Labyrinth of Galleria is SHOCKINGLY Good! - Review
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society is the latest dungeon crawler RPG for Nippon Ichi software. In this review I'll tell you all about it's dungeon crawling mechanics, what surprised me so much about it and why you might want to consider playing it even if you're not into dungeon crawlers!
A review copy was provide by NIS America for review purposes.
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Ah the Disgaea style art is always a treat
Quite so! I know these NIS games don’t set the world on fire, but they win on the style front all the time.
Absolutely agree.
Love the style. :)
Though i love disgaea, im sick of the same art style for every game.
The characters are fine but i want something a bit more darker in shade.
Just to make it feel not much of the same games
@@cleangoblin2021 Trust me, it's used here intentionally to put you into a false sense of security. The storyline you get here is NOTHING like what you get in the average Disgaea game. The story is dark and kind of very grim. This is not a cheery game. There's a reason it has an 'M' rating, and it isn't for fanservice (though there are Robertsons on occasion in the game).
@@cleangoblin2021 The character writing in this is shockingly good not to mention the voice acting.
skipped the story? absolutely tasteless
Came for the disgaea art, stayed for the etrian gameplay
A match made in heaven!
I give you a sardine prinny
@@OvrlordEtna thanks dood
To say I've been anticipating "Galleria" is no understatement. It's been like 3 years since it first released in Japan and now it's finally reaching international hands. A lot of people, me included, were on the verge of giving up ever seeing it come over but NISA finally did it. Certainly took them long enough.
But yeah, I loved the first game, "Labyrinth of Refrain", which already was a spiritual successor of sorts to "The Witch & The Hundred Knight", which I also loved. Same concepts, same aesthetics, similar tones, etc. So even if "Galleria" was just more of the same, I'm all for it. There's something about how grim yet fantastical these settings are that I really jell with, like some proper "Grimm Fairy Tales" stuff. Though that said, I understand how that might be off-putting for most other people.
Needless to say, I'm just glad it's finally here. Even despite trying to stay spoiler free, there are some details I happened to overhear and they only made me more interested, if not to see how they actually factor in to the game as a whole. I just need to finish what I'm currently playing so I can hurry up to finally start "Galleria".
That said, the fact you're actively skipping the story is giving me pause, that's not really something I personally understand, but hey...we all enjoy playing stuff in different ways so whatever. Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised given your history with NIS's prior games.
Yeah NIS’ stories usually don’t grab me. For me this game was all about the dungeon crawling gameplay and its really good!
Coven of Dusk sequel?
Sign me up!
It's totally fair to skip the story if it isn't your thing.
But I do want to give a big word of warning to other players: if Labyrinth of Galleria is anything like its predecessor, Labyrinth of Refrain, there's a lot more going on under the surface than you would expect from the story's initial hours. Labyrinth of Refrain had multiple huge twists that built on information you learned in the first hours when the story was more directionless. From what I've heard from those who played Galleria in Japanese, the same is true here.
Again, there's no shame in skipping the story if it isn't up your alley. I just don't want people thinking the story is inconsequential and missing out on something they might like. I've personally never liked NISA's style of storytelling and was willing to write off Refrain in its first hours, but it ultimately became one of my favorite JRPG stories overall.
Wow good to know! Sounds like I missed a lot lol
It is absolutely true. The opening hours are definitely a slow burn, but at the same time alot does happen during them. You just don't know what it all means yet. Kind of like the first 14 episodes of Digimon Tamers, where it seems to start slow, but the exposition and character introductions are still vastly important.
100% agree, but watching the review, when he said it took around 40 hours, i think he got bore of it before the 2nd arc even starts. The story become so much better in the 2nd arc and is what keep me pushing to the end. The full completion of this game should be around 100 hours+
@@gotouchsomegrasstoday I don't think he got past the first arc. The first arc is about 40 to 45 hours long, and there are three arcs in the game. The first two are around 40 to 45 hours long and the last one is sometimes 100 to 200 hours depending on RNG.
I did hear that they nerfed a certain dungeon in the last arc, so it could be shorter now. But the fact remains that even if that's the case, the true final boss is still something that you have to prepare extensively for with alot of grinding and Soul Transferring into the right facets. And all of that is still going to take time.
this is good advice, the story in Labyrinth of Refrain is quite impressive. I've found that Galleria's story is much kinder to it's characters narratively.
