History VideoGame / DungeonEncounters

** Since one of the requirements for you to add a character to your party is to be standing on the exact same tile as that character, the known exact addresses of every non-wandering character are always listed in the Composition menu. Discovering a Wanderer also adds that character's address to the menu in case you don't have room for them and need to drop a party member to pick them up.

* BreakableEquipment: Equipment itself is not breakable by normal means, but a few enemy skills have a chance to destroy your equipment, rendering a character far weaker and more susceptible to getting killed. You can get a skill that gives you immunity against this.

* ExcusePlot: A weird trope for a JRPG to have, but the plot of the game is virtually nonexistent. The only "plot" the game has is the introduction that explains why adventurers are going into the dungeon. 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.

* ExcusePlot: A weird trope for a JRPG to have, but the plot of the game is virtually nonexistent. The only things to go by are the introduction that explains why the villagers are going into the dungeon, and the FlavorText blurbs on every character, but there's not much else other than that.

* StylisticSuck: To emphasize the game's focus on gameplay, the game's graphical design takes on an extremely minimalist approach. The entire dungeon is represented as a 3D character model walking over a grid of squares with nothing to distinguish the environment besides the floor texture, lighting, and ambient sounds. Characters in battle are only represented as portraits and there is little to no animation for combat.

The plot of the game is as follows: one day, an utterly massive labyrinth from deep underground appears near a village and begins to spawn all sorts of fiends, causing havoc in the surrounding area. When the kingdom's attempts to enter the dungeon and stop the spread of the monsters fails, the local village, desperate to put an end to the terror, trains its townsfolk in the art of battle and sends its best and brightest to conquer the dungeon once and for all.

''Dungeon Encounters'' is a RolePlayingGame developed and published by Creator/SquareEnix 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 composed by Nobuo Uematsu.

* SaveScumming: Averted. Unlike most [=RPGs=], the game enforces an auto-save system and no form of manual saving. If bad luck befalls your party, there's no going back; you'll have to rescue them yourself.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: In the event that you Game Over, you have the option to simply retry your last exploration from the village. The game even bothers to HandWave this with a VoodooShark explanation.

* CombatantCooldownSystem: The ''Final Fantasy'' Active Time Battle system is used in this game.

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The playable cast has some weird faces in it. While the majority are humans, you also have an anthropomorphic jaguar-man, an ''isekai'' protagonist, a ''dog'', a flying robot-drone, a giant cat that looks like a cross between ''Film/MyNeighborTotoro'' and a Moogle, and a dragon.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: In the event that you Game Over, you have the option to simply retry your last exploration from the village. The game even bothers to HandWave this.

!This game contains examples of:

* SaveScumming: Averted. Unlike most [=RPGs=], the game enforces an auto-save system and no form of manual saving. If bad luck befalls your party, there's no going back; you'll have to rescue them yourself.
* SymbolEncounters: All battles are marked as black hexadecimal values located on the map. Each hexadecimal value corresponds to a specific enemy encounter spread, which can be checked in the Battle Log. Rule of thumb is that higher hexadecimal numbers correspond to tougher battles.

Directly contrasting the grand, sweeping adventures that eastern [=RPGs=] have been commonly known for, ''Dungeon Encounters'' aims to boil down the JRPG genre into its purest form: dungeon crawling, fighting, and prevailing against all odds. Players assemble a team of up to four characters and dive into a 100-floor dungeon represented as a grid of squares, filled with various kinds of enemies. As you chart your way through the dungeon, you will encounter events and foes, represented by hexadecimal values on the floor, each corresponding to specific battles and events. Battling foes allows the player to level up their characters, gaining HP and Proficiency Points that allows them to equip stronger gear. Charting enough of the dungeon allows the player to equip Skills that they find while exploring to make combat and exploration easier. A key element of the game is the enforcement of SurprisinglyRealisticGameplay; for example, Petrified characters must be left behind, and if the party wipes, they will be stuck and the player will have to deploy another party from the village to rescue them. If the player runs out of usable characters, it's GameOver!