History VideoGame / DungeonEncounters

''Dungeon Encounters'' is a DungeonCrawling EasternRPG co-developed by Creator/SquareEnix and Cattle Call Inc. and released for the UsefulNotes/Playstation4, UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, and PC via Steam on October 14th, 2021. It is directed by acclaimed ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' director Hiroyuki Ito, credited with the invention of the franchise's signature [[CombatantCooldownSystem "Active Time Battle"]] system, with music supervised by Creator/NobuoUematsu.

* PublicDomainSountrack: The entire soundtrack is a remixes of classical music.

* BalefulPolymorph: Your characters can get "cavied", in which they transform into guinea pigs. A cavied character has a much higher chance of missing their attacks. The only way to cure Cavy is to teleport all the way down to Floor 97 and tiptoe around extremely high-level post-game enemies to activate the single Cavy Shrine in the game.

* LethalLavaLand: Floors 30 through 39 appear to take place near an active volcano. Unlike the previous three zones, the paths in this stratum are far more linear, much like a massive, winding hallway. Enemies will often be placed directly in your path, forcing you to either use navigation skills to avoid them or confront them.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: A small number of enemy attacks have the ability to deplete your HP directly without depleting your Defense first.

* BossInMookClothing: The Treasure Hunter fiend is a cross between this and a MetalSlime. They appear on hexadecimal value FC and are Lv. 1 enemies that drop 50,000 Gold on defeat and are only actually present on their tiles a portion of the time. If you ''do'' encounter one, you'll find that they have 10,000 PD/MD/HP, values that you most likely can't (and shouldn't) overcome for how early you can fight them. While they don't deal damage, they only ever steal your Gold in either 100, 10,000, or (if you're really unlucky) ''500,000'' Gold increments. For the record, it is possible to have ''negative money'', preventing you from buying anything until you earn all that lost cash back. You also can't defeat it in a war of attrition since it will run away after a while.

** Bahamut and Tiamat appear in the game as enemies, the latter taking on the appearance of a red three-headed dragon.

* ExcusePlot: A weird trope for a JRPG to have, but the plot of the game is virtually nonexistent. The only story the game has is the introduction that explains why adventurers are going into the dungeon [[spoiler:and the single text box that appears after rescuing Everethe]]. Characters have an "info" tab that gives a little FlavorText blurb explaining their backstory, but for all intents and purposes every character is interchangeable with one another.

* OneHitKill: In multiple flavors, including consumption, banishment, petrification, or the usual instant death. When used on you, they instantly incapacitate a party member in one of various ways: consumption removes the party member from the party and forces you to kill enemies to get them back, banishment removes the party member and forces them into Wandering status, petrification requires you to leave them behind and use a Gorgon Statue to cure them, and instant death is (ironically) the least punishing since you can just revive them. When ''you'' use them, however, all of them instantly kill, but every enemy is immune to specific types of death effects.

** The weapon and spell categories in the game are split into "fixed" and "random" damage categories, which serve as counterparts to each other. While Swords, Spears, Bows, and Malio spells are fixed damage attacks, Blunt weapons, Guns, and Maliflux spells sport randomized damage. There is no lower limit to their damage variance either; while Random weapons have a higher maximum damage output to compensate for their lack of consistency, they can roll ''any'' damage value between 1 and their given maximum value on any damage roll.