Square Enix's first Final Fantasy-themed Wii title isn't going to be for everybody. If you've played any of the Mysterious Dungeon games before, you know what to expect out of Chocobo's outing here: a dungeon hack in which you proceed deeper and deeper into a labyrinth, collecting new items, defeating stronger and stronger enemies, and bulking up your warrior.
Who in this case is an adorable yellow bird. That's what I think is the primary sticking point here -- it's a cute game on a mainstream system in a genre that's decidedly hardcore. Chocobo doesn't diverge much from other dungeon hacks I've tried -- you go into the maze floor by floor, fighting enemies on a grid-based, turn-based system.
Quick reflexes don't count for much. While you can sneak up on sleeping enemies or skillfully dodge them by running around corners, the speed at which you do so doesn't much matter. Mostly it's just about making sure you're powerful enough to trade blows until the enemy dies, and remember to open up your menu and use a healing spell once in a while.
If you're a white mage, that is. This game introduces the Job System from Final Fantasies past; in the demo, you could assign either the Knight or the White Mage class to your Chocobo. You can't do it whenever you want; there are crystals in the dungeons that serve as a swap point.
But if you're not the right class for the job, there are plenty of items lying around the place that you can use in place of innate skills. There were lots of Poison Books that let you cast a poisonous gas a few spaces in front of you if you pause the game and select the item from the menu. And of course there are plenty of Potions lying around for healing, as well as little green circles scattered around the dungeon that will automatically refill your HP once.
Mysterious Dungeon is so hardcore that it doesn't even use the Wiimote motion sensing. There will be some mini-games that use it, but the vast bulk of the main game is played holding the controller horizontally.
If anything, Mysterious Dungeon's well-timed appearance later this year in Japan might bring new gamers to the dungeon hack genre. But otherwise, anyone looking for a fuller RPG experience or a new kind of gameplay might need to look elsewhere -- this seems tuned for existing genre fans.
