Dungeon Explorer
 

"Somewhere within these dungeons is held captive the Goddess of Ambition.  Venture with up to 4 players into the dungeons in search of the Goddess."
 
Game Information
Developer Hudson Soft Co Ltd.
Publisher Hudson Soft Europe Ltd.
Distributor Virgin Interactive Entertainment
Copyright Date 1995
Players 1 - 4
Age Rating(s) ELSPA 3+
Save Type RAM
Cart Version No
 

 
 
Part Numbers
Game T-143025-50
Front Cover None specific
Back Cover None specific
Manual None specific
Spine Card ?
CD 1 None specific
Bar Code 0 39854 00049 2
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Gauntlet-style adventuring with a slight RPG twist.  Explore 7 dungeons as one of 6 character classes destroying hundreds of monsters and their spawn points whilst collecting potions and gold and keeping an eye on your food level that is solely in place to act as a timer.  The money obtained can be spent at a shop at the hub point to upgrade weapons and armour,  and you can save your progress whilst you're there, although monster generators will re-spawn if you leave an area and return.  A basic RPG stat system is in place and attributes such as attack, defence, speed etc. are increased as your warrior levels up by defeating a set number of enemies.  Due to the overwhelming odds against you solo players will have to turn this to their advantage by finding a bottleneck near the hub area (where your health and food are automatically restored), taping down the C button and reading a book until you have to restock, allowing you to enter the first dungeon with a level 10 character and some chance of surviving.  With 2 or more players this becomes less necessary as the sheer weight of enemies can be divided between you.  Graphically Dungeon Explorer is nothing special but what it does do is done well, and given the number of sprites being used on some occasions you can forgive some lack of detail that was probably necessary to keep everything moving at a decent pace.  The music is good but the spot effects are sometimes nondescript and the small amount of speech almost indecipherable.  Dungeon Explorer was one of the later releases and as such doesn't appear for sale very often, but because it's not well known the prices it fetches aren't too high.  For pure arcade action you can't go far wrong with this title, especially if you have a four player adapter.  Just don't make the mistake I made of assuming that the first dungeon is straight up from the hub area and then wondering why you got creamed in under 3 seconds - the easiest dungeon to find is the last one you should tackle - use the small map across pages 31 & 32 of the manual to attack them in the right order.