Welcome to Lapis X Labyrinth, a 2D action-platformer loot grinder filled with beautiful art akin to Vanillaware’s signature mix of moody dark with vibrant colors, alongside the crazy frantic action & over-the-top big numbers that NIS is known for. Stack up & explore various locales, gather riches & kick monster butt all while looking adorable.
Partying up with a group of characters takes a different meaning in Lapis X Labyrinth. Instead of the traditional side-by-side formation, adventurers in Lapis opt for the vertical orientation, combining their strength & weaknesses to bring down a myriad of monsters & gather the countless riches scattered throughout the dungeons. Combat is similar to Super Smash Bros., meaning different directional inputs will give your attack a different result. Your basic attacks are a 4-5 hit combo, some classes having longer horizontal range but little verticality like the Bishop with her spear, or the Maid having short-range overall but slightly wider arcs. On the flip side, each class has 4 special moves tied to the directional inputs. For example, Down on the D-pad & X (On the Switch) will have the Maid cover herself & the rest of the party with an adorable pot that will block all damage, and doing so with the Bishop will cause her to leap into the air & slam down her spear sending out a shockwave. These special moves come at a cost though, a ‘gem’ shown on the HUD will limit you though it is quickly replenished allowing you to keep blasting away. This same ‘gem’ gauge can be expended to send out your buddies for a quick special attack instead of using yours. For the big finale, the ‘EX’ gauge allows a screen-clearing attack, its strength dependent on how many of your party members are currently stacked upon activation. Lastly, we have ‘Fever Mode’, a period of increased attack power & invincibility activated after gathering a certain amount of coins which will shower you with gems that unlock minor stacking bonuses that last the entire level.
This brings up another aspect of partying up. While each character has its own health bar, everything else is shared, meaning the stats on weapons & armors you have equipped are pooled together. This stacking also affects your jumping ability as having a full party will give you up to 4 jumps at a time. If a party member is tied up using a special attack or is KO’ed, you can switch characters on the fly to spare them further damage to or switch things up. You may have a hard time reaching a platform or escaping a hit, but using some clever thinking with some of the character’s attacks can give you that ‘oomph’ to clear an otherwise unreachable gap. Equipping the myriad of weapons, armors & items is not free as there is a cost associated with them depending on rarity & other factors like modifiers. Incidentally, they can be added or upgraded in themselves though at the cost of durability shown in the item stat screen (no weapon breaking, just a cap on upgrades). Much like near every stat in the game, the overall equip cap can be upgraded at the appropriate shop unlocked through game progress. All in all these mechanics lend some strategic thinking to the frantic action you will play through.
Despite how it may seem, Lapis X Labyrinth is not a procedural generated rogue-like which have become popular nowadays. Each dungeon is divided into ‘Quests’, each with about 8 levels and are handmade ordeals filled with traps, monsters & treasure. Your goal through the maze-like areas is locating & destroying a certain amount of purple crystals that will open an exit gate. Simple. At the end of your journey, your score will be tallied up & you’ll be rewarded a determined amount of keys with which to open a handful of chests, lootbox style. One thing to be aware of is exploring the dungeon does have a time limit & once it’s over, you will be stalked by a not so friendly ghost that will force you to find the exit, lest he catches you & you receive a Game Over thus losing progress & your loot.
Art is where I think the game shines as I am a sucker for this dark yet vibrant style. Characters are adorable, the diverse cast of monsters to kick your butt have little to no palette swaps, every tier for each monster is a unique design for added variety. Details in the dungeons are nice to look at, both the background adding to the sense of scale & a good amount of care put into the foreground. For example a small waterfall distorting the view of characters if you stand behind it. Music is likewise enjoyable, generally fitting what is happening on screen with high action tunes for exploring or ‘Fever’ mode & more relaxed ones for minor things like the town hub. There is some voice acting, though do not expect much as it is mostly grunts, yells, & the like from your characters. The technical performance was top-tier, both in handheld & docked modes. With all the stuff flying on screen which there is certainly a lot, never did I see slowdown & any crashes. Other noticeable bugs where non-existent.
Overall, I am on the fence about Lapis despite the many things it does so well. It is beautiful, the music is enjoyable & the frantic action was great, but I did not find that it had that impulse that would make a person sink hours into it at a time rather than picking it up, doing a short 10-15 minute level or two & be done for the night. It lacks that rewarding feeling, the difficulty is very minimal with me having died about twice up to the 7th Quest, of whom the apparent recommended level is of 100+. The rate of unlocks is abysmal (1 per Quest done) & it is only vendors & the like which do not exactly add much. Plot is minimal outside of that initial intro. While that is not important in the grand scheme of things, it would have felt like a goal, instead of simply jumping once more into the breach for a trinket I might give the blacksmith to power up a single weapon I’ve been using for ages.
All in all, do I recommend Lapis X Labyrinth? Eh, maybe. I desired a tad more from it & certainly would not mind seeing a more fleshed out sequel, because as it stands it feels a bit like a mobile game, a rather well done one mind you, rather than a full console experience. As I’ve repeated a lot, I enjoyed the art & the gameplay but the loop was lacking. It is certainly not a game for those wanting a game to sink their teeth into for long periods of time.
[Review Copy Was Provided by the Publisher]
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