Since the early ’90s, anime-themed video games have been a steady corner of the video game industry. Sadly over the last decade, the quality of most anime titles has dwindled. Nowadays, Anime-themed games fall within the 50/50 range; however, the percentage of good anime games vs bad ones has begun to lean towards the negative end of the spectrum a bit more. So what is causing this shift in the industry? Why are anime/manga based video games becoming worse while anime and manga are getting better? We hope to answer this as we review Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Familia Myth Infinite Combate.
Typically we’d make a joke about the game’s title; however, after playing through this game, we feel rather underwhelmed than joyful. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, also known as DanMachi is a popular anime in both Japan and North America. The second season of the show debuted in the Summer of 2019 and the third season was scheduled to be released this Summer (2020) prior to the outbreak. So why was one of the top 100 animes a disappointment as a game?
Gameplay
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Familia Myth Infinite Combate covers the events of the show’s first season. After completing each chapter, the game alternates between Bell Cranel and Ais Wallenstein. In later chapters, the game only focuses on Bell Cranel. At the start of the game, Bell is the only member of the tiny Hestia Familia. On the other side, the sword princess Ais is part of the Loki Familia. These two characters are polar opposites when it comes to combat prowess.
As the game progresses, players earn skill points and vials by completing guild quests, clearing floors, and completing story missions. Skill points allow the player to increase the stats and skills of Bell and Ais. Each skill’s cost is predetermined and increases as unlocked; there is a total of 18 different skills. These skills increase Bell and Ais’s health, strength, vitality, dexterity, agility, MP, magic enhancements, weapon damage, skill points gained, item strength and duration, support skills, and damage resistance.
Vials are the game’s currency. Players use vials to purchase weapons, armor, consumable items, and to enhance equipment. Enhancing equipment or changing a weapons attribute requires monster parts; monster parts randomly drop throughout the dungeon when a monster is killed. Player’s can enter the dungeon by taking on a quest or doing a story mission; vials, skill points, and monster parts can be farmed by running a specific floor or boss.
During the story, Ais and Bell can talk to the guild and Familia members. After completing the main game’s story that option disappears and is replaced with an Ask Out menu. Player’s must spend Date Points to ask out their desired date. Date points can be earned by clearing specialty dungeons.
Gameplay Mechanics
Each dungeon is predetermined before entry. All enemies within the dungeon remain the same. In later dungeons, some of the enemies are reused but their health pools look similar to their counterparts until hit. In the early stages of Bell’s campaign, Bell does not have any companions to accompany him in the dungeon; on the other hand, Ais has multiple companions to accompany her. During dungeons, the player can use their companions’ abilities to damage mobs. Companion and player abilities recharge by killing monsters.
Skills are not the only way to attack monsters, the player can alternate between light, magic, and heavy attacks. Once MP is exhausted the player cannot use magic anymore. Light and heavy attacks will temporarily reduce the player’s stamina at different intervals. Once a dungeon or quest is completed, the player’s health and mp recharge; any item used in a dungeon will not be refunded.
Gameplay Overall
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Familia Myth Infinite Combate has solid gameplay but feels rather flat; it is possibly due to playing the game on the Nintendo Switch vs using an Xbox/PS4 controller. The combat in the game is rather straightforward despite controls not always responding correctly. The game feels like the outcast cousin of Zelda. The dungeons require very little thought where you can just hack and slash your way through most levels and bosses.
The game briefly covers some of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?’s plot while skipping the side story. Character interactions feel hollow outside of the Ais and Bell’s interactions. Hestia’s interactions with Bell are decent, however, we noticed the most typos and grammatical errors occurred during their interactions. The game feels rather limited with its customization as well. During our playthrough, we only saw six pieces of special armor and twelve weapons. The game tries to take the story of the popular anime and just doesn’t capture the same tone. If you want to relive some of the important moments, the player can experience them again by going to the main menu and selecting CG, scene, and sound galleries.
Graphics
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Familia Myth Infinite Combate’s graphics feel behind the times for a modern anime videogame. Outside of the dungeons, the game’s artwork feels like it was captured from the anime with text blocks added for dialogue. Dungeons, on the other hand, are 3D but feel flat. The character models feel as if they are from the mid-2000s; they are not blocky but are closer to a chibi character rather than a 3D model. The special skill animations are colorful, but they are not graphically impressive.
The game’s cutscenes cannot be skipped without turning on the skip-all feature. If you decide to read the dialogue, make sure to increase the text speed otherwise you will have to wait a while between slides. The game’s graphics are decent and allows you to tell what is going but for a game released in 2020, it feels lackluster.
Controls
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?’s controls are simple enough. The left directional keys control what items are consumed and the A, X, Y, B, buttons control the characters’ attacks and dodge ability. A is a light attack, B is a dodge/dash, Y is the character’s spells, and finally, X is the characters’ heavy attack. Support character skills are activated by using the left or right bumpers. The player’s character skill is activated by pressing the left and right bumps at the same time.
The game’s controls are pretty easy to understand and the layout is simple to remember. The only negative aspect of the controls is that they feel like they belong on a standard controller. When trying to dodge, the character will sometimes dash forward rather than jumping backward.
Audio/SFX
The Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?‘s dialogue is completely in Japanese with English text. For a game ported to English speaking countries, you would expect that the English voices would be added to the game. Sadly, it seems that many developers are forgoing the English dubbing in favor of getting their games out sooner. The game’s sound effects sound semi-realistic, but some sound as if they were recorded using a cellphone microphone. That said, the game’s background music can be rather relaxing and can change based on where the player visits.
Overall the game’s audio can be relaxing to listen to when going about town. The dungeon music can get you in the mood to fight, but we found that it wouldn’t keep that mood for long. Because of this, we played through a good majority of the game with limited sound. This was not because the music was bad; it just got old quickly.
Replay Value
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?‘s replay value is almost nonexistent. The game’s storyline is straightforward with limited variations. The player can change their weapon’s attribute and armor type however the story is the same no matter what. At the end of the game, the player can choose who to go on dates with. Because of how hard it is to grind date points, you must choose your dates wisely. Players can replay the game and add different self challenges. Unlike other anime-themed games, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? does not have the option to change the game’s difficulty; this lowers the game’s replay value.
Summary
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Familia Myth Infinite Combate allows players to step into the shoes of Bell and Ais but sadly, the game does not live up to the standard of modern anime-themed video games. Playing the game takes more time than watching the first season of the anime and its spinoff, but this experience less rewarding by comparison.
This game neglects the anime’s side characters. The boss fights are interesting at first but can be annoying unless observing the enemy’s attack patterns. The game’s customization is limited when it comes to weapons and armor; however, the game does provide a variety of skills to level-up allowing the player to alter their playstyle slightly. Half the time the game’s graphics look as if they are directly from the anime and the other half of the time, they feel like they are from the early 2000s. For a developer that has created over 50 games, the game feels like it was put together quickly to meet fans’ demands.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Infinite Combate is available on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam at $39.99 USD. We would highly recommend waiting for the game to go on sale. A digital Switch copy was provided for the purpose of review.