This has to be one of the strangest game recommendations I've ever heard. You didn't like the story. Didn't like the music. Didn't interact with the more complex covens that your party is built around. But you liked the game enough to recommend it to people who aren't even preexisting fans of the genre. Weird, but I'm glad you brought it up. I didn't know Coven of Dusk had a sequel coming.
It’s a game purely for the dungeon crawling gameplay for me.
At this point, don't question it.
I find it to be a miracle he likes it enough to recommend it at all.
@@shadowmaksimlol why is that?
so you skip story and play on mute, bruh review
tbh most jrpg stories are predictable, melodramatic boring trash. The gameplay is where its at
@@6187490 not this one… blink and you blindsided by something rather horrible
I can’t wait to play this! I’ve never played a dungeon crawler and this excites me
Hey, thanks for the review! I just got it from Amazon at a nice price and I'm looking forward to play it this holiday season ☺
Awesome! I hope you have a blast 😄
I can tell you that I have been eyeballing this game on NISA's store for a while (more specifically the Limited Edition) and wasnt really sure what to make of this one. I'm not a dungeon crawler fan but I dont hate them so I figured thats a fair place to be coming into something like this. Its great to hear this game was a very positive experience, especially coming from a generally non-dungeon crawling player. Thanks TGS! I definitely like what I see!
I mean, you can probably get the first game for cheap to see if you like it.
Honestly, it's probably one of the most accessible dungeon crawlers out there. There ARE alot of mechanics, largely existing to deal with the nasty stipulations that the various dungeons carry. But most if not ALL of those stipulations can eventually be mitigated with certain upgrades, so it isn't nearly as dangerous as the game initially makes it out to be. The only hard parts are if you decide to pick a fight with the superbosses.
It's an amazing game, took me 120 hours to beat it. The story's not as good as in the first game but still really great, like 9/10 storywise, and the gameplay is improved in alot of ways.
Honestly, the gameplay is so much better than Refrain that I'd still put this game a bit higher on the overall list. The story is still really good. It's just that Refrain's story is a little better. But the gameplay of Galleria is a LOT better. It would be hard for me to go back to Refrain after playing this.
Is there any connection with refrain , spoil me pls
@@casualgamer3040 Just a few namedrops. Nothing major. It's just enough to illustrate that the two take place in the same overall continuity, just on different worlds.
@@SBaby there like 2 paralel world right in the first one , 1 where everyone already died , and the other is where everyone still alive (little luca) which one get connected ?
@@casualgamer3040 There's things like that in Galleria. They definitely still explore the concept of the multiverse, and explain how it works a bit further and also why so many worlds are being destroyed or depopulated.
🎮 Order your copy of Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society here 👉 amzn.to/3RVW0jz
I'm still waiting for my copy to come in through the mail...
It'll probably be next week by the time my English copy comes in.
Been playing this game for a while now, I was not expecting how good the english dub was, I play this on the steam deck and the audio sounds so clean. I wasn't expecting it, of course it did need some balancing volume wise but yea. Wasn't expecting that. What a happy little surprise.
Of course it isn't just the really clean sounding audio that helped, the VA's did a great job making their voices super expressive, love the gram-grams voice, she sounds perfect for her role, snarky little witchy grandma.
Fell in love with this art style in the witch and the hundred knight, so i will most definitly try this one
This game looks amazing. And it's a japanese dungeon crawler, so the complaint on the sexualized characters seems a little prude.... but overall I'm glad you enjoyed this game! The 1st game in the series was amazing too!
Normally I don’t mind fan service but it just seemed to come out of no where for no reason. Just felt weird and out of place.
Is it really shocking when the first game was good?
I never played the first one! So for me it was haha
@@TheGamingShelf you outta check it out, it’s great ✌️
Idk about this one , but one more thing i actually kinda dislike that there are secret name to boost certain stats of that puppet meaning you puppet stuck with name you dont like
You can use the Witch Petition to change the Puppet name after naming them Lucky.
Costs Mana but it worked for me in Refrain.
Not sure if Galleria has the same thing since I didn't bother in my playthrough.
(I don't know the Japanese Lucky names lol)
I'll have to test it when my English copy comes in.
