Excave 3: Tower of Destiny finally saw its debut on the Nintendo 3DS and with it come some changes to the series, but will these make for a better experience?
The basic idea of Excave 3 is to have its female character, Scarlett, explore different levels from a top down perspective. Each level contains a different amount of floors to get through and obstacles that she must overcome.
In order to survive the many perils in her way, our brave heroine has a wide variety of items at her disposal. The somewhat awkward item system requires the use of the touch pad on the lower screen to manage items. To make use of most items, such as the weapons, it is necessary to drag them to the appropriate slot on the lower screen. Consumable items can be assigned to a button or used randomly one by one by pressing the same button. Whilst such a system wouldn’t normally cause much issue, it is unfortunate that it must be used in real time – given that there is no way to pause the game once inside a level. A rather odd choice given the complexity of the item management system.
This is only made worse by the fact that both weapons and magic/defense items will get worn out eventually. With this in mind, it creates situations where the player is faced with having to clumsily try to get new items equipped in the middle of combat. It doesn’t help that most floors consist of narrow corridors.
Excave 3 even feels vindictive at times. Given the mystery dungeon genre it’s only natural that the layout for each floor changes whenever a level is played. However, it’s borderline sadistic placing the character in a position where she is swarmed by enemies right after entering a new dungeon floor. In such a scenario, survival mostly comes down to pure luck and having the right magic item equipped, in order to quickly press the appropriate button to hopefully defeat all the enemies.
If the character is not killed by being swarmed by enemies then a status change such as being poisoned might do the trick. The only way to get items is to either defeat enemies or find treasure chests in a level. Be unlucky enough to not find the cure for a status ailment or a healing point that negates ailments and the character will surely die in a slow manner.
Dying means having to start a level from the very beginning and this makes it easy to quickly see how repetitive the game can be. There isn’t much in terms of change given its mystery dungeon theme. Even the maps start to look too similar no matter how randomised they are each time a level is played.
At least different objectives give some much needed purpose beyond getting a better score for each level. Having to kill every enemy on a floor, getting to the end before a door closes and so on. Makes for a less monotonous experience.
What it does have going for it is the wide variety of bizarre enemies to kill which can be amusing. Enemies range from giant eyeballs, rats and other animals. Each has a special attacks, but killing them pretty much comes down to bashing the magic and weapon item buttons.
It’s also enjoyable to make use of all the different weapons and magic powers. Even more since some weapons have special powers, such as the electric katana that briefly stuns enemies. It only makes it more tragic that the rest of the game isn’t treated with this same level of imagination.
There is a mode where players get to try and see who can get the best score in a Fantasy Tower dungeon. It’s quite cool to at least be able to use scores given at the end of level for something meaningful. It’s basically seeing how far each player can go by clearing many floors filled with enemies, traps and quite possibly misery.
The game also enjoys giving out money at the end of a level and the amount given is based on level performance and money given in exchange for leftover items. It seems like there is no apparent purpose to this mechanic though, given the lack of a shop to buy items from or any other typical purchases associated with this genre. It’s like a part of the game was lost during development never to be seen again.
It feels like Excave 3 is trying to be as punishing as Dark Souls, but doesn’t quite get that the whole point is to feel rewarded, if successfully getting through its various cruel game design tricks. Instead it offers a frustrating experience. Perhaps fans of the mystery dungeon genre will take some pleasure from this, given how rare it is for such a title to be released in the West, but there are better similar games out there.
