Jul 18, 2024

Dungeons of Hinterberg Review

Mahmud Munazil Rahman

Check out our review of the Dungeons of Hinterberg to find out what we thought about this charming, colorful dungeon crawler.

The thing that struck me the most when I booted up Dungeons of Hinterberg was the setting. The real-world modern day setting, set in the Austrian Alps mixed with monsters, magic, swords and treasure chests is an oddly charming combination. Seeing a modern community trying to embrace magic is a quirky direction to take the game in and it sets the game apart from the tons of RPGs vying for your attention.

Equally interesting is the combination of genres – the game combines the social and calendar aspects of the Persona series with the light attack, heavy attack, dodge roll combat mechanics of the Souls series with the cell shaded dungeon crawling exploration experience of the Zelda series. The game succeeds in aping the mechanics of these games to varying degrees of success.

The protagonist, Luisa, is a woman questioning her direction in her life – a lawyer in a Vienna, she wants to escape the dread and drudge of her corporate life. Luckily for her, the small Alpine village of Hinterberg, has been proliferated with multiple dungeons accessible via purple portals. Luisa shows up in Hinterberg to cut loose by slaying some monsters and making some friends and maybe discover the secret of this charming mountain village.

Luisa’s “Slaycation” involves getting to know the residents of Hinterberg and exploring and murdering the inhabitants of the magical dungeons in the surrounding regions outside of the village. With the familiar RPG loop of loot chasing and upgrading your gear – the game throws in social links to maintain as well as a choice to what to do with your day.

The day is divided in 4 time slots – morning, noon, evening and night. The first is dedicated to having breakfast and conversing with the townspeople and exploring story beats. Afternoons are for you to decide whether or not you want to explore a dungeon or spend some me-time and evenings are for you to decide who to befriend, before returning to the hotel for a well-deserved rest at Night

The combat is the weakest part of the game – missing the requisite heft of the Soulslike combat it mimics. That’s not to say its not fun – it passable with a combination of physical and magical attacks and with the right set up, you can run through dungeons at brisk pace at the easier difficulty settings.

The dungeons are varied and interesting with some inventive perspective shifts. Some are combat focused while many are puzzle focused – and it leans into those mechanics making every dungeon feel unique. The biomes are varied and while it lacks enemy variety – the gameplay loop of exploration and puzzling generally keeps things interesting.

The enemies, who are are based on mythical beasts from Austrian Alpine pagan stories – do get more challenging at higher difficulty levels. Those aforementioned magical spells vary from region to region and are an integral part of puzzle solving within the dungeons. You also have special attacks that recharge during combat that can be customized – initially you get a whirlwind attack and a jump attack. In the later levels a lot of varied options and build-craft come into play.

The social links aspect of the game are very solid too – there are tangible rewards attached to becoming closer with the people in Hinterberg. Which could have misfired if the characters were uninteresting – but they are not. Actual magical witches, twitch streamers and hipster journalists not withstanding, the characters are well written and have personality to bear. Buffs, gear, secret dungeons – its all tied into maintaining and developing your social standing. It never feels dull or useless. It really does help that the game is generally well-written.

The cell shaded comic book art style is an excellent fit – keeping things colorful and lively but it is an indie and weird camera issues and a general lack of animation polish is to be expected. The controls can get frustrating after a while – there are multiple (and I mean, multiple) platforming segments and not having control over your jumps can result in multiple deaths and failures to what is – essentially a simple jump.

It is a charming and inventive game – with clever dungeons, deep social link management, varied and intricate build-craft. It’s almost never boring and brings an almost MMORPG like feeling to the game. The game often had me wondering whether Microbird Games had wanted to initially wanted to make a multiplayer game.

Dungeons of Hinterberg is an unique game, there is no two ways about it. It’s a refreshing twist on the classic dungeon crawler formula. It is, for lack of a better term, a “cozy” dungeon crawler and it just might surprise you with the depth in its many systems and the deceptively large amount of content it has to offer.

Developer: Microbird Games
Country of Origin: Austria
Publisher: Curve Games
Release Date: 18th July 2024