Quest of Dungeons (Switch) Review

Quest of Dungeons is a turn based, roguelike dungeon crawler. The game was first released on the PC/iOS but has been since re-released on Xbox One, Wii, 3DS, and PS4. An upgraded port just landed on the Nintendo Switch. The game has some brand new features such as a challenge list, a new map, and online leaderboards…where you can see my score at the top. Quest of Dungeons was developed by Upfall Studios, who for full disclosure provided a copy of the key for review purposes. Is it worth it to embark on the quest one more time? Let’s take a look!

Story:

Each map has a slightly different story, but because of the nature of the game the story kind of takes a back seat to gameplay. Essentially, the light is stolen and it’s up to one of the five heroes to venture through the dungeon to retrieve it. The introduction plays exactly the same no matter what character you play as. This also means they don’t have unique personalities. Despite this, I did enjoy the dialogue between the characters and the enemies, even if it was completely random. There is no voice acting, and the story is delivered completely through text. I felt like some of the jokes were a bit dated, such as the shopkeeper referencing Resident Evil 4 all the time. Essentially, there isn’t that much story. There’s a tiny bit, but because of the gameplay, there doesn’t need to be. Let’s look at the gameplay next.

Gameplay:

Quest of Dungeons is a turn based, dungeon crawler that’s a rogue like. This means, that every movement the player does counts as a turn. Usually, I’m not a fan of turn based games, but there isn’t too much strategy involved with Quest of Dungeons. Bosses and quests can randomly appear throughout the map, but basically the goal the game is to get to the bottom of the dungeon and retrieve the light. The game does have permadeath which means if you do make a mistake you will die and will need to start all over again. Quest of Dungeons only features three maps, with an additional custom map option. The maps can be unlocked by completing the previous map.

There are five characters, and they all play differently enough from each other to create some replayability. There is the Warrior, the Wizard, the Assassin, the Shaman and the Necrodancer which can be unlocked by completing the first map. Basically, the Warrior and Assassin are weapon based while the Wizard, the Shaman, and the Necrodancer are skill based. Each character has access to different skills, which definitely increases the replayability.

Personally, I found enabling auto pick from the ground, showing the adventure log and game / UI 2x to dramatically improve my enjoyability of the game. Without enabling the auto pick up, players will need to press Y to pick up an item every time. Considering how much loot players can find, it’ll get annoying really quickly.

While the dungeons are procedurally generated, there isn’t a whole lot of variety. This isn’t the Binding of Isaac. Enemies and bosses can randomly appear but since everything is turn based they tend to feel very similar to just the exterior feeling different.

Presentation:

Quest of Dungeons has all the options you’d expect. The buttons can be remapped, and the music and sounds can be adjusted. The UI has everything that’s essential. The game features retro graphics. I wish the game had a bit more animation, but it’s not that big of a deal. I didn’t hate the music, but it wasn’t memorable either. I don’t think I’d be able to recognize it outside of the game.

Verdict:

Quest of Dungeons is a fun game with enough packed into it to make it worth the 9 USD price tag. I’ve played it for about 5 hours so far, and I’m looking forward to investing more time into this title. The game is good to play for a bit and come back to it later, which makes it fit really well on the Switch.

Overall, I didn’t feel like Quest of Dungeons was originally a mobile game. It feels like a downloadable title that is very appropriately priced.