Experience Inc. is a busy company, cranking out dungeon crawler after dungeon crawler for years now. Most of those titles are quirky and weird, and at this point, almost all of them have finally been localized in the West. One of the last on that list is the recently released Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi from Experience Inc. and publisher Aksys Games, purveyors of obscure Japanese awesomeness.
Undernauts follows the Experience RPG formula pretty well. It’s the 1970s and a bizarre dungeon called Yomi has abruptly appeared in Tokyo. Those who brave the dungeon for its wealth of argen (energy-generating crystals of some sort) are called Undernauts. As a member of Cassandra Corporation, it’s your job to plumb the depths of the Yomi and bring back enough argen to make everyone rich. Only problem is…you’re stuck. Things get pretty strange from there on, but Undernauts isn’t all that plot heavy, so don’t worry.
In the game, you’ll find yourself creating a team of Undernauts and diving into the first-person dungeon that makes up the labyrinth of Yomi. You can choose from a variety of interesting character types and you’re basically free to make any type of group you want, much like the very first Final Fantasy game way back on the NES. There aren’t any tips to really help you either, so make the wrong choices and chances are you won’t survive long! You might not survive long at first anyway because building up your character in Undernauts is a bit of a grind.
Yomi consists of a gigantic maze of interconnected dungeons. As you explore, you’ll slowly map out the system and find shortcuts that allow you to proceed more quickly to new areas. You use argen to create flowers that allow you to make doors, ladders, and even bridges to help you on your way. Yeah, door flowers. Told you it was a bit odd. Turns out you’re trapped in the 99th level of Yomi and your only means of escape is destroying powerful demons, taking the totemic remains of their ruined corpses, and burning them in a fusion reactor to power the portal out. Again, rather unique. As you slowly explore the labyrinth, you’ll gear up bit by bit and fuse more powerful equipment from the stuff you find lying around. It’s a neat system but one that can also be a bit frustrating.
Undernauts is all about balancing out your gameplay style. Upgrade the right stuff at the right time and you’ll breeze through. Forget to upgrade your equipment? Didn’t pay attention to where the door flowers could be used? You’re in trouble and it’s going to cost you hours of gameplay to find where you missed something! The first few hours of the game are a constant grind, venturing out further and further bit by slow bit until you manage to eke out enough argen and equipment to really push back against the enemy. This is very different from other games from Experience such as Saviors of Sapphire Wings (which we reviewed here). In Saviors, the plot and characters were key elements of gameplay and the narrative was a high point. In Undernauts, it’s the strange and creepy dungeon of Yomi that takes the forefront. Character development is virtually non-existent and the impetus for driving deeper and deeper into the dungeon is the sheer fun of exploration.
Combat in Undernauts is traditional turn-based JRPG fare with a few unique flairs. There’s a boost system that lets you shift the team’s stats and outcomes a bit, overpowering with one boost and boosting treasure gains with another. After using all three boosts, you’ll have to recharge as well. In addition to boosts, there are various spells, close-combat and ranged attacks, and a plethora of weird and wacky items and weapons.
With all that, you’d think that would be enough, but Experience always manages to toss a bit more into their JRPGs. Every character has two potential promotions, one to a specialized character type and one to a more powerful generalized character. There is only a handful of promotion argen in the game, so use it wisely. The right promotion at the right time can be a real boost, but there’s no going back! You can also run a variety of side missions for various characters in the game, doing them little favors like collecting noodles from the dungeon. These up your Undernaut status and get you some bonus items and money, so don’t skimp out on too many!
Undernauts also manages to include some significant quality-of-life improvements upon the standard first person dungeon formula including an extremely effective fast-navigation system that is easily used from the map and a high-speed combat option letting you blaze through tedious menus in random encounters. Fortunately, random encounters are fairly uncommon in the game though, streamlining the exploration experience somewhat. You can actually see set enemies on the screen and their colors indicate what type of enemy they are, allowing you to choose most of your combat, aside from the occasional random attack.
The only real downside of the combat system is that when fast battle options are selected, you can either set the options to menu remember (where your attack selections stay the same each turn) or turn remember off and have to manually select each action for every character each time. It’s a bit of a hassle to use the fast attack and grind through magic points as you consistently forget to change your selections or get slaughtered because you forgot your fighters were set to status selections instead of attack over and over.
That being said, Undernauts is a delightfully entertaining game and even when it feels a bit grindy, you always feel like you’re accomplishing something. The monsters are weird and wonderful, as long as your tastes trend towards the darker side, though a few of the creepy nude female demons are a bit questionable. Some of the interactions with the monsters are fantastic too, as you’ll be randomly asked to do things for creatures you thought were mindless automatons, including sourcing some brains for a light snack and other bizarre issues. The weird synthesis of science fiction and fantasy that spreads throughout Undernauts is an absolutely captivating aesthetic and the game is simply cool as all hell.
While the visuals are awesome, the accompanying soundtrack is a bit weaker than it could be. The sound effects are excellent, with lots of squishy bits and weird noises but the soundtrack itself kind of fades into the background or shifts abruptly from area to area. This isn’t the sort of soundtrack you’re going to rush out and buy, even if it is perfectly serviceable and well-composed. If you are expecting a memorable soundtrack, lower your expectations a tad.
The simple fact is that Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi is an interesting and unique game that’s fun to play, even if it’s a bit lighter on the overall plot than it could be. You’re still getting a 35-40 hour dungeon crawling experience that is among the best on the market, and while challenging, the game is fair. Put in your time and you’ll get there (assuming you don’t waste all your argen). There’s plenty more if you’re a completionist too, but that’s a special breed of gamer. Regardless, this dark and brooding 1st person dungeon game is another exciting release from Experience that manages to suck in hapless gamers and grind away their free time. At a AAA $60 price tag, you’d better be sure you like this style of game before you pull the trigger, but you’ll definitely get your money’s worth out of Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi! It’s definitely all that and a cup of Yomi noodles too!
This review was based on a digital copy of Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well in both! Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi is also available for Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and PC on Steam. All screenshots are of actual gameplay.