Dungeon Arsenal Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 "Quick blasts of card-based, dungeon-exploring fun" ⚔️👹 @deadpixstudios #IndieGame #GameDev

Originally released on Steam in 2021 and now ported to Nintendo’s little system that could, Dungeon Arsenal is a fun little time-shifter that could have really benefited from a touch more optimisation to be the funky little dip-in-n-out game that it could have been.

Bereft of a narrative beyond ‘get through the floors of the dungeon’, Dungeon Arsenal allows you to choose from a small group of adventurers – each of which feature slightly different boons - and tasks you with making your way as far through the dastardly dungeon as possible.

A budget game of a few quid, the minimalist, mostly static presentation shows the unlockables that you have earned, the cards in hand, the undiscovered ones in play, and any bonuses that your character has. Much in the same vein as Cards of the Dead in the essential setup, the core gameplay revolves around luck in turning over the available cards. 

You’ll either find an enemy, weapons, items, or a staircase to the next level. It’s not all about advancing as quickly as possible, though – you’ll need weapons to fight, and each one shows the amount of uses before breakage as well as the damage it takes off – and so you do NOT want to arrive at the boss with nothing but a flimsy stick to bonk it on the head with.

It’s a simple gameplay loop, aided by the rogue-lite design – but it is hampered by an interface that hasn’t been optimised for handheld mode, which is where it shines. Whilst the game can be played with a cursor or in a fully touchscreen mode, the numbers and text aren’t sharp, and there was definitely some squinting required at certain moments.

SUMMARY

A budget title that works best in short bursts, a touch more optimisation would have really made this shine. As it stands, for those card-based roguelite lovers out there, this is a fun one to chip away at for a little while.