The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos

Review

Selecting a new game from the main menu screen will allow you to choose your game’s difficulty. There are four difficulties to choose from:  Gripping Tale, Tavern Song, Epic Quest and Gzor’s Nightmare.

 The Gripping Tale difficulty is for those wanting to experience the story; battles are more manageable to those who have little or no experience of tactical RPG’s.  The Tavern Song difficulty is the basic difficulty of the game, on which the other difficulties are built. Tavern Song is ideal for those who want to enjoy their first playthrough, or beginners looking for a tactical challenge.

Epic Quest is where danger abounds, and every step forward is a victory; this difficulty is for those who want a real challenge and for those who have completed the game already. The final difficulty is Gzor’s Nightmare, a nightmarish, legendary experience (just like me). This mode is only for those tactical RPG experts who know the game inside and out and want to achieve the unthinkable.

There are also Advanced Options for Tutorial; you can turn this On or Off but it’s recommended for those playing the game for the first time.  These advanced options are: Assign Attributes Automatically (with this turned on, your characters’ attribute points are automatically allocated in their most central attributes), Iron Man (in this mode you can only have one save and cannot change difficulty levels once a game has begun; if all your party dies, then it’s game over and your game save will be deleted. Iron Man is greyed out for now and will need to be unlocked), and finally, there’s Narrator Gender (there’s only two options here: Male and Female). After deciding on your game settings, you’ll be asked to start with these settings, then you can hit Play and the game will start.

You begin Chapter One, “A Feeling odd Déjà vu," after a short battle ending with a mysterious voice laughing as your characters lay defeated upon the cold stone floor. At this point, the narrator will start narrating about the group of adventurers who have just entered into the Dungeon of Naheulbeuk; there’s a steely-eyed Ranger, a brutal Barbarian, a ruthless Ogre, a Wizardess with fiery hair, an agile Elf, a wily Thief and just a Dwarf. This rag-tag bunch is your group of dungeoneers who you’ll guide through the dangers of the Dungeons of Naheulbeuk. You’ve entered the dungeons on a quest to recover the Twelfth Statuette of Gladeulfeurha. The statuette is guarded by a powerful warlock in a treasure room hidden somewhere within the dungeon.

 As you look for the Twelfth Statuette of Gladeulfeurha, you will come across other characters, some of whom will have a quest for you, while others will join your party on a quest. Some of the characters will want you gone; when this happens, you’ll enter Combat Mode. Each character will have Two Action Points to use every turn. These points can be used to perform an action, such as Move or Attack. The amount of movement is dependent on the character and is highlighted in Blue on the combat field. You are able to use both action points to move; this will increase the range and is known as Sprinting.

Once you have moved to where you want to be, you can set your character’s Orientation, which is important as it can help you from being backstabbed or flanked, depending on where you have positioned your character. Using boxes, tables and other items as cover will also help to protect your characters, reducing the damage dealt to them. However, beware of what you hide behind; some things explode and can leave you and the surrounding area on fire, or alternatively they may leave a slippery mess behind on which you might slide to your botty.

Moving to an adjacent section to an enemy on the battlefield will allow you to attack with Melee. You can attack from range if you have a ranged weapon; most characters can carry both types of weapons. This will give you some extra tactics when it comes to combat. You will also have other forms of attack and skills as you level up your characters and give them new abilities. Highlighting an enemy will give you some details about them, such as the Type of Enemy and Stats, and pushing the middle mouse button while highlighting an enemy will detail extra information, like Statuses and Afflictions. You can also set your character to Defense and Overwatch; Overwatch will allow you to cover an area and should any enemy cross that area under Overwatch, your character will attack.  

Having your characters beside each other could result in them gaining a Support Bonus, which usually gives you a 5% bonus to your Precision stat. You can stack multiple supports from multiple characters, although you will have to unlock these abilities in the Skill Tree. The Skill Tree consists of Active and Passive Skills, where you’ll also be able to increase your characters Stats, Agility, Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, Courage and Charisma. You gain Two Points for your Stats and One Point each for Active and Passive Skill each time you level up your character.

At the beginning of every combat phase your characters will start within a zone or zones on your side of the battlefield. You can place your characters anywhere within these zones to suit you; once you have done so, you can select “Fight” and combat will commence. At the end of battle, should you be successful in spanking some botty, you’ll be rewarded with Experience Points and some lovely Loot.

Some characters have extra abilities; for example, The Ogre is your walking inventory and will carry all your loot, potions and items. The Thief can help save you from traps by spotting them as you move forward through the dungeon. You will have to select the Thief as leader in order for him to spot any traps around. As the Thief, you will walk slower than normal as you search for traps; when you find some, you’ll be able to disarm them and maybe gain something in return.

There are multiple levels in the dungeon, and you’ll have to unlock them in order to progress towards your ultimate goal of finding the Statuette somewhere amongst the levels. You’ll start off in the basement and will work your way up through each level. On one of the levels is a Tavern where weary travelers can either get some rest, do a spot of trading, or find new companions to aid you. You can also find new quests for you and your party.

In the settings, you’ll find options for Game, Graphics, Keyboard and Mouse, Gamepad and Audio. There are a few too many settings in the options to list them all here, but there should be plenty for everyone to setup their perfect game.

I found The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos to be a very enjoyable game to play. The characters are quite amusing and play off each other's dialog, which is funny, but if you find “French” offensive then you may want to cover your ears. The graphics are great, and the music and sounds are good.

The only gripe I really have is the movement; you can use the mouse to point and click where you want to go, however, for moving I was using the Keyboard. Although most of the time it was fine, once I stopped moving it would be a pain trying to continue moving. Double tapping a key or using the mouse to click somewhere on the screen would get it going again. It wasn’t a big pain; I just found it annoying. I never tried using the Gamepad; I really should try as it may solve this problem. Other than that small annoyance, I’d certainly recommend the game to folks. Thumbs Up!!!

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!