The Freemium Frontier # 2 – Dungeon Monsters RPG

My commute is often fucked.

The train lurches and jerks to a stop on the Yonge-University line in between Wilson and Downsview stations. Dread consumes me. A delay. Another delay. I will be late. I will be late and I sit captive in a metal tube of punishing inefficiency. What could possibly compliment my despair? Right. Mobile gaming. Of course.

…but I’m not gonna pay for it!

Dungeon Monsters RPG
I loved traditional RPG games as a youngster, and the promise of some adventure – right in the palm of my hand – seemed like a jolly good idea to me. I was informed right away that adventure in a dangerous world awaited. It awaited right in the palm of my hand!

I’m unsure if I would ever want to hear this from anyone in my real life. This is a loaded statement. This is a “Dad is going to make you do yard work all day” statement. I reluctantly tapped.

…solid writing. Deserves a tap.

…I’m Robert Pattinson. Great. Also, this floating redhead is dressed impractically for a dank dungeon, but presumably this game is targeted at folks who like to only use one hand to tap, if you follow my meaning.
…I mean they masturbate to pictures of cartoon women on their smartphones, so probably they love this game already. Anyway, let’s see what else this game has going on.

…visions of a nightmare future in which we’re all confined to robot bodies and use iPhones to walk. This is a scary game.

AUGH! MONSTERS IN THE DUNGEON THE GAME WAS NOT LYING!

Great Zelda reference, Arianna. I will use your team to fight the monsters. How do I do that? Oh, more tapping? I see.

Huzzzzzzzzahhhhhh! I tapped my way to defeating some monsters, I opened some chests and the game hasn’t once asked me for any money!

…oh.

So, after Arianna showed me how to spend money on her, I played a little bit more of Dungeon Monsters RPG. Each level consists of tapping and swiping your way through a little maze in a turn-based manner. You encounter monsters, who you defeat through tapping. The game gives you the impression that there may be some strategy involved in the battles, but I couldn’t discern what strategies those may have been. Tapping a bunch of times seemed to get the job done.

The game winds up being just a tap-fest with elements of Wizardry, Magic: The Gathering and – obviously – Pokemon. It also winds up being pretty shameless in its attempts to build a bunch of systems of compulsive levelling-up and upgrades. The pay system is standard and the average gamer isn’t likely to spend much – if any – money on this title.

Because let’s be real, the average gamer is just sitting around fondling themselves while making googley eyes at Arianna, am I right?

The art and sound design in the game are par for the course in world modern mobile games. I might begrudgingly call them “on the well-developed side”. Good attention to detail and the controls – while yawn-inducing – function well.

I suppose that I take issue with this title in that it calls itself an RPG and then presents some truly terrible writing and character work. What role am I meant to be playing? Tappy-John, the dungeon boy? Robert Tappinson? Those hoping for a story are going to be disappointed. This is really just another coin-collectin’, gem accumulatin’, power-up generatin’ time waster.

In the end, the role that we wind up playing is that of the suckers that waste 15 minutes playing these garbage heaps.
0/5