Despite its name, Dungeon Explorer is not merely a port of any of the TurboGrafx-16 games. Instead, it's a whole new game with a completely different take on the idea. It was developed by Westone, the same company behind Sega's Wonder Boy games, and, like Hudson's Sega CD release of Lords of Thunder, was only released in North America and Europe.

Dungeon Explorer

There are only six classes in this version: Knight, Ninja, Beast, Elf, Monk and Wizard. Multiplayer is also limited to four players. After choosing your character, you're sent to a small screen called Freedom Hill, which essentially acts for the hub for each of the six main dungeons. You can theoretically tackle them in an order, though it doesn't quite work that way in practice. Each dungeon has different themes, including Desert, Samurai, Ice, Medieval, Ocean and Mountain. (Make sure to take on the Sand dungeon in the lower left corner first, or you'll be completely destroyed.) You can also technically take on the final dungeon at any point in the game, but chances are you won't even be powerful enough to take on the guard before you travel through all of the other dungeons. Unlike the TG16 games, you get experience points through killing enemies, which in turn raises your maximum HP. The only way to improve your stats are either through finding accessories in the dungeons, which wear off as soon as you leave, or by purchasing more powerful equipment in town.

The graphics are completely different from the TG16 games, and feature larger characters and more detailed tiles, although they're limited by the color palette of the Genesis. The screen is laid out more similar to Gauntlet, with the status bar taking up the right-side portion of the screen. The music is also completely different, and while there are some decent tunes, they don't remotely stack up to Dungeon Explorer II. There are, however, some slightly amusing (and extremely muffled) voice samples whenever you die or obtain a power-up. One of them sounds like your guy is yelling "CHRIST!" whenever he perishes.

While the TurboGrafx Dungeon Explorer games borrowed bits and pieces from Gauntlet, the Sega CD version steals from it much more liberally. The dungeons look almost exactly identical, right down to the narrow corridors separated by thin walls. They're also fairly huge, with lots of exploration and backtracking required. The monster generators are much more productive, spewing out a new monster once per second, meaning you can easily be dealing with at least a dozen or more enemies at once, all scrambling straight towards your heroes. Although you have a separate "HP" meter like the TG16 games, there's also a Food indicator, which starts at 1000 and slowly counts down, similar to the life gauge from Gauntlet. Thankfully, you can find both healing potions and food potions throughout the dungeons, to help keep yourself alive. Some items can be stocked up, although others are used immediately. The dual magic spell potions from the TG16 games are gone, and now there's only a single power potion, which temporarily powers up your character's weapons.

The developers of the TG16 games realizes that the Gauntlet experience doesn't quite work outside of the arcades, since (A) the excessive amount of enemies means that they were meant to be quarter munchers, and (B) console games aren't always played in a social atmosphere. The Sega CD version doesn't quite understand this, and the game can be brutally unforgiving, especially if you're only playing with a single player. Dungeons can take awhile to complete, and since you only have a single life, it can be a pain to restart an entire dungeon just because you made a single dumb move. At least the passwords have been dumped in favor of a save system. Anyway, it's cool that the Sega CD version a different take on the mainline series, and while it's actually pretty great in multiplayer, it's too poorly balanced to enjoy in single player mode.

Perhaps to capitalize off the introduction of Dungeon Explorer on the Wii Virtual Console, in 2007, Hudson resurrected its series for portable gaming systems. In North America, both the DS and PSP versions are subtitled Warrior of the Ancient Arts, but they're actually completely different games. In Japan, the subtitles for each version are different - the DS version's is Jashin no Ryouiki, which means "Domain of the Wicked God".

In the DS version, there are three races - Oros, Taratta and Emporos - each with three classes: hunter, for ranged attacks; warrior, for close range attacks; and magician, for concentration in spells, making for a total of nine characters. Each has a different weapon - the Oros warrior wields a bow and arrow, while the Emporos warrior uses pistols and shotguns. However, most of the characters wield melee weapons, as opposed to the projectiles from the previous game. Visually, though, they almost all look identical, outside of their coloring. The terrain consists of smudgy 3D graphics - typical for the DS - with ugly looking sprites.

