It Is a Vita Dungeon Crawler – Dungeon Travelers 2 Review

Dungeon Travelers 2 is the newest Vita dungeon crawler released by Atlus. The Playstation Vita has quite a few of these Japanese dungeon crawlers. It seems every week there is some new dungeon crawler coming out for the Vita. This makes it pretty hard for anyone single dungeon crawler to stand out. Yes, each game does things to differentiate themselves from the pack. But for the most part it comes down to anime teens fighting monsters to save the world, fan service, and turn-based combat in bland environments. So does Dungeon Travelers 2 do anything to stand out?

On the presentation front it’s a case of the same-old-same-old. During exposition and combat it uses an anime style that looks good, but is pretty par for the course. When dungeon crawling, there are a good variety of environments, that all have a locked-in theme or tone. The problem is when you enter an area, you are going to stay in that type of area. So if you go to a cave, you are stuck going through a cave. There is rarely any moment where you will be going through a cave, then go through a door to find a new type of area. This makes going through longer dungeons feel repetitive and lifeless. It certainly does not help that the 3D looks awful. At times I thought this was a PS2 game from 2001 ported to the Vita.

The in-combat visuals aren’t much better, because it’s just static backgrounds with pictures with very slight animations. The combat just doesn’t have any punch (pun intended). Thankfully the presentation isn’t all bad; the music is very catchy. I found myself humming the intro theme on several occasions, and same goes for the dungeon music. English voice acting is solid, and the game as a whole was localized very well. The problem is none of the presentation goes out of its way to stand out. All of it outside of the music seems forgettable.

Gameplay is equally forgettable. It plays like a standard dungeon crawler with some exceptions. Combat is turn based and incredibly challenging, meaning you will have to grind or think your way out of tough spots. The skill system allows for a lot of customization when it comes to the way you play, and set up your party. You can upgrade every single class to multiple advanced forms that are far stronger than their base form. This will give you an incentive to level every single class multiple times to see every different form of a base class. But these are small things that won’t be recognizable to anyone, except for fans of the genre. None of the gameplay is bad, just bland. It all feels lifeless with a few exceptions involving difficulty and customization. There are way worse dungeon crawlers, but there are also way better ones.

Finally the story: you play a character known as a Libra. A Libra is someone who is trained to go out into the kingdom to capture monsters into a book to protect the kingdom with the help of warriors, and mages. The characters are all generally pretty likable and the game can get really funny at points. There is just one problem: the needless fan service. I don’t mind fan service, but this game lays it on thick at times. Within the first hour of the game there were three moments that just made me sigh. Hell, in the first dungeon alone, there are two fan service scenes, and the one after the first boss just feels completely unnecessary. I don’t mind half naked anime girls, but this just feels forced.

Dungeon Travelers 2 is by no means bad. It just doesn’t do much to separate itself from the other dungeon crawlers on the Vita. If you want to enjoy a pretty good soundtrack, love dungeon crawlers, or enjoy shameless fan service you might want to give it a look. Otherwise, if you haven’t enjoyed this style of game in the past, this one won’t change your mind.

Final Score: 6.5/10