Customer Reviews

Dungeon Explorer (Sega CD)

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This is one of the games that made having a Sega CD worthwhile. Dungeon Explorer brings you the best aspects of the classic arcade game Gauntlet and more. It's great looking for its time (graphics are much better than the Turbo Graphx version), having the same top view of dungeons and the surrounding areas like Gauntlet. You also fight the same way by shooting/throwing your weapon at your enemy while trying to take out its spawning center as well as pick up treasures, food and keys. If that's all there was to it you could call this game a copycat, but there's more.

First off you start outside of one of seven dungeons you end up exploring so there is a bit of outdoor action. While outdoors you can go to the shop and upgrade weapons, armor, and other supplies. You can choose between a knight, ninja, barbarian beast, an elf, and a monk. Each character has their strengths such as the ninja moves the fastest while the barbarian is the strongest. Cool thing about the game is after you finish a dungeon you can so switch characters. Best of all you don't get that feeling of having to "plunk down credits" every couple minutes like you do with Gauntlet, which means you last longer in play.

Another thing that really makes this game stand out is the music. The soundtrack is really, really nice considering it's game music. It's all done via synths, but the orchestration gives it at lot of color. You get ranges of music from majestic anthems to aggressive action/game music to even some interesting electronica. Cool bonus is you can pop this game CD into your audio CD player and just enjoy the songs as if you had a soundtrack album to the game (a nifty side effect to just about all Sega CD games that use CD audio).

Unlike Gauntlet or even the Turbo Graphx-16 version this game has somewhat of a story involved. You aren't just going into dungeons for the heck of it. You are trying to free the Goddess of Ambition from her underground prison, and if you succeed you are granted your deepest (you guessed it) ambition. I won't spoil the ending for you, but suffice to say it is a twist of sorts.

They are planning to do a remake of this game on the Xbox 360. I have no idea if it's going to be as fun as the original. In the end I consider Dungeon Explorer one of my best Sega CD games. If you have a Sega CD system and like the mindless mayhem of Gauntlet without dying all the time (and with cool music to boot) get this game.