Outside of the name and the basic concept of dungeon crawling, very few elements of the original 16-bit games show up in either of the modern renditions. If you pick a ranged character, it does feel slightly like the older titles, but otherwise the only common element are the monster generators. After you create your character and wander around for a bit, you're taken to a world map menu, where you can select your next area. Some areas contain multiple dungeons that must be conquered. Here, everything works under the same dungeon hack mentality - crawl through, slay everything in sight, gain experience and gold, and use items when necessary. The action is quick and the controls are quite friendly, even offering an auto lock-on for attacking. The upper screen shows a map of the area, along with any immediately usable items and spells in your inventory.

In addition to your primary weapons, you can also teach your characters "Arts", two of which can be equipped at the same time. These special attacks are used automatically whenever your Arts meter reaches maximum. After firing, it slowly charges up again, but resets whenever you attack. The X and Y buttons are used for inventory items, which include a variety of healing potions, Genebombs (for quickly destroying generators) and items to escape dungeons. Monsters yield experience, and leveling up allows you to allocate experience in any of four areas. In addition to your Arts and standard magic spells, you can also bring an "Owon" with you, a kind of robot that acts as a pet and basically just follows you around, helping you attack. As you get more money, you can buy new equipment, and customize your Owon further.

Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts

The DS Dungeon Explorer isn't terribly long as far as RPGs go, but it's certainly longer than any of the 16-bit games, with over sixteen different dungeons to explore. The major issue is that multiplayer is severely lacking. You can team up with one other person to tackle the pyramid, a single, multi-floored dungeon in the center of town, but the main quest - a huge bulk of the game - is for one player only. The music is also pretty annoying too, a shame after the excellent tunes of Dungeon Explorer II. In spite of itself, it's still a reasonably fun game that controls well and remains compelling despite its simplicity, and the multiple character classes and arts lend well to replay. Even though it shares little with the original games, it still maintains much of its spirit, so it's still fairly enjoyable.

At first glance, the PSP Dungeon Explorer game - subtitled Meiyaku no Tobira or "Door of the Covenant" in Japan - seems a lot more in-depth than its DS brother. The graphics are fully 3D this time around, mostly sticking to an overhead viewpoint. There are six character classes at the beginning - Fighter, Hunter, Monk, Thief, Shaman, and Bishop, with six more, including Samurai, being unlocked later on. There are also three different races - Izark (humans), Ist (elves) and Olff (orcs), each of which have different HP and AP (for special moves) growths. There are also eight statistics instead of the four found in the DS game. Although you're set in your gender and race, you can change your class as your progress through the game. You can also choose their gender and customize their appearance. Many of the quests also supply you with an AI controlled partner or two, if you're playing in single player. The story is a bit more involved, with some cutscenes explaining the war between various kingdoms, but it's all horribly generic.

Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts

This all seems well and good on the surface, but it quickly changes once you get into the game. Even though the DS game had tenuous ties to the original TG-16 game, it still kept its fast-paced arcade style action. The PSP game is slower, and has much more in common with hack-and-slashers like Champions of Norrath. More annoyingly, your hits are heavily based on your agility statistic rather than your actions, meaning you can swing your weapon at an enemy, but there's a change that it'll "miss" even if it looks to connect. In addition to your standard weapon, you also have special "job" attacks, with separate experience levels. As you use these in combat, they'll level up your Job class, unlocking new abilities. You can execute melee attacks simply by hitting Square, while using ranged job skills is accomplished by holding down the R button and targeting an enemy.

In single player mode, you can't simply venture forth into the dungeons - instead, you need to take up quests at the adventurer's guild. Most of these quests revolve around replaying the same area several times under different conditions, killing and rekilling the same monsters over and over. It's a massively tedious experience, especially everything moves so slowly, and both enemies and generators tend to have tons of hit points, especially in the early stages of the game.

Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts

Unlike the DS game, which greatly limited the multiplayer function to two players a single dungeon, here you can join up to three people simultaneously via wireless ad hoc networking. The multiplayer quests are entirely different from the single player quests, and usually just involve straight dungeon crawling. Unfortunately, you still need to play the single player mode to unlock new stages. You won't gain experience in multiplayer mode either, but you can keep the weapons that you find.

Even compared to other similar types of games, the PSP Dungeon Explorer just doesn't have much going for it. The visuals are average, the music is mostly shared with the DS game and is just as awful, the action is far from exciting, and the quests are repetitive. If you want a portable multiplayer hack and slasher, you're much better off sticking to Capcom's Monster Hunter series. At least there are a few references to the older games - one of the NPCs is named Oddesia, the name of the kingdom from the original TG-16 game, and you'll find items called "Crystal Beans."