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Based on John Lang’s D&D-themed audio comedy series, the Naheulbeuk universe which he created now comes in the form of video game called The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos Chicken Edition developed by Artefact Studios from French and published by Dear Villagers.
The Naheulbeuk universe starts as a satire of role-playing games and heroic fantasy cliches and funnily enough, now it is a game. Read on to find out more about The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk.
A Dull Story with Humorous Cast and Cartoonish Graphics
The game features seven characters that you control wandering into the titular dungeon, Dungeon of Naheulbeuk, searching for a renowned statuette. At least, that was what it was supposed to be until the cast got themselves cursed by the amulet of chaos and imprisoned in the dungeon. Now they have to not only find the statuette but to also break their curse all the while finding a way to escape the dungeon.
That pretty much sums up the plot that drives the game’s narration, up till the very end. No plot twist or anything of sorts. Break the curse, grab the statuette and get the heck out of the dungeon. Simple, yet dull.
What brings the story of the game alive, however, are the characters. These seven characters are basically a jab at the cliché tropes RPG games use for their teammates. We have the Thief who is basically a coward, a gluttonous Dwarf and Ogre, an Elf who is prone to being deceived, dumb Barbarian, an incompetent Wizardess and lastly, the Ranger whose lustful antics borderline dangerous.
These characters with their humorous banters are truly the highlight of the game. From criticizing the Barbarian being stupid to throwing insults at the enemies. Hats off to the voice actors as they totally nail the delivery of their lines and it being well written with its wittiness simply adds more to the charm.
While lacking the AAA high production quality graphics, The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk makes up for it with expressive and silly cartoonish graphics to give the game a humorous tone. It is not technically rendered in high quality but it is just enough to leave a positive impression.
Good ol’ Strategy RPG Gameplay
Dungeon of Naheulbeuk is an isometric dungeon with turn-based gameplay. SRPG players would get the hang of the game pretty quick but it might take some time for others.
To give a rundown of the gameplay, you start by placing characters in the starting area of the dungeon. Each character gets two action points per turn, one for fighting and another for movement. No, you cannot save and stack them for the following rounds. Either use it or don’t use it.
When it comes to moving around in the dungeon, You can use the action points to either reach the enemies or for taking cover which is very crucial, especially for both the Wizard and Ranger as they are frail and take heavy damage when attacked. The enemy AI is pretty clever so if you are not careful, you are in for a rude awakening.
Upon levelling up, you will get points and with it, you can modify your characters’ skills and stats with full freedom on your end to decide how you want their playstyle to be.
One downside from a gameplay perspective is that the game’s user interface is unintuitive and is pretty much all over the place and with no indicator to guide you to what does what.
The Chicken Edition
The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos Chicken Edition brings with you the base game along with the addition of a new story, The Ruin of Limis with the new story spanning for roughly 5 hours of playtime.
The new story will have the heroes pick between the Necromancers or the Vampires as the both sides clash in battle. New quests are also available like the “Frakentroll”, where the heroes have to seek various body parts from trolls to create one magnificent ogre. The Chicken Edition also comes with eleven new boss battles.
You can play the additional story independently with a premade team or you can choose to import your save file from the main game starting from chapter nine of the main game.
Closing Thoughts
The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos brings a lot of enjoyment with its mixture of parodical contents and SRPG genre. The cartoonish design of the game accompanied with banters of the characters with superb voice acting brings a whole lot of life into the game.
However, the game is not without its flaws. For an RPG game, its narrative is borderline dull which is kind of a letdown since the RPG genre’s entire shtick is its narrative driving the game. The messy UI of the game is also pretty annoying to navigate through and even more so at the start of the game with its lack of indicators.
All in all, The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk is a good game for RPG lovers that enjoy great characters despite its dull narrative . The good parts of the game outweighs its negative parts but for some, it could be the case of a rotten apple spoils the barrel.
