Dungeon Fighter Online

Dungeon Fighter Online Overview

Dungeon Fighter Online is a Korean online role playing game where players fight in a traditional 2D fighting style. The game, which was published by the very popular Nexon, combined role playing elements with a fighting style similar to Street Fighter, or Marvel vs. Capcom. The player’s characters will level up and earn skill points they can use to upgrade the specific class they chose. Technique points are also in the game which are awarded when players successfully complete combos with their party members. The game also supports different areas, or zones, in which they can fight different monsters. While the graphics for this game are pretty simple the gameplay is pretty fun and the combination of role playing elements and fighting game style combat seems to work well.

Dungeon Fighter Online Screenshots

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Dungeon Fighter Online Featured Video

Full Review

Dungeon Fighter Online Review

By, Robert D. Stock

Backdrop

.hack Part 1 Infection (Dot Hack) begins with a bang. Something disastrous happens to your character‘s real world friend, while innocently playing a 20 million-subscriber base, wildly popular online RPG game (MMORPG), The World. To unravel the mystery of your friend’s misfortune, you become an online, ingame rogue hacker, exploring every corner of The World, even some virus-infected ones.

The hero is armed with the special skills of Data Drain and Gate Hack, and some colorful, talented fellow adventurers to fill the two other available party slots. Different adventurers must accompany you depending on the plot‘s development. You have some control over the others in your party, including upgrading them through trades or gifts. You can play only a single class, Twin Blade. Other characters are from different classes, with varied strengths and weaknesses, from a mage type (Wavemaster) to a bully (Heavy Axeman).

Gameplay

Gameplay takes place in three principal areas – towns, fields, and dungeons. Towns house The World’s servers. There, the player can save the game, buy magic scrolls and useful and unique items, store items, buy equipment, and talk and trade with lots of other players in character online. One town has an unusual ranch to check out, a patent homage to an enduring feature of just about every Final Fantasy.

The town’s Chaos Gate provides instant teleportation to a particular wide-open Field, containing monster encounter hotspots, a mystical spring, treasure, and lots of mysterious food. You enter three distinct keywords, some known at the game‘s onset, and others learned through play. Whatever keywords are entered, the difficulty level of the destination is helpfully revealed. This prevents a low-level party from being massacred. Once the keywords are entered, you travel through the Chaos Gate. (You can enter specific keywords learned to continue the plot, do side quests, or do unlimited exploring. Or, you can instruct the Gate to enter random keywords, and take your chances. There‘s also an option to enter any keywords you wish from a word list.) Every Field houses a single Dungeon. The dungeons, where you spend much of the game fighting for your life, are not overly large in size, and always range between three and five average levels.

Many have compared Dot Hack to Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II (PSO) on the Gamecube. Let us gently discredit this. We feel Dot Hack has far better graphics than PSO. The Fields and Dungeons contain many colorful, over stylized backdrops and settings, including weather effects. Dot Hack’s monsters resemble the beautifully-drawn monsters of the later Final Fantasy’s. Dot Hack’s world is gigantic with a seeming infinite number of locations to explore. PSO’s world is relatively small, and plot is threadbare, with meaningless, though fun, side quests, which instill no enthusiasm in the player. Dot Hack’s plot is deep and complex, with each subplot advancing the story just a little bit further. (Remember though, the end of this game in no way comes close to wrapping up the story, to be completed in the three games to be released later this year.) One visual treat, however, was lifted directly from PSO – the cascading rings that accompany the teleportation of characters to and from different areas.

Combat

Dot Hack’s combat engine can best be described as modified real-time. Much like the action-RPG, Kingdom Hearts, button mashing can be effective to beat monsters. Monster combat icons appear as large yellow twirling landmarks. As you approach, the landmark dissolves, monsters come at you big-time, and, undoubtedly, players will feel a healthy adrenaline rush. Some of Dot Hack’s many monsters do not stand around waiting to be pummeled, rather some you need to catch. Dot Hack lets you turn combat almost into a turn-based affair. The player needs only to hit Triangle in the middle of battle to pause the game instantly. From there the player can give orders to the others in the party, anything from healing someone, reviving another, casting a spell, designating a target monster. Without jeopardizing your party from the hailstorm of monster blows, combat becomes a calmer, more strategic, experience. This will help the many action-challenged. Camera angles play a big role in successful combat. You must be facing a monster to do any damage. As in many games, manipulating opposing environmental elements, like fire vs. water, is a key to successful monster combat.

Dot Hack’s cyberspace setting provides a wealth of Wow-inducing outbursts. The Data Drain option in combat is a great example. When a monster’s approaches zero, the player can Data Drain to reduce a horrendous, gigantic steel robot, for example, into a sniveling, puny monster, easily defeated with a single blow. Data Drain always results in a nifty, rare item or essential Virus Cores so you can Gate Hack areas of The World now closed, but needing investigation. One bad side effect – if you defeat, a Data Drained monster, but a single experience point is earned. One REALLY bad side effect – if you Data Drain too often without giving the skill a rest, you may overload and explode. Game Over. In the case of Boss monsters, Data Drain works the same, but what remains is no sniveling puny monster, but a full-blooded slightly less tough monster. All of this makes for interesting and captivating combat, a large part of the game.