You say the names boost stats. But afaik it’s only luck it affects. And that is something you can ignore entirely
@@capricorncharger518 True plus if memory serves me right the luck state charges every reincarnate anyways so outside of the first 99 levels it wouldn't matter anyway.
I’ll get to this one day, still need to play the first game
I saw a very genuine video by a small youtube about her favorite jrpgs and the first game in this series was #1. The first one is on my backlog list. Maybe I'll replace that with this one idk.
Galleria has some QoL stuff Refrain lacks but I love them both.
@@nickel7o740 If I was only to play one, which do you remcommend?
@@urmanascrewedIt's a tough call between Refrain and Galleria but I would probably recommend Refrain first sense you'll likely get spoiled by the QoL improvements as well as Refrain being overall easier to finish.
That said Galleria has more Classes and Customization options then Refrain but Refrain has more Enemy and Location variety as well as more Bonus Bosses then Galleria.
However Galleria's dungeons are better designed and the post game is much more massive then Refrain
The combat also feels more balanced in Galleria than Refrain.
Honestly writing a recommendation was difficult for me since I love them both but hopefully this comment helped some. :)
@@urmanascrewed But if you had to pick 1 game Galleria would be a good choice too.
I feel like there isn't really a wrong answer in the end but Refrain is probably the better starting point.
Wow I feel indecisive to a recommendation this is incredibly hard for me lol
@@nickel7o740 I appreciate the thorough answer! I'll probably go with Refrain first then. To my understanding it is pretty new so I can't imagine QoL stuff being so bad. It goes on sale often as well.
Thanks for the review! You answered many of the questions I had about this game! Now I need to buy it! 😁
Glad I could help! Which platform are you playing on?
@@TheGamingShelf Switch!
The dungeon crawling in Persona 4 Golden made me at least interested in other dungeon crawling games. I just got this game and will start playing it soon.
Finally we can Raid a dungeon ourselves with a bunch of playable characters.
Finally! 🥳
How is replay ability? Any random elements?
Late reply here, the dungeons are mostly randomly generated in terms of sheer length. There's more handmade dungeons than random ones but the random ones go on for hundreds, if not thousands of floors. The randomly generated dungeons have hand crafted floors as checkpoint floors with a fast travel station on each one. There is NG+ but the game doesn't give it to you until you've fully beaten the game.
amazon changed my ship date to mid march a few weeks ago, but now the game is releasing tomorrow 2.14.2023. it still hasn't updated yet to reflect the change!
Huh weird! Not sure what to tell you there 🫣
@@TheGamingShelf maybe amazon will update it tomorrow. maybe.
Amazon told me it's shipping tomorrow
I liked the first one well enough. One of the better non-disgaea games from NIS.
Coven and Labyrinth Series and Makai Kingdom hit different.
Don't forget Hundred Knight, same writer and universe.
@@Darkness-by5od Hundred Knight is interesting.
I love the setting, characters and lore but the gameplay is kinda lacking.
I still like the game overall tho. :)
Im having problems in what to play : either this or Undernauts - another dungeon crawler for Switch
Basically Labrynth of Refrain 2
If it wasn't for Ocropath II I would have probably got this but for now it will have to wait.
Probably the best choice!
I would have to object on that one. Square Enix charged me for something I never used, when I said I would contest the charge, they told me to f*ck off. Well, what they actually told me was that if I contest the charge, they would ban my account.
That's right, for contesting a fee of a service I never used, they were willing to ban my account.
Yesterday I received a notification on my Echo device. I asked it to play the notification and it said I received my Nintendo Switch. My heart stopped as money is kind of tight right now as my catalytic converter was recently stolen and my dog had to have a surgery, which wax expensive. I assumed that I must have preordered some special edition Switch console in the past. When I opened my package, I was relieved to see that it was just this game , which I must have preordered a long time ago. I totally forgot that this was coming out, so I’m glad it turned out good.
Since you skipped the story, I give a warning... Galleria its heavily focused on the story... In terms of level design and dungeons it is inferior to Refrain... If you want better design go to Refrain... If you want the story well... Galleria its what you want... Personally I highly recommend it... It's one of the best JRPGs of recent years with one of the best stories I've ever read.
Congrat now ur introduced to etrian odyssey
It’s a great series!
