GOTD 5/4/2016: Dungeon Magic (PS2)

[celerystalker]

Dungeon Magic is an arcade game from Taito that is also known as Lightbringer in some regions. It is an isometric beat 'em up that combines much of the looting and sub-weapons of Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons beat 'em ups with a pseudo-3D perspective and some sparse platforming to create a 4-player co-op, secret-laden adventure. You can choose from four different character classes with their own abilities and weapons to journey out in attempt to save princess Fontaine from the dark wizard, Venom.

Gameplay in Dungeon Magic varies a bit from your typical brawler not just in its perspective, but in the way you travel its world. It is most assuredly a pure beat 'em up, but each level has a large map of separate rooms to explore. Some have their doors wide open, whereas others require locating a switch or defeating monsters, and many are completely skippable or secret, often filled with treasure hordes and weapons. You must find your way to the boss room to clear each of the levels and conquer Venom, who wants to use Princess Fontaine to summon an old-ass demon, like he saw in that movie that one time. The stages are pretty big, but there are only three main ones and then a brief lead-in to the final battle, so it averages out to a solid length.

You have a nice little arsenal of attacks, ranging from basic weapon combos to throws, charge attacks, and one-off sub-weapons. You can also get semi-permanent weapon upgrades, usually with elemental or alignment affinities, which can be found in chests, often in hidden rooms or that require some platforming to reach. You also level up by scoring points, which means collecting jewels is often even more rewarding than fighting if you feel like playing the D&D rogue type. You also get three magic attacks to use with each life, which can be very devastating, but even if you whiff, you remain invincible for their duration.

Dungeon Magic uses big, great-looking sprites with large-scale backgrounds to add a sense of gravitas to the game. It's included on Taito Legends vol. 2 for PS2 in the US, as well as the first Taito Memories in Japan. Taito Legends 2 is also on Xbox in Europe, which has some english exclusives like arcade Cadash. These suffer from a bit more slowdown than the arcade board, but still offer full four player support in a game that looks great, sounds great, and plays excellently. Yeah, it's a bit of a quarter muncher, but its unique travel system and big looks give it a more grandiose feel.

Taito also published an NES game with the same title about four years earlier, but that one is a first-person RPG that as far as I can tell is unrelated. The arcade game, though, more than justifies owning Taito Legends 2, which is loaded with so many great games it'd make any arcade fan's day (Elevator Action Returns!!!). I've had a ton of fun playing through it with friends through the years, and would throw it in front of and Capcom D&D/Knights of the Round/King of Dragons fan.

Played this one? Any fun arcade memories?

[Steve W]

I was about to say, this looks incredibly familiar until I saw that it's also called Lightbringer. I've never seen the arcade game, but I played it in emulation. It was an odd choice to make an action RPG into an arcade game, but it worked fairly well in this case. I think it was the first arcade game I played all the way through to the end in emulation.

[Edmond Dantes]

Unless I'm remembering wrong, there is ONE connection between the NES Dungeon Magic and the arcade one--the villain being a wizard named Darces.

I think there's a sword called Lightbringer too. Unless I've been reading too much Moorcock... wait, that's Stormbringer, nevermind.