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‘Mazes Of Karradash 2’ Review – Go Big Or Go Home

TouchArcade Rating:

I’m frequently impressed at how quickly some small developers can create a game. It hasn’t even been a year since the original Mazes Of Karradash ($0.99) released, and here I am looking at an impressively large-scale sequel. The fundamentals of the game haven’t changed much in Mazes Of Karradash 2 ($1.99), but everything is bigger, brighter, and more advanced. Whereas I tended to think of the first game as a lightweight RPG best fit for filling in short gaps of time, the sequel has become something you’ll want to settle into a comfy chair to play.

Once again, you play as a hero who is exploring the dungeons of Karradash. This time around, there are 20 floors to romp around in. That’s fewer than the first game’s 25, but don’t go thinking the game is shorter. Each of those floors is significantly larger than the ones in the first game. Even the first floor is impressive in its size. The designs are completely fixed this time around, so everyone will be playing the same layouts no matter which character they’re using. What that possibly costs the game in replay value, it more than makes up for by allowing the developer to design the details of each floor. There are more puzzles, more interesting nooks and crannies, and more tough boss-level monsters. You might even want to bust out your graph paper on this one.

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While the venues are bigger, the gameplay is quite familiar. You’ll roll your character, visit the town to pick up anything you might need, head into the maze, and try to find the exit on each floor. You’ll run into enemies both as invisible random encounters and as fixed battles marked by a floating skull, with yellow denoting a powerful elite monster and red, a boss encounter. The battle system is turn-based, pitting you against your foe until one of you runs out of life. Beating the enemy earns you some gold and experience points. You’ll also come across chests that contain gold, items, and relics. If you die, your character is finished for good, but any gold they accrued can be spent on improvements for the town before they’re retired to the cemetery. Furthermore, your gains aren’t for naught. You can start any new character on the farthest level of the dungeon you’ve reached, and any boss battles you won will stay won.

As in the first game, you’re initially limited to using a human fighter. You’ll have a very small selection of equipment open to you, and the local item shop will supply you with a few useful potions and scrolls. Upgrading the town opens up new races, classes, and temperaments. Those upgrades can also unlock mercenaries that can join your side in battles, improve the blacksmith so he can forge you stronger weapons, and permanently bump up the starting stats of all characters, among other useful features. So sink that gold from each run into your town, and you’ll be in a better situation for the next run. As for your starting gear, that can be improved through collecting relics and alchemy ingredients. Get the requisite number of relics or ingredients, and a new piece will be open to your next character.

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If you played the first game, this all probably sounds very familiar. Other than the massive increase in the size of the dungeon floors and the better map designs, most of the gameplay improvements in Mazes Of Karradash 2 are more subtle. They include things like a couple of new character building options, some new status ailments in battles, some new special skills, and the ability to tweak the difficulty level for those who like to risk more for better rewards. If you haven’t played the first game in a while, many of these additions might go unnoticed, but they add up to a more robust, satisfying RPG experience. It’s still a lighter dungeon crawler than many, but the added meat on the bones does this sequel a lot of good.

The most obvious improvements come in the presentation, however. The various floors of the dungeon show off a much greater variety of environments, and the previous game’s attempts to imitate a retro aesthetic have been given up in favor of higher-resolution graphics and much more modern audio. It still has an old-school feel, but it comes off more like a mid-budget PC dungeon crawler from the mid-90s. The loading times are still on the longer side, with anywhere from a few seconds to around 10 seconds, depending on the situation. I love that disk access sound it makes as it’s loading, though. It’s almost enough to make me forgive the game for having me twiddle my thumbs on start-up.

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Mazes Of Karradash 2 is a better game than the first, but it also requires more of a commitment thanks to its increased size, which is something you’ll want to keep in mind before buying it. The developer obviously paid attention to feedback on the first game, because nearly every point of complaint appears to have been addressed to some degree. This is exactly the kind of sequel I love to see, and the fact that it’s come so quickly after the first is remarkable. As with the first game, once you’ve spent your two bucks, you’ve got the whole game. There are no IAPs, no premium currencies, and no timers. Just you, a huge dungeon, and a whole lot of death. Grab your knife and fork and dig in.

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