!
Dungeons are usually 2-4 floors long. You have to find the exit portal within 5 minutes in each floor before essentially the grim reaper appears and will auto KO you upon touching you, ending the quest. Portals come in green and purple. Green ones teleport you to specific spots. Some are needed to get to the floor clearing purple portals, while others troll you and can basically get you lost. There’s NO map so you have to memorize where you are to try and get to the exit ASAP. Also, dungeons are randomly generated so even revisiting the same quest will give you a different dungeon each time. Thankfully at around half-time I think you get an arrow pointing you towards the exit which helps a lot.
The last floor of each dungeon is a small boss room. Bosses are often big enemies you see at other times, but have LOTS of HP and take time taking down. Once you beat the boss, you get some bonus greenish chests to open up for your efforts and you can get to the exit portal. Depending on how well you do, you’ll get a number of keys. These keys are used to open the chests you’ve collected specifically I believe. Chests are labelled by a weapon type or other item types, as well as a key number requirement. The more keys are needed to open a chest, the better the item will be. Some chests are also either rainbow-colored or glow which can also sometimes give you a good item as well. Keys can’t be kept, so just use them on whatever you fancy then.
Friends that spin towards you, stay together?
After beating the first world, you unlock a couple of shops. The Mayor opens up a food shop to allow you to make some snacks to assist you during dungeons. You do get a candy snack that heals you a bit between floors I think at the beginning as well which is reuseable, it just has limited use (up to three times) in a dungeon, that’s cool. The other is the Trader, who allows you to trade items for better weapons and upgrades (along with costing money of course). Upgrades include being able to equip better items since you start I believe with a 20 number limit. To explain, items have a number out of that 20 total you can equip. Some take up 1, others 2, etc. This is very similar to Sonic and the Secret Rings (Ha, didn’t expect me to bring that game up did you?). These upgrades up that limit.
Visually I actually really like it. It’s very lovely 2D artwork with some of the most adorable character designs I’ve seen in a good while, with some beautiful backgrounds. Not Muramasa: The Demon Blade good, but still, that’s VanillaWare don’t cha know! The game runs smoothly at 60 fps as well. It’s hard to tell if it dips during special attacks when the screen gets crazy, but it’s brief anyways. Honestly this may be one of my fav NIS games visually. There’s definite potential here.
And to the victor goes the spoils!
Audio-wise, I like the music, but most specifically the character’s voices are SO CUTE! They’re all in Japanese but they make these little noises like when they jump they go “oh!”. Love it! Sound effects sound good, especially when you collect gems. There’s no actual voice-acting beyond that. None of the story dialogue is voiced other just a cute line from the character you’re speaking with, the usual stuff.
Overall I really like this game. It’s pleasant and it’s actually cheap on the eShop like The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince was. It’s $30 USD/$37.79 CDN digitally which isn’t too bad. So I highly recommend it. Hell, Jim Sterling made a video about the game and he loves it too, even more than I did really! He goes into much better detail so give that a watch! Anyway, there’s an addictive nature in trying to keep the combo meter as high as possible without getting hit. Though the enemy you have to watch out for the most are those small dragons that spit fireballs… I keep losing my combos all the time because of those.
You’ll Love:
+ The simplistic nature of the game. Go in dungeons, beat enemies up, collect LOTS of loot.
+ The characters and their voices are too cute to bear IMO. My favs are the Maid and the Witch.
+ The art is very nice, both the character designs and the backgrounds.
+ It’s not easy but it’s fair.
+ Japanese voices are again very cute.
+ Has screenshot and video capture support.
You’ll Hate:
– It can get repetitive, but it’s a small game so it’s not a big deal.
– The town isn’t the most interesting. Characters never move and only have one thing to say at a time until the story progresses.
– Those damn dragon enemies made me lose my combos than any other enemy so far!
– SUPER easy to get lost. There’s no map though the arrow does help, it only points to the exit and doesn’t take teleporting portals into account. You have to basically find a green portal if you’re blocked off from the goal.
– There’s that odd glitch with video capture just like in The Princess Bride where it won’t finish the recording (or at least tell you it’s done) unless you snap a screenshot it seems. Weird.
Score: 7.5/10