Hinterberg Dungeon begins in a terribly familiar place: Burn out. Luisa, the heroine of this adventure, is actually anything but that. She is a hard-working junior clerk in a law firm who sits in school all day and lazes around all weekend. When she heads off to the Austrian Alps for a vacation, Luisa is feeling pretty empty inside and hopes that a quick trip to the mountains will rekindle the magic in her life, and she means that quite literally.
You see, in Hinterberg DungeonMagic has literally taken over the Alps. Humanity has managed to contain (and even commercialize) said magic, but it’s still there, and it’s quite wondrous. Luisa didn’t book a stay there to simply sit among the trees; instead, she went there to become a part-time hunter. In Hinterberg, pharmacies sell healing potions and people from all over the world become boisterous adventurers with a zest for life that they might not otherwise be able to cultivate in their everyday lives. In Hinterberg, slime-like monsters take the form of creatures from local folklore and battle hunters on vacation who buy equipment with a made-up currency used expressly for magical items. 25 magical dungeons have appeared in Hinterberg, and Luisa believes that tackling them will cure her ailments. And this is where our journey begins.
Recently, developer Microbird released a preview of the game, which covers the first two days and dungeons of the game. Although I expected to like it, as I have enjoyed watching the game for years, I was surprised by what an enjoyable adventure experience it is Hinterberg Dungeon provided.
Everything about Hinterberg Dungeon is reassuring. It is the latest in a series of games whose graphics are reminiscent of the work of artist and cartoonist Moebius, as sable or Bomb Rush Cyberfunkand similar to the first, Hinterberg Dungeon feels floating. Luisa runs, but her movement feels more like a seamless glide. In combat, her dodge rolls and swipes feel more elegant and less laborious than something like Dark Souls. As she runs toward a precipice, Luisa leaps of her own accord and clings satisfyingly to tangible surfaces. The music is as serene as the lush, pop-filtered imagery of the Alpine landscape, and the people you meet are all charming characters who feel like they were freshly ripped from the pages of a children’s book. At almost every point in my demo, it felt like the NPCs I interacted with were bonding with me when I got an ouch, or entertaining me with the simplistic morals of the fables I heard in elementary school. And while I’ve never been a fan of games that tend to coddle me, I couldn’t help but want be wrapped from Dungeon of Hinterberg.
At the same time, the eponymous dungeons offer casual environmental puzzles and encounters that need to be overcome. Hinterberg Dungeon rarely felt challenging in those first two hours, though glimpses of future dungeons make me think things will definitely escalate. For now, I actually enjoyed seeing a puzzle, like a mine cart and a set of interchangeable tracks in the second dungeon, and just being able to put it together with minimal friction. Sometimes it’s wonderful to just feel like you’re on the same page with a game, rather than it bumping into you, and Hinterberg Dungeon In the short time I spent with it, it absolutely felt like the former.
When Luisa is not dressed as a dungeon hunter, she is relaxing in Hinterberg and making new friends. I didn’t know that Hinterberg Dungeon also housed a Social and calendar system for the personathat breaks up the action with moments of tenderness and reflection. After a rough first outing where the tutorial dungeon uncharacteristically starts to crumble on Luisa, she befriends a more experienced hunter named Alex, who eventually unlocks a social menu for you. This allows players to see characters they’ve met and those they haven’t yet met, and offers a preview of the rewards for interacting with them, such as a boost to your MP or an unlockable photo mode. Spending time with them will take up a certain portion of the day, meaning people will have to manage their time wisely.
The combination of these systems with Hinterberg DungeonThe otherwise cozy look and tone of the game gives the game a strange healing power. Luisa desperately needs this break from work and the obligations of her real life in the big city, and something about it speaks to me. I too want to escape to the forest, find magic, and finally get back in touch with my inner child. But even outside of this resonance chord, Hinterberg Dungeon just seems like a break from the cacophony of rollicking blockbuster games and offbeat indie oddities. It’s more of that calming and gentle middle ground that I feel is so rare, and I want to jump in and just drown out the noise of everything else. At least in Hinterberg, that seems quite doable.