Fresh Features

Dot Hack is replete with new and interesting features that kept us riveted.

To start, the entire background and story of a real world gamer becoming a rascal hacker, penetrating deep into a virus-infected online game, is quite novel. Combine this with Dot Hack’s emulating the look and feel of an online game universe. (Message traffic on the web shows many gamers mistakenly believe Dot Hack is a real online MMORPG, along with monthly fees! No real Internet connection is required.)

Just like in the real word, Dot Hack replicates your excitement level when “New” appears before a popular forum or on your email screen. Some of the game involves receiving emails as the plot develops, as well as new, crucial information surfacing on The World’s Board. (Look out for emails challenging you to a strange game of Tag.) The online game world looks very familiar with a bunch of characters wandering around the game’s towns, with the ubiquitous balloon icons talking typical “trash” to each other, even criticizing “newbies“.

Combat grippingly called for surprisingly strategic decision-making to succeed, not related to the usual attack or defend choices. Do you go for experience and upgrade your character or try for some special equipment or a Virus Core, vital to Gate Hacking? The innovative control of other party members became second nature to us after some practice. The game rewards a player taking chances, like entering a Field or Dungeon rated 5 levels above the player’s current level. On the other hand, the game scoffed at players entering areas much lower rated the their current level, by awarding negligible experience points for victory.

Dot Hack takes progress reports to a new level, by slowly unlocking books that contain much in the way of statistics and information. There’s even a monster compendium with tips for defeating them.

Some might complain about the minimal “Save Game” ability, but we thrived on it. You explore a very hostile cyberspace environment without the facility to save. Only in a server-hosting town is saving possible at the local Recorder. We may be a solitary voice in the Wilderness, but we like this throwback to the good old RPG days. Those of you old enough to remember the Wizardry series, may recall those fingernail-biting multi-combat treks back to the Castle just to save the game. In case you’re really stuck deep in a dungeon, a common item will teleport you to the outdoor field, from where you can simply gate back to town from the command menu.

Many pieces of equipment come with distinctive powerful attack, healing, and status skills, essential to combat dominance. The player must tradeoff whether to equip something that will raise defense or offense or something less vigorous that lets you use a powerful skill. Trading is the most successful way to upgrade equipment.

In a first, Dot Hack comes with a 45 minute anime video. This gives some great background on what’s going on in The World, as well as provide clues for completing the game. In a nice twist, voiceovers for game speech can be set for Japanese or English presentation. Listening to the authentic Japanese voices really keeps you glued to the game.

Though some may scoff at what follows as meaningless, we liked the game’s unlocking of some nifty new “toys” to like, some only available when the game is cleared. You can unlock many different background music play lists. Tired of creepy tunes, just switch to something more upbeat, or futuristic. Just like real world gamers, who constantly change their desktop wallpaper, new and different wallpapers are unlocked along the way. Some are concept art of characters, while others are full blown anime renditions of the characters. This makes for great fun, and seems to pump additional energy into the game. As you progress over a dozen special cut scenes or movies will become viewable after defeating the game.

Though Dot Hack’s extras and new wrinkles enhance the RPG game experience, much of the gameplay will ring true to those who enjoy RPG‘s. Expect plenty of exploration in a huge 3D world, frequent monster combat, tons of treasure to earn and discover, upgrading your character’s weapons and armor, and needing to level before tackling pivotal story dungeons. The status screens for the characters and all equipment are well laid out and easy to grasp.

Time for Completion

Game length in hours always concerns many purchasers. A short RPG normally takes a lot of flack, and many online are asking about Dot Hack‘s time for completion. (Some have questioned whether Bandai should have released a single 80 hour game for $50, rather than four 20-hour games for $200 for a single story. This matter is beyond the scope of this review, but our high opinion of this game as a standalone is obvious.) Our experience, playing the plot without doing side quests or extra exploration, is in the 12 to 15-hour range. Players side-questing and extensively exploring, aside from the main plot, can expect to spend 25 hours to complete the game. You can even continue to advance your character, after game completion, to get a jump start on Part 2 due in May. In the next game, your character can be imported from Part 1.

Furthermore, imagine trying to explore every nook and cranny of the fields and dungeons accessible by a large number of 3-word combinations. Doing that would put the game in the 50-hour range, if not more. However, at a certain point, new items dry up, and a single experience point is earned for any defeated monster, no matter how tough.

Shortcomings

While, as is evident above, there is much to recommend in Dot Hack, certain concerns to varying degrees deserve mention.

