Official Site: http://nisamerica.com/games/cladun/ (Check it out, it's interactive!)
Source: Youtube Channel MachinimaTrailer
Japanese Name:
-クラシックダンジョン 〜扶翼の魔装陣〜 Kurasshiku Danjon ~Fuyoku no Masōjin~
-Classic Dungeon ~Assistance of the Devil Formation~
Developer: System Prisma
Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software America (NIS America)
Platforms: Playstation Portable (PSP)
Release Date: September 21, 2010.
Genre: Action RPG
At first glance, Cladun: This is an RPG! looks like a gimmicky retro wannabe presented in its pixel art form and optional 8-bit music. After a few hours into the game, I quickly learned that the game had a deep and intuitive system for powering up the characters to unleash all sorts of crazy builds. What I imagined to be 3-7 hours of killing enemies and moving on to new games because a 30+ hour quest in collecting various items, building a powerful grid to maximize my attack power, and having an obsession collecting all the gold that flies out of monsters upon killing them. Cladun takes the traditional Rogue-like dungeon crawling with modern action games and RPG elements to create an entertaining, portable game that is sure to last hours and hours of gameplay. With the ability to create your own characters, customize stats and abilities, and run through a randomly generated dungeon, there always seems to be something new to do each you pick it up.
Graphics
The graphics were rather unauthentic to the retro style pixel art when I first started the game, and it was mainly due to the fact that I started this game right after I beat Half-Minute Hero which was more closer to what pixel art looked like for character sprites. Well I quickly adjusted to the graphics as it turned out to be a comfortable style for the type of gameplay where everything is in a tile format. Also, having the graphics be pixelated made it much easier to customized, create, and fine-tune characters for those existing and original ones. The sprites for the enemies are distinctive and unique. Their elements were according to the color they embodied which made it easier for the player to counter them with the right weapon or spell. I do have a problem with monsters and environments such as bushes covering up traps since those are the main causes of the deaths of my characters rather than the monsters themselves. It could be part of the game design to remind the players to be more careful, but it is rather bothersome. Graphics: 8/10
Audio
I love 8-bit music and I've listened to them since the early Nintendo days, but the 8-bit versions of the music in Cladun is really annoying and monotonous. With that aside, the composition, recording, and performances of the real musical score is amazing. It's catchy, gets the player in the mood of the game, and it's memorable. For a PSP game, I'm surprised they went as far as having a live recording of all the instruments. The composition is a simple structure, but the performance is lively and simply addictive. I particularly love the ones with Violin leading the song.
Source: Youtube Channel asukacrystalrose
Source: Youtube Channel asukacrystalrose
I didn't like the music in the beginning (I didn't get to these two songs yet) but I grew a liking to them more and more as I played on and it really brought out the RPG out of this game for me (I like RPGs with good music). I didn't know actual musicians went to the studio to do the recordings for the game until I got to the end credits of the game. The sound effects are alright with a bit of cartoonish "whoosh" sound rather than realistic "blade through air" humming sound. Some of the most important sound effects that made the game satisfying is the sound of collecting gold and the tone you hear when a character levels up in the result screen. Audio: 9/10
Gameplay
This entire game was full of "meh" in the beginning (as in music, graphics, story, and gameplay) but kept getting better. In the beginning, it felt like any other dungeon crawler like Izuna: The Unemployed Ninja and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon except it was live time rather than turn-based. The fun started when I understood how to use the Devil Ring system and made my characters significantly stronger. I would spend a lot of time just experimenting and planning before I went on a few more dungeon runs. How the game works is that a linear story is told along the way. Set dungeons are given to the player to go through before moving onto the next which reveals the next part of the story. The story is basic and not necessarily important, but it moves the game along and I felt that it made me appreciate the characters more. Besides going through the main dungeons, there's the option of going through "Ran-geon" which is randomly generated dungeons that the player can go through to find items, gain experience points, and collect gold to get their characters stronger to face the main dungeons. The player can try to get to the 99th floor of "Ran-geon" as the main challenge, but I don't know what you would get since I never could get past floors 30-40. The main game is pretty basic. I didn't like getting slowed or losing all the items I found after dying, but I think it was the Devil Ring system, loot collecting, leveling, and rewards that made the game fun since there's so much to experiment with and to explore. I think frustration was part of what made succeeding so satisfying. Gameplay: 8/10
Replay Value
Part of the gameplay is the replay value, and I was writing all this under gameplay but had to separate it right here in order to have something for Replay Value. After beating the main part of the game, you can access "New-geon" which is similar to "Ran-geon" but with a lot of twists in it. The starting level of the enemies will be your character's Attack+Defense power / 4. Players can also jump floor levels depending on the gates they go through. So as you can tell, there's a lot to do in the game. Some floors can be unforgiving and have traps littered everywhere which can kill your sub-characters fairly quickly; however, times when you've defeated numerous high leveled enemies and escaping back to the main area "Arcanus Cella" and seeing your characters raise 5-10 levels in one run through is so satisfying that you'd go back in the dungeons once more. There are 5 classes to choose from (Warrior, Dragoon, Merchant, Guardian, Mage), but I found Dragoons (High HP) and Mages (High Mana) to be most useful ones and often ignored all the other ones. I didn't get to try out Multiplayer since I don't know anyone with this game (or a PSP for that matter), but allows competitive and cooperative play. The game can get frustrating with overwhelming monsters, excessive traps, and losing all the items you collected through the run because of a small mistake, but the rewards with taking chances make the experience well worth the risk and feels very satisfying. After beating the main part of the game, more content is unlocked for the player to play through. Cladun is one of those games that starts off simple and constantly gets better throughout the game. The game can feel a bit repetitive or somewhat of a grind when you can't get through certain areas in the main dungeons and it's also frustrating running into traps, getting slowed, or getting raided by 30 enemies in one map in "Ran-geon" and "New-geon". For the most part, the game has been a very entertaining game whenever I had some free time. The hardest part for me now is trying to quit the game and moving onto new ones, because I know I'll miss playing it. Replay Value: 9/10
Overall
Cladun: This is an RPG! was an unexpected gem for me and I didn't imagine that I'd like it that much. Looking back at my review for Half-Minute Hero, I probably should have given the audio a 9/10 instead of a 10/10 since I realized that there were only a few songs I really liked despite the sheer amount of tracks the game had. In some respects, I enjoyed Cladun a little more than Half-Minute Hero. Cladun is not for everyone as some gamers like strong storylines, epic adventures, and a feeling of a journey. Cladun is more like a ton mini-quests for the player to par-take. It focuses a lot on its gameplay and systems that allows for infinite replay value. Cladun is not as main stream and so many gamers may have missed it. If you can find it for less than $20 and want an entertaining Action RPG to play on the PSP, then I highly recommend picking it and giving it a go. Overall: 8.5/10
As a side note, Cladun 2 came out in Japan in March. If there's a chance that it comes out in English, I'll be sure to check it out.
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