Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society, in addition to representing an excellent way to fill a gaming niche with lights and spotlights, is the ideal exponent of the recent Nippon Ichi. Full-bodied, balanced, nothing trivial, full of playability, the Japanese creature is not as fresh as it might seem: the title was launched in 2020 in Japan, but here in Europe we have experienced it first-hand for a few years. weeks. It's clear that the developer and publisher are finally getting their act together: after shaking off some shyness, the Japanese team wants to take on the market head-on, continually releasing quality products and showing the world that gameplay comes first. . .
Galleria Maze: The Moon Society collects and polishes ancient mechanics again, those playful flows that mix role-playing games with dungeon crawlers, grafted on a path that continually grows, burns hours like matches, tickles strategy and imagination, competently breaks into the perimeter of the more unknown and at the same time interesting products like glitter.
In the Galleria Labyrinth review We'll tell you why we liked it so much.
Puppeteer
La narrative framework, as expected, is marked enough to arouse the curiosity of most: Eureka, the chibi protagonist and ideal model of NIS's character design, is a spontaneous and naive girl who, to respond to a job advertisement, finds She catapulted herself on a journey through dungeons of all kinds in search of precious artistic artifacts. An incipit that is a registered trademark of Nippon Ichi, perennially oriented to create a narrative fabric that is very easy to digest, without exaggeration, flooding all of her works with apparent simplicity and immediacy. The seemingly superficial technique of the Japanese is actually an extraordinary weapon to focus on the heart of each of their products, including Labyrinth of Galleria, that is, the gameplay.
If there is a company, besides Atlus, that is an expert in dungeon crawlers, it is NIS: the team's experience has perfectly combined a concentration of numbers, statistics, design and playful immediacy, combining a self-explanatory narrative framework with a complex plot and journey. satisfying through corners, doors, underground rivers, enemies and demons, characters and statistics, combat and exploration. Lots and lots of exploration: as a wandering spirit, we will accompany little Eureka on a walk through the dungeons, creating warrior puppet armies customizable in almost every aspect and, in fact, exponentially amplifies the involvement of this particular mechanism. Simple but captivating, the idea behind the product works: a dry and fun fulcrum acts as a backdrop on which to build and let our creative component deliver.
exploration and combat
Sequel to Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk, Labyrinth of Galleria is not an enormously complex title: the the difficulty is balanced and a player with a medium knowledge of JRPG formulas will have no problem dedicating the dozens of hours necessary to complete the adventure. The playful stimulus of the product does not put too much emphasis on the complexity of the battles, but on the peculiar and entertaining mix of exploration, gameplay, simple narrative between secondary characters and the pleasantness of the artistic sector.
La dungeon navigation It is proposed intelligently, not extremely labyrinthine, identifiable at the right moments, interspersed with a correct entry of the enemies on the scene. Obviously, you must like dungeon crawlers: Labyrinth of Galleria will offer you a large number of dungeons, treasures, secret doors, jumps to make and enemies to defeat. To achieve all this, the title provides a kind of puppet forge, real characters that are created from scratch from our imagination (following a kind of editor, obviously) and that evolve and level up.
Il combat system, it must be said, cannot be interpreted as the fulcrum of the experience since it is a little drier than others in terms of mechanics and depth, as well as horizontality: we will decide whether to send all the available puppets of each pact or formation for the battle or whether to use only part. As mentioned, it's also clear from this element that combat sometimes feels more like a way to add color to the experience than an essential element, but that's okay - the exploration is the most fun part and completing each map, finding each treasure and find each secret door. does justice to the genre to which Labyrinth of Galleria belongs.
underground fantasy
The middle stylistic code of NIS is today a heritage of common knowledge: the titles of the prolific Japanese publisher never lose sight of their refined and detailed soul, well presented in both the characters and the environments. Labyrinth of Galleria continues the tradition with an absolutely above-average NIS set of protagonists, enemies and supporting actors, a good concentration of style, art, passion and creativity: the general maturity achieved by the team and the specific ability of design in Harada They may not excite some palates less averse to Japanese tastes, but there is an undeniable amount of talent. In addition to the two-dimensional drawings, don't expect much more: the dungeon models, the few effects, the combat animations are elements that ooze all the modest aura of production, daughter of a design concept from another era, that PlayStation 2 feeling that still keeps NIS anchored to the ground and never makes you take false steps, nor take steps longer than you can chew.
Conclusions
digital delivery Steam, playstation store, Nintendo eShop Price 49,90 € Holygamerz.com 8.5 Readers (4) 9.8 your voteGood pacing, fun exploration, a style now packaged to perfection: these are the elements that make Labyrinth of Galleria stand out in the increasingly crowded world of Japanese dungeon crawling RPGs. Nippon Ichi has identified its audience well and we applaud its desire to stop, take a breath and in the meantime serve fans of products that perfectly meet the expectations of a fortunate community. The Japanese publisher pays tribute to its fans with a dense title, capable of engaging and extroverting in its basic mechanics, that of creating the different warrior formations: the less delicate side of the coin is the one composed of the usual mass of information, numbers and technicalities to master, but we would like to say that the operation can also be handled by those who are less accustomed to the genre.
PRO
- Always interesting history and design.
- Almost basic but attractive gameplay.
- The puppet trick knows how to make itself loved
AGAINST
- 3 months since the Japanese release is a long time.
- The production conveys several aesthetic limitations.