From the “Why oh why did they leave this out?“ File. Pregame game board traffic and information about the Japanese version released months ago had many salivating for replaying the game in “parody” mode. This mode apparently converted all Dot Hack’s game world characters into satirical comedians. Sorry to say, this highly-anticipated feature is missing from the version released here.

The game requires massive amounts of button pressing. Every item or treasure uncovered from combat victories or exploration (opening chests, searching expired adventure remains, collecting food for Grunty’s, as examples) must be confirmed with a button press. When there could be 50-100 such occurrences in a single dungeon or field, over the course of the game, finger cramps seem inevitable. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance also required lots of bashing for buried treasure and chests, but the items literally flew into your inventory, a much better way to handle this.

The manual is woefully terse and lacking in some crucial information and guidance. While the ingame tutorials fill in many of the gaps, one extremely important gameplay feature is missing from both the manual and tutorials – instructions on control your characters directly during combat.

Final Word

We got a kick out of Dot Hack. The feeling of “just one more dungeon” dominated our lives for the 3 days to completion. The engaging environment held our attention without much effort. The strategic nature of combat, plus the convoluted plot kept us going for hours on end. The constant unlocking of both frivolous and important gameplay features created a “what’s next” anticipation. Now, if I could only read Japanese better, Dot Hack Part 2 is already out in Japan!

Final Grade: B

Dungeon Fighter Online is a good MMORPG that has the style of an old-school arcade game. Arad was a peaceful place, but once the threat came, peaceful creatures were beginning to rampage. This was only the beginning, however, for you have to face the great power of Devolution.

Dungeon Fighter starts out with a comic telling the background of which class you chose. There are five starting jobs now; more will come later. To me, the most unique class is the priest. You usually think a priest as a skinny guy. This guy is the largest character in the game. He can be a healer, offensive caster, and a physical attacker.

So far, the priest is the only one I have tried, and he is great. Depending on which weapon you choose, he can attack fast with large amounts of damage. Every job can advance to one of four sub-classes, except for the priest. At the beginning, as a priest for example, you can only get a few skills from each sub-class. You will automatically have two skills once you start. I had Giant Weapon Launcher and Slow Heal. Giant Weapon Launcher launches an enemy in front of you high into the air. If there are any behind you, however, they can also get hit. Slow Heal is a buff that restores health over a period of time.

The slayer is a cool class, as well, because he is both physical and magical. He wields swords with one hand because his other is possessed by a demon. His demon hand is part of his magical affinity, and because of it, he has a high resistance to darkness damage, but suffers more from light damage.

A fighter is a typical job that mostly uses their bodies as weapons. She specializes in everything melee and can really be a hindrance on the enemy. She is able to grapple enemies and easily strike them down. She can also buff herself to increase her defense and vitality. Vitality is like physical defense and has nothing to do with health.

The gunner is an interesting class that uses bullets that can have elemental attributes. He is able to be used in pretty much any situation because of his bullets. His only problem is that he is physically weak, making him almost useless in melee situations.

A Mage is the usual class that uses mainly magic as their offensive power. This job has great area of effect abilities, though, that will make up for her low strength and defense. If you decide to make her into a battle mage, however, she could be the best physical attacker. She can also become an elementalist, which further increases her magic damage.

As you begin, you will be in a dungeon with only a few goblins to kill. All of your skills can be used by a certain movement combination and the Z key. Of course, though, you will be able to have six skills hot-keyed to the A through H keys.

You will normally attack with the X key. The priest attacks three times before slamming his giant weapon in front of him. Doing his full X-key combo will allow you to perform an aerial. Aerials are one of the things that will increase the style meter. Certain quests will need you to obtain a high style rating. They will be easier to obtain as you get used to how the game works. Technic is also another thing used for the overall rating, and is as easy to get as just doing combos.

I haven’t figured out how many kills you have to get in order to gain one SP point, but SP is the most important thing you will get besides gold. SP, or skill points, are used to buy yourself some new skills or level up existing ones. Just one level in a skill can make a huge difference in the damage it deals.

After you have defeated a dungeon boss, you will gain experience points depending on the rank you have gained. A cool thing is that whatever server you are on, like one of the Grand Flores servers, you will gain bonus experience according to that server’s dungeon name. As well as experience, you will also get to choose from eight rewards. Four of them are free and four can be paid for with a certain amount of gold. The ones you pay for can be a gamble because you may not get anything.

Upon returning to town from your first dungeon, you will be able to receive quests from NPCs that are scattered about, but you can easily find them using the map. You can even move while on the map, making it much easier on computers that may lag.

You will also be able to enter other dungeons by going to the far right or left, depending on which main map you want to go to. At first there aren’t many maps, but you will be able to unlock many by leveling up. A unique thing about this game is the fatigue points. Once you reach zero points, you won’t be able to go into another dungeon. You lose one point every time you move into a different room of a dungeon. The points won’t reset until 6 A.M. server time the next day. In the mean time, you can always do some player versus player in the arena.