A look back at: Deep Dungeon

(Player attacks!)
(But the enemy dodged!)
(The enemy attacks!)
(But Player dodged!)
(Player attacks!)
(But the enemy dodged!)
(The enemy attacks!)
(But Player dodged!)

Just repeat that over and over and you have the gist of Deep Dungeon: Madō Senki. With Phantasy Star dungeon navigation and Dragon Quest gameplay AND plot, there's next to nothing here that is interesting. Well other than standing still and an enemy shows up, which is better than making paces all over the place. But then the combat is basically the sentences above and it is b-o-r-i-n-g. Throwing a few bones helps, enemies in trash, enemies that escape since you can be overleveled, traps on the grounds, the invulnerable fake princess, numerous empty rooms. Does it all save the game? Not really. Heck, the final boss does exactly what the Dragonlord from Dragon Quest does, offer the player a choice, except you'll just fight the guy because the bad ending isn't interesting at all.

The other shortcomings are the inventory spaces, especially when key items are concerned. Cool, lemme throw away a key item, it stays where I threw it away right? Well then I need to backtrack, ah crap, gotta find it again. It would also help to have more than 9 of Bread or Holy Water, but I'm guessing due to limitations it ain't feasible. Man, I can see loads of potential with this dungeon crawler, especially considering it's so similar to the PC Wizardry games and such, but the modern gamer sure as hell won't be pleased with this stuff at all. When your game requires more luck than ever just to hit something, there's a huge problem.