December 16, 2008 - Whether because of a general lack of interest in the PSP development community or the fact that developer Global A Entertainment just managed to corner the market on the whole create-a-dungeon crawler, there really hasn't been a counter to its original Dungeon Maker series. It's a shame, really, because a developer with just a little more creativity in the way of monsters and world design could give the genre on the PSP a lot more life. As it stands, Dungeon Maker II is most certainly a step up from the first game, and Global A Entertainment nailed the core gameplay to the point where it's quite easy to overlook some of the little polish or atmosphere omissions, but there's nothing wrong with knowing more could have been done to make it all a little more interesting.

Most of this comes from the fact that Dungeon Maker II is not the typical pick-up-and-play experience we've been led to assume is the goal of most PSP developers. Instead, just about everything in the game is a slow burn, meant to incorporate more and more rules and bits of advice as you slowly start piecing together your labyrinthine hallways in an effort to create a nice, warm, loving home for all manner of monster... and then hack away at them and keep the odd fang or fur for yourself. Cruel, yes, but necessary when monsters are roaming the land.

They're doing this, the introductory storyline roll explains, because 70,000 years ago, a truce between the gods and the demons was formed after the gods basically dropped a couple mountains on top of the demons to stop them from tunneling down from the mortal plane to their native homeworld. Not only did it hammer home the fact that the gods were pretty friggin' powerful, it necessitated peace talks between the two to avoid monsters and those little pesky human guys scurrying around from being completely wiped out. Flash forward about 700 centuries and a demon, appropriately dubbed "Revenger" is looking to spark another celestial battle royale. That'd be bad.

And so, a bespectacled dungeon maker (that's you) arrives in a quaint little town at the epicenter of the old conflict, arriving just in time to save everyone by tunneling into the earth to create an inviting series of twisty little corridors to trap monsters inside. The actual story itself is largely inconsequential; your named character wants to take down the Revenger, and the townspeople are mostly there to help you reach that end, though they'll often ask you to hunt down some hunks of meat or bits of smithing to build new weapons and armor.

These random little quests are a perfect example of why the first Dungeon Maker game worked -- there's almost no shortage of stuff to do with every daily trip down into your monster-friendly abode. Though it certainly will take some time -- upwards of an hour, it seemed at first -- to get the ball rolling, by the time you've delved deep enough into your dungeon you'll have multiple floors, quest items and improvements to make with each trip. Sure, you can only head down once per day, but there's more than enough stuff made available a few hours into the game to make sure each trip is at least productive.

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Genju are creatures that ordinarily run from humans, but your main guy is sooooo cool that apparently even skittish little critters want to befriend him. It's a good thing, too, as a genju can actually transform into monsters based on the amount of exposure (read: hacking and slashing) they have with you. They can also enter Genju Dungeons, exclusive areas that can't be edited, but filled with unique monsters and items that can only be braved by the genju alone. It's a great risk/reward setup because the spoils can be fantastic, and since the genju can't actually die (they just revert to cute cuddly forms when their hit points drop to 1), there's plenty of incentive to check things out.

The improvements made to the first game are numerous, but mostly subtle tweaks. The actual process of summoning new bits of a dungeon is far faster, whether because of the cache in newer PSPs, optimization of where the data is stored on the UMD or, more likely, some combination of both. This means moving things around is far less clunky, even if the combat itself is still a little rigid. The range of special rooms, a key component to fighting whatever boss monster is asked for on that floor, is greater now, as are the basic rules in place for summoning elemental creatures or even shifting the balance of the whole floor toward an element.