Labyrinth of Zangetsu - dungeon RPG set in the ink painted world

[LESS T_T]

https://www.acquire.co.jp/zangetsu/

Spoiler

Developed by Acquire, published in west by PQube. Japanese console release date is September 29.

Fight Japanese folklore inspired Yokai and navigate through winding labyrinths in an enthralling dungeon crawler!

Monotone illustrations combined with strikingly beautiful jet black Japanese ink painting create an entirely unique and striking art style. As you navigate each labyrinth, your environment illustrates in real time, revealing characters and secret paths... Explore a variety of underground and aboveground dungeons around the city to hunt for Ink Beasts and cleanse the area.

A World Blackened By The Ink Of Ruin​

In the fortress city of Ido, you are tasked with travelling the treacherous area, 'Chaingung', overrun by 'The Ink of Ruin'. As one of these selected 'Ink Destroyers', you must fight to conquer the hordes of terrifying Ink Beasts who plague the residents of Ido.

Born from the Ink of Ruin, the Ink Beasts take over the bodies of those they encounter to increase their numbers. Join the brand of chosen warriors as they venture out to defeat the Ink Beasts causing this destruction.

Select Your Team, Prepare Them For Battle...​

Tokinokuni, the city's leader, has commissioned a quest for carefully selected individuals from all over the world, known as ‘Ink Destroyers’, to cleanse the most dangerous areas. Build and customise a team of six warriors to plunge into the depths of Ido's deepest, darkest labyrinths. Customise each character individually, selecting their appearance, adjusting their stats and equipping them with the best weapons and armour you can scavenge.

Hunt Yokai While Navigating Winding Labyrinths​

Face a wide variety of terrifying Ink Beasts based on traditional Japanese folklore, including demons, yokai and ghosts. Encounter these monsters through enthralling turn-based battles, where your characters positioning is key. Strategically select and organise your team, your three front characters attack the demons while the three back characters defend and parry the enemies attacks.

 

[Puukko]

Mite b cool.

 

[manifest]

What's the other indie blobber with Japanese demons? Anyway this looks like that.

 

[Jermu]

Turn based battles
with various Ink Beasts in the most dangerous areas. 3 ‘front’ characters to engage and attack and 3 ‘back’ characters to defend and parry

That's weird unless its poorly translated

edit checked it is just badly translated

 

[Jermu]

delayed to April

 

[Jermu]

April 20th

 

[Jinn]

Please be challenging. Please be good!

 

[Jermu]

released

 

[Kruno]

A single run is 70 hours, and the game has no ability to save (bug) at the moment.
Normal mode: Party wipe = start from town
Hard: Party wipe = perma death

 

[Modron]

no ability to save

rusty_shackleford bait.

 

[Jermu]

no ability to save? so can you even close game or need to finish it single sitting

 

[Kruno]

no ability to save? so can you even close game or need to finish it single sitting

bug

 

[Jinn]

Sounds like it's a traditional dungeon crawler with style and challenge. Fuck yes! Damn near the responsibility of a dungeon crawling fan to support this. Thank God they went with a reasonable price too.

 

[Jermu]

just done prologue + little bit first dungeon, auto saving works for me no idea how often it saves but every time visiting town at least.

this might be the prettiest blobber I have ever played (not too important).
rolled pretty nice party (20 ability score on average), going to try hard mode.
1 of my beefy characters got easily one shotted from prologue boss crit so difficulty might be decent.
would like to see class skills before so I could plan reclassing but might not be needed.

 

[Jinn]

Apparently the first two sections are supposed to be decently challenging, then it's supposed to ramp up even more in difficulty in the third section.

 

[Acrux]

Is the interface keyboard friendly?

 

[Jermu]

I would guess so you can remap as you wish

 

[Jinn]

A single run is 70 hours,

According to the japanese wiki this isn't true at all. He says 15-20 hour runtime, sadly. Hope it's a little longer than that.

 

[Jermu]

third area's third level is indeed kinda bullshit 5h played so far. need to grind it seems like it.

random encounters can be very dangerous some ambush enemy comps can pretty much kill half of your party. kinda regret I went with hard mode now

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Huh. Where's Aweigh?

 

[Modron]

Huh. Where's Aweigh?

Ejected.

Edit for Baron Dupek: you can see for yourself he self-ejected sometime after sunday: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/let-me-tell-ya-about-the-sad-fact-of-life.146901/post-8443105

 

[d1r]

Huh. Where's Aweigh?

Ejected.

Turns out a forum isn't that much fun if you just stare at blank threads.

 

[Jermu]

Third area boss murdered me, seems like boss / minibosses can surprise you at random which is obviously a great idea for game that has semi "permadeath" mode. Same for "static enemies" can randomly surprise you and random encounters too.
Im going to be a filthy casual and start normal mode This game is even more brutal than Elminage Gothic main game.

 

[Arthandas]

A single run is 70 hours

Party wipe = perma death

 

[Contagium]

I've been playing this since release. The no save issue is related to regions or languages outside the US. For people in the US or people who change their regions, the bug doesn't exist and autosave works fine. There's no manual save whatsoever in this game.

It definitely gets more challenging by the third dungeon.

Not sure who thinks they can get 70 hours out of a normal playthrough. My characters are level 8 and I'm about 5 1/2 hours in. I think the 15-20 hour playtime estimate is more accurate.

The game is ok overall but not anything really special if you've played the Elminage games or any other Japanese Wizardry clone before.