Video Game / Dungeon Magic

The Four Playable Heroes

Dungeon Magic (also known as Lightbringer) is a Beat 'em Up dungeon crawler by Taito, released for the Arcades in 1993, with a localization in 1994. Unlike other titles which worked as side-scrollers, Dungeon Magic worked on an isometric plane, and also added in various platforming sections.

Plot-wise, an evil magician known as Venom plots to revive the Demon Lord, and as such kidnaps the princess to use her as a sacrifice. It's up to 4 adventures to stop his plans—

Ash, the sword-wielding knight.

Cisty, the bow-wielding Elf.

Gren, the martial artist from the far East.

Vold, the elderly magician.

Aside from a four-hit combo, characters can also charge up attacks, perform a dash attack, and when things get troublesome, use a special skill that provides invincibility and a possible screen-clear, depending on the character.

This game is available on the Taito Arcade Legends 2 disc for Playstation 2.

Not to be confused with the RPG, Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements.

Tropes:

• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Vold, if selected, recognizes Venom, whom was once his apprentice. Due to this, in his ending he retires from tutoring anyone else, not wanting a repeat of Venom.
• Attract Mode: Shows off the various characters, their profiles, and some gameplay instructions.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: After spending the entire plot tricking the heroes into his plot to summon the Demon Lord, the latter unceremoniously torches Venom and becomes the True Final Boss.
• Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: Gren is the balanced fighter type, Ash is the slow but powerful knight, Cisty is fast and can snipe from afar, while Vold's magic has the best area-effect attacks.
• Black Knight: One serves to harass the players during the first and final stages. Ash, however, finds him familiar...
• BFS: The Dark Knight wields one, and it can fly back to him if he's disarmed.
• Big Bad: Venom.
• Charged Attack: Hold type. Characters glow white for a low charge, then yellow when full.
  • Ash performs a rising slash. Fire is added if at full.
  • Cisty fires her bow, gaining an elemental shot at full.
  • Gren slices with the sword on his back. At full, there is a wave of red energy along the ground.
  • Vold gets a different attack based on his current staff.
• Dem Bones: Like most fantasy-based action games, this one has skeletons as a recurring enemy type.
• Disappeared Dad: Ash has one, whom he is searching for. To nobody's surprise, he's the Black Knight mentioned above.
• Elemental Weapon: These can hit weaknesses on enemies, which makes some fights much shorter.
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: If Ash is present at the second Dark Knight battle, the latter reveals himself to be Ash's Disappeared Dad, and hands over the Lightbringer before passing on of his wounds. Lightbringer is Ash's best weapon, dealing Holy Damage, which the Final Boss is weak to.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Venom learns this the hard way, as the Demon Lord kills him in a single hit for disturbing his sleep.
• Experience Points: Represented by the character's score. Kill enemies and pick up treasure to increase their Character Level, and gain an increased health meter and a faster charge attack.
• Fan Remake: Two of them were made by the fan-game group Danksmith Games, using both the game engines of OpenBOR and RPG Maker 2003.
  • Lightbringer 2. The RPG sequel that takes place after the events of the arcade game. It about the tale of a half-human, half-monkey amazoness and a young boy named Ralph as they journey through the land of Hemethia, (the world setting of the arcade game.), after she saved him from her untrustworthy comrades when they set his village ablaze. This fan game heavily borrows sprites and sound effects from different beat em' up and fighting games such as Denjin Makai. The main characters from the arcade game returns to this sequel, but they end up taking a second seat while being recruitable members of Illatisha's party. A playable demo is that was released in 2016 is available here.
  • Dungeon Magic (Open BOR) is the side scroller retelling of the Taito beat em' up that introduces 8 additional playable characters and extra scenarios that tie in to the arcade story. Like the example above, this mod also includes many sprites and sound effects from the arcade games ripped from MAME. The mod is available to play and download here at ChronoCrash.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Ash is the main hero of the game, and the team's sword-wielder.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Each character has one ultimate holy weapon, all effective against most undead and demonic foes near the end of the game. These weapons can only be found by taking very specific routes during the 3rd chapter, while Ash can only obtain his holy sword after defeating his father, the Dark Knight. Taking the wrong route with the wrong character and you may miss the holy weapon entirely.
• Kick Chick: Cisty.
• Limit Break: Magic Stocks allow your characters to use a special attack, granting invincibility frames and damage.
  • Ash goes berserk, wildly swinging his blade.
  • Cisty summons two holy-aligned spirits to damage the enemy.
  • Gren causes a series of explosions around himself.
  • Vold summons several meteors to rain down from above.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Shields of various kinds can be found throughout the stages, and they work well in preventing damage, though they can only take so many hits before breaking. The Dark Knight has one in his rematch before the Final Boss, and his can fire a damaging beam at the player when it's not in the Knight's hands before flying back to him.
• Old Soldier: Vold is 88 years old, and a wizard to boot, but he can easily keep pace with the other characters.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: There are hidden rooms in the first and second chapters that are filled with tiny Blob Monster types worth 10 exp each. There are also red invincibles that are immune to normal weapons. However, they are one-hit killed by Magic Stocks, awarding a whopping 10,000 exp each and a chance to drop high-quality treasure worth 40-50,000 exp. This behooves the player to save those magic attacks and stay in the mentioned secret rooms for a while to earn several level-ups early on.
• Power Fist: Gren's weapon set.
• Man-Eating Plant: Fanged pitcher plants are a recurring enemy in the forest levels, using their heads to chomp on the heroes.
• Manipulative Bastard: Venom, in the third stage, tricks the heroes into reactivating the ruins, allowing him the power he needs with the Magical Stones. He thanks you by siccing a Lesser Demon on you.
• Metal Slime: The red "invincible" blobs, which can only be killed by magic stock attacks and worth a ton of experience.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Cisty's outfit is open in the middle, exposing her cleavage and midriff.
• Save the Princess: As is fairly standard for games such as this, doubly so since she is to be used as a medium to summon the Demon Lord. In Gren's ending, she apparently falls for him, but he wants to ensure he can run a kingdom before he would accept her proposal.
• Snakes Are Sinister: A giant snake serves as the mid-boss of the first stage. It will try to eat your characters whole, and can deal a nasty poison status to whomever it gets. The second chapter has a more stationary Viper King (that also breathes fire) guarding a cave with an ice-elemental weapon.
• Spider People: The second stage boss is a water spirit named Fontaine, whom gets cursed into this form by Venom. Cisty takes this personally, as Fontaine was a good friend of hers.
• Stalked by the Bell: The time limit for each room can only go up to 2 minutes, and time running out will cause the player's health to deplete.
• Swallowed Whole: If the giant snake in the first stage grabs your character, it will swallow them, and then a moment later spit out their skeleton.
• The Smurfette Principle: Cisty is the only female character on your team.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Gren's throws are usually backbreakers and suplexes. They hurt.