Gamer--freakz

Gamespot score:6.7(fair)

my score:7.3

(+)Pros:-Fast and intense combat that constantly keeps you on your toes,-great dungeon crawling mechanics,-characters have hilarious personality,-intense satisfaction upon beating bosses,-izuna is just hawt :)

(-)Cons:-Difficulty can be ridiculously hard,-lack of attack variety,-talisman system can be hard to learn.


gameplay time:10-20 hours

So....blogger went down for abit, another good reason why they shud step up their game. Anyway, for today's game, its an old one. Enter Izuna, one of gaming's hottest chicks. She's the star is her own game, which features intense old school dungeon crawling thats hard enough to drive away the weak hearted gamers who got the game just cause izuna looks cute. Though I did get the game based on izuna's appearance alone (I know, stupid me), the game did push me alot, almost to the point I wanted to fling my entire DS, but hey, Izuna is a good game, if you got the balls for it, its really satisfying.



The story is mostly comical, and based on something really straightfoward and simple. Izuna is simply an unemployed ninja, following her grandboss, along with 2 of her colleagues, her "sister" and a perverted ninja, all four ninjas mix together well and easily comprehend each other. One fine day the 4 stumble unto a humble village, and while sightseeing, izuna, being her greedy self, goes on to temper with a floating crystal in the village, and that caused the entire village to go haywire. Everyone except izuna goes crazy, including her 2 companions and grandboss. She wants to leave the village, but grandboss refuses, so she has to fix this. Apparently, it was "the wrath of the gods", punishing the land, so izuna travels to the 5 lairs of the 5 gods surrouding the village, to "convince" them to put out the curse.




Isnt izuna adorable?  But being adorable simply isn't enough to survive the harsh dungeons of the land.

 Izuna is a dungeon crawler, and old school dungeon crawler that punishes even the toughest of hardcore gamers. There are 7 dungeons in the game, and all of them are punishing, and when you enter the 1st dungeon, you can immediately feel that the game is not suited for light hearted gamers. Casuals may suffer from countless deaths, and will give up not long after. The moment you enter a dungeon, you are immediately thrown at a random position in an ever changing floor. The dungeons in izuna change constantly, so theres no way to remember the floor layouts or enemy positions. Each and every floor in the dungeons of izuna always change, so its very hard to adapt.

 Enemies flood each and every floor, hampering your exploration. These enemies have quite some variety, and mostly look funny. Though, they are seriously not to be fooled around with, izuna has a very punishing "turn by turn" system. Everytime you do something, such as take a step, use a talisman, or eat a potion, every enemy in the map gets a move too. So if you are being cornered by 2 enemies, good luck, since while you constantly hit one monster, both monsters will be constantly clobbering you for some painful damage. And if you take too long to beat them and other monsters come along... you can be prepared to find yourself in front of the inn not too long after.




Kagen is hungry, and he wants to eat you. Be prepared to die.

While getting clobbered by mere enemies is commonplace in izuna, there are other things that make the game even harder. In the later dungeons, invisible traps make their appearance, and getting hit by a monster trap or a teleport trap isnt cool, belive me. While you encounter many things that can practically destroy you, its all not that bad. If you can adapt yourself to the battle system, you can easily survive a few floors (of course you will be hit, dont expect to go off unbruised). Everytime you die, you lose all money and items, but that can be avoided if you play well. Izuna is made so that the game isnt really cheap, but if you died...it just means you screwed up.

Carefully make desicions and if you get hit by a trap or get cornered by monsters, using appopraite talismans or taking appropraite precautions can get you out of these situations. For one, you can "skip" turns. This means you waste one turn doing nothing but recover HP. Holding L and R lets you skip alot of turns constantly to recover your HP real quick. And if thats not enough, HP healing items are there for you. Also, you get items and talismans to aid you. Items such as bombs or shruikens make your enemies take damage per step or just straight out explode off a huge chunk of thier HP. Weapons either make your damage significantly higher or increase your defense, making your journey abit easier. Talismans have alot of effects, such as teleporting you out of a dungeon, calling forth a huge inferno, blowing enemies away and many more. Some even prevent your weapons from breaking. Combining all knowledge you have can help you survive even the deadliest of dungeons, and those bosses, yeah. Bosses are great, and if you beat them, you can clearly tell yourself you have mastered that dungeon, since most of them are really punishing.




Izuna likes to flirt her way out of situations such as this.

 It doesnt take a genius to tell that izuna's crazy ridiculous difficulty will turn many players off. It allows for almost no mistakes at all, and theres no way memorization of levels can help you out. Also, theres a lack of different attack variety. Most of the time, you are stuck hitting an enemy right straight in their face. Though there are times when you stand afar flinging stuff, but that isnt really an attack style. If would be more interesting if they add attacks that maybe extend to 2 spaces like a spear, or a bow which lets her attack from afar indefinetely. Also, most of the talismans have confusing effects, and learning so many talisman types can be very confusing. It really sucks when you are at a dungeons 15th floor and when you try to save your ass with a talisman which you know nothing about (you are out of options, either die or use that talisman), and it still ends up getting your ass handed.

Izuna isnt a bad game, its quite underrated. Those looking for a hardcore dungeon crawling experience can find that this game has alot of fun to be had. Izuna is so hawt, and whats better than playing as a sexy kunoichi? As I stated, the game may be hard, but if you come out on top of a dungeon after dieing so many times, you will feel very satisfied, the level of satisfaction is really something else. If you excuse me, Im off to play the 2nd game.



Happy gaming.