I hated the story of the first game. But the game itself was fun. I am a big dungeon crawler fan. But I was not certain that I wanted to deal with this one... But I might still check it out on sale.
depending on what you hated of the story of the first one (like how cruel the characters were to each other, which makes sense since it's taking place in purgatory) this one is significantly kinder to them, though I'm only just finishing story arc 1. .
Looks really great! is there a physical version of this game?
Yes it comes out tomorrow physically as well
There is yes!
Good review!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Sir make list of good games that u played recently or u feel good
Hm maybe I will 🤔
I had such a good experience with labyrinth of refrain but galleria just didn’t take me in with the gameplay and story... I got the bad ending and said to go back and explore but... I couldn’t. 😅
I want to buy it just for disgaea art style :0
I don't blame you.
That's how I got into Labyrinth of Refrain and consequently this game.
Love them both and that's coming from someone who doesn't play Dungeon Crawlers much.
I'm thinking of that monster menu game for this very reason. Don't know much about it.
Will get a PS5 physical copy later after some price drops. I don't have a switch and already invested heavily in the PS ecosystem.
Fair enough! Gotta play where you’re invested.
I'm getting the Switch version this time around since I already have the Japanese PS4 version.
Loved the game to death I just want to play the game without Google Translate this time around.
In concept I really like the trademark NIS borderline caricature levels of system complexity, but they ultimately tend to scare me off rather than draw me in - in the earlier Disgaea games the really insane stuff was usually only really necessary for postgame content, does this game handle that aspect similiarly? As in, do you have to really dive deep into the systems to feasibly make your way throught the main story? Or can you sorta skirt by?
For the most part you can skirt by with the most basic use of the systems. Its only when you use the optional "Nightmare" mode and/Or Postgame where you need to actively start to maximize the systems to stand a chance.
@@CCYami Ah okay sweet, might give this game a shot soon then. I feel like a bit of leniency helps me work up the patience to get to grips with the number crunch in these games. Thank you!
@@HansAlRachid There is also an easy mode you unlock early on that should give you a chance to play around and test things out.
Love the art style of these nis games. I thought ps4 was king of jrpgs for a while but I think switch has came out ahead
Is this better than Labyrinth of Refrain?
No 😅 Refrain is the main 😎
I don't see why it is classed as Mature: Blood, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Partial Nudity, Fantasy Violence, Drug Reference
They maybe should have adjusted or trimmed it a bit to broaden the audience
OCD isn't wanting to explore every inch of a map. It isn't even OCPD, the thing you're thinking of. Please stop incorrectly using the term. It's a horrible disability.
Worried some of the battle and menu text will be hard to read on handheld screens
Wasn’t too bad for me, but I have pretty good vision.
The first game had some fucked up plot twist. I will expect the same crazy twist from the sequel!
Oh interesting!
Indeed Refrain does...
Anyone who has played Etrian Odyssey, how does this series compare? I played the demo of the first game and wasn't impressed, but I love Etrian Odyssey so I was wondering
Better dungeon crawling but it doesn’t have the drawing map feature. It auto maps for you, so I guess it depends on how much you enjoy doing that.
@@TheGamingShelf what about the combat and the player progression, do you get to choose how to level up your character? In the demo of the first game every character was exactly alike
You can customize gear but that’s it. When characters level up it’s just automatic more or less.
@@drowningin Sorry just have to correct the record for you a bit here. What The Gaming Shelf said is not true at all. During character creation you can set their growth rates in stats, you also can set their natures which can influence what %s their stats will be. While this might not seem like a big deal, once you unlock soul rebirth it becomes an extremely big deal. When you soul rebirth you can change pretty much everything about the character from its stance to its natures, but the real kicker are the skills. You can carry over skills from other classes, and depending on how you go about doing this can end up with extremely customizable builds. And by end game you have 15 different main party characters and 25 support characters spread over 5 covens (which are themselves customizable in terms of magic powers), and there's a metric ton of gear that you can also upgrade and equip to all 40 characters. I could go on.
The previous game had some pretty good to insane stories and characters after a while, I dunno about this entry but I wouldn't skip the story if I were you.
Too late 🫣
@@TheGamingShelf the event viewer exists. A word of advice on my part is…. The story shifts fast from calm to everything is on fire (literally in the case of galleria) so skipping takes away from the experience….. it was definitely funny watching the world end in a single day… twice
Never played a duengon crawler....this game feels weird but I'm enjoying myself
It’s definitely different, right? There’s something oddly addictive about them.
