For those of you who are fans of Dungeons and Dragons and have been desirous of a portable version of the game to carry around with you, look no further! The Dark Spire is Atlus' answer to Dungeons and Dragons, made specifically for everyone's favorite portable, the DS, albeit a Dungeons and Dragons with a bit less content than D&D itself.
Controlling The Dark Spire is done entirely with the buttons -- there is no special touch-screen functionality in this game, and it really gives the game more of an old-school feel as you play. Moving your character and navigating menus is done with the D-pad. The standard controls of A for select and B to cancel are there, and while in the Tower (or dungeon) players can press Y to bring up the map and X to investigate; believe me, get used to constantly pressing the X button, because you are going to want to search every wall, room and door for secret passageways and hidden items.
Gameplay consists firstly of creating a party. Although the game comes with some pre-made characters that you can rename and use if you so choose, you can also create new characters yourself. In general Dungeons and Dragons style, you must roll for your stats, like intelligence, dexterity, etc. Your stats in each category determine what beginner classes you can select for that character. Players can choose from four different races: Dwarf, Human, Elf and Halfling; each character must also choose an alignment. For those that do not know what that is, it is whether your character is good, chaotic or neutral. There are restrictions, however; Dwarves can only be good and Elves neutral. Either way, there is quite a lot of character customization available. Once you choose your class and level up your character, the option to choose better classes can also become available. For example, a Warrior/Priest character will eventually be able to become a Paladin, and so on. Players can create up to 20 different characters, though only four can be brought with you in your party as you explore the dungeon; good and chaotic people can not be seen together in the same party, so this encourages players to create different combinations of characters for their parties.
The game itself is designed like those old PC dungeon crawlers and relies on text to do much of the explaining as far as the look and feel of locations, people and enemies. While in the dungeon, the game is seen from a first person perspective as the halls slide past you. In battle, a stationary picture of the current enemy (which usually consists of a large group of that enemy) is displayed while the battle itself is played out via text as you select your attacks. Players can choose to stick with the default modern visuals where the player can walk past actual coloured walls and doors, or, if they want to go for a really nostalgic feel, players can switch the game design to classic mode where they will navigate through coloured lines intended to represent those walls and doors. Classic mode also changes the look of characters and enemies in that nicely hand-drawn pictures of people and baddies become very SNES-looking sprites from modern to classic.
Musically, The Dark Spire does not carry a very impressive score, but the music does not get tedious or annoying, and it adds to the atmosphere of the game without becoming too repetitive.
Story within The Dark Spire consists of your typical evil and power hungry villain killing the rightful king and taking over the tower. Many men have been sent to try and stop his tyrannic rule, but none have succeeded, or even returned. Could your band of rogues be the heroes everyone has been waiting for? The answer is... maybe, if you have the patience and skills. This game is NOT a cakewalk by any means. In fact, it is rather hard. The term "one-man-army" does not exist in this game, and strategy is absolutely essential for survival. All in all, be prepared to die many times; or at the very least hovering around the dungeon exit trying to fight baddies for experience then leaving and healing, rinse and repeat, until your characters are strong enough to delve deeper. That being said, the learning curve can be quite steep, but knowledge of the Dungeons and Dragons-type gameplay engine is not necessary in order to play and enjoy The Dark Spire. Intuition and strategy will be every player's greatest asset in this game. Knowing your characters and your enemies, what they are capable of, etc. will make or break your enjoyment of this game.
All in all, I found The Dark Spire to be very engrossing and enjoyable. Having no real prior experience with Dungeons and Dragons myself I found the game difficult, but not annoying. While it can be frustrating sometimes when you run out of magic and potions in the middle of a big labyrinth, running away from enemies is not too hard as you make a mad dash for the inn beyond the dungeon exit. I found the character and party customization really awesome; it made me more attached to these characters I created myself (rather than just leading some angsty teenage RPG stereotypes through their various adventures). This game does demand a certain level of grinding though; that is, if you want your characters to be able to do enough damage to kill things, or have enough spell points to keep your party healthy as you traverse the many dungeon floors. I also must give kudos for the artwork, as it carries a very western, old-school comic-book feel that is quite a change from the very anime-oriented artwork of today's modern RPG's.
