Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground

It is extremely safe to assume that we've all at one point in our lives, played RPG-based video games at least once, nay, at least a dozen times, easily. Traversing through dungeons and batling monsters we encounter along the way is something we are all accustomed to. But what if, with all our gaming experience, we were able to design and make our own dungeons? What if we were then able to interact with our own creation? The possibilities would be endless and gameplay potentially infinite. "Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground" for the PSP seeks to do exactly just that.

You arrive at a new town after having just bought the rubble of rocks right outside the town's entrance. Your mission is to turn this rubble into a complex and elaborate dungeon enough to attract monsters and the like to rid the town of these pests. Day by day, you continue to add on, attract, and kill monsters, in the hopes of finally attracting the monster of all monsters and to ultimately destroy it. The townsfolk provide some materials and hints to help you along your way.

"Dungeon Maker" makes a rather bold attempt to create an innovative action RPG, but falls horribly short in all aspects, making it a barely passable game. Instead of being a game that has it all, important elements are sacrificed in order to achieve dungeon making. The music score is mediocre and noticeably repetitive, and the quality of the graphics isn't all that great. The town is which we commute to everyday has no interoperability or interactivity, to the point where gamers are just left with stills and voice-overs. The only movement your character does is in the dungeon. Since the main element of the game is in the dungeon, I turned my focus that way. The dungeon maker at best represents the raw ability of the most basic "Sims" game.

Great concept and idea...horrendous execution.