@The Gaming Shelf I spent so much time wandering I died when I would've lived if I stuck to clearing the duengon but that didn't upset me
Does it have the asinine late game level design that coven of dusk had?
Is there a real overworld?
I don't like only dungeon crawling.
The later Wizardry games and the Might and Magics had a nice big world to explore and tons of dungeons.
I miss those...
Nope, pretty much strictly a dungeon crawler.
Does this review contain spoilers ?
I barely talk about the story so I don’t think so!
is there a lot of grinding?
Kind of. But it’s mostly late game, as soul transfers become more necessary as you get closer to the final boss. Other than that only mana and silver need grinding but not high effort grinding
This review mainly covers the early stages for the game, so allow me to give some reasons why I find this game to be a step back from Labyrinth of Refrain.
Most of the bosses you encounter on Narthex, Apse and the chromatic Transeipts suck. They're just Wiccards accompanied by a boss version of a regular enemy. No, I don't mean a palette swap, I mean the Wiccard summons a boss that looks exactly the same as a regular enemy but with boss stats.
Speaking of which, the game is very lacking in dungeon variety for the first half. Narthex is fairly basic, but it's to be expected as the first area. Then you reach Apse and... it also looks like ruins. And then you start reaching the Transeipts and realize Narthex and Apse aren't two early dungeons, they are the main dungeons that take up almost the entire first half of the game. It's make even worse by how, unlike the wide variety of dungeon NPCs in Refrain, you only encounter Gartans.
The Witch Requests are atrocious. They require you to gather a certain type of loot that is based on RNG and just serves to make you stay on the dungeons even longer. But the thing about item farming sidequests is that most games make them optional because almost no players find them fun. You cannot access *half the game* until you finish every single one of them!
Edit: I originally mistook a part in the Appartement as asking me to clear the witch requests as asking me to clear the sidequests of the same name. It was actually asking me to gather a Curio behind a breakable wall and I was one square off. This is why you don't use the same name for completely different things!
So i assume you have not played first game of it? IT hast prety much the same mechanics with an amazing story.
I have not no.
@@TheGamingShelf I do not know how dark the story is of Labrinth of Galleria yet but damn Labrinth of Refrain hit me hard. Absolutly an underrated game.
@@Jazzmigo Both games hit hard...
The Labyrinth sequel that is weak on story but slaps gameplay is kind of weird. The original was opposite in my opinion.
It's nice to see someone admit that they don't care for story and play games for gameplay. Most stories in games are terrible and highly pointless.
Not this one. Cause this game is on the end of games where it’s niche enough that they have no issue going 0-100, as shown when they make a single magical screw bringing down an entire civilisation in a day
6:39 most normal thing in japan I guess
I guess
Play Legend of Grimrock. It's better in every way as a dungeon crawler.
I miss Sugartits.
>doesn't like fanservice
>doesn't like loli characters
well what else can you expect from ironic jrpg "fan", especially the one who knows about past disgaea games, as for your review it's very shallow and comes from a guy who obviously didn't play the previous labyrinth game and likely didn't progress very far in galleria either
6:50 nah you just feel a bit gay at the time.
It sounds like Darkest Dungeon.
Never played that game but doesn’t it have some Rogue-like elements?
lol don't white knight the Fan service
The shocking part is that the format is the exactly the same from refrain and doesn't look like there's any new gameplay elements at all.
Really? So it is basically just more dungeons and story then?
Never played the first one so couldn’t say but wouldn’t shock me.
They changed the skill system so it’s more free to handle(you don’t have to unlearn skills just balance a point system)
idk why dungeon crawlers can't add atack animations... it so out of immersion
Budget reasons? Not sure.
Not as fun as disgea
yea lolicon isn't my thing either. it is japan's thing. Some people are just born to be sex offenders. The way to curb their hunger in 2d game is much more favorable than for them to be hunting little girls in real life. After a while i got used to lolicons, homosexual, incest, etc... you will too.
Well you skipped the story and missed alot of guresome deaths, twists, rapes and sexual degradations. The story is very dark and more like miseryporn. The first game left a scar but the second one leaves atleast two.
Woah WTF 😳