Volume 9: Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi
Folks, we are back, after taking January off for holiday and/or Xenogears reasons (take your pick of which sounds like a more legitimate excuse). Picking a subject for the next dungeon dive has been tough, for a variety of reasons. I settled on something I’ve played before, but never had the time to really go headfirst into. I’m far from finished, because this game is massive, but I’ve been playing one of the more recent DRPGs from Experience, Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi. This is a game with cool vibes, weird mechanics, and an upcoming sequel, so now’s as good a time as any.
Undernauts does something in the space we don’t see nearly enough of: it steps away from the bright colors and smiling faces we see a lot in fantasy RPGs, and explores the spookier side of dungeon crawling. After playing games like this, Wizardry Variants Daphne, and even NIS’ somewhat silly Labyrinth of Refrain, I’ve come to realize dungeon crawling and horror are a great, natural fit. Trudging blind through a godless labyrinth and fighting monsters that could wipe your team in an instant shouldn’t be a fun adventure. This shit would be terrifying in real life, and more DRPGs ought to explore that. A dungeon crawl is a desperate, nasty task only the most glory-hungry or poverty-driven explorers would dare to take on. Or in Undernauts’ case, the motivating force is simply because it’s your job. Once again, the enemy is capitalism.
The godless labyrinth in this world popped into existence right in the middle of contemporary-ish (1979) Japan, and the folks exploring it, the titular Undernauts, are worker drones flying company banners. These poor bastards are wearing slacks, button-ups, and neckties instead of chainmail, with kitbashed armor strapped on top. You also have disgraced cops, criminal outcasts, and even a Joshi pro wrestler among your party-building options. Normal folks for the most part, such as you’d get from people willing to get killed by demons for a crappy paycheck.
And killed they get en masse. Undernauts starts with you, the section chief of an Undernauts group competing with the bigger corps by recruiting less popular applicants (youth, women, etc), barely surviving an ambush from… a little girl with a giant leech for an arm. You’re surrounded by the remaining pieces of your crew, and it’s all you can do to limp to safety after the leech girl eats her fill just before your turn comes up. This game is nasty from the beginning, and that continues throughout. From the raspy, seedy brass instruments that sound like the musical equivalent of secondhand smoke dragging along the ground with you as you explore a taped-off cave (it looks more like a dilapidated construction site than a video game dungeon), to the disgusting, moist, and sometimes morbidly sexual monsters you encounter, nothing about this stuff is fun.
It’s not all horrors all the time, though. Undernauts uses its labor-driven setting to emphasize humanity as well. Your boss, a non-combat administrator, has all the telltale visual signs of a stereotypical middle manager. He’s socially inept, puts on an air of unearned superiority, and treats you like a number on a spreadsheet at first. But you eventually catch him crying in his office, and he opens up about missing his family and hoping you can help the team escape so he can see them again. He eventually asks you to collect discarded cup noodles because his son loves the trading cards packaged under the lids. It’s a reminder that even your shitty boss has a life at home outside the workplace. The moments in-between the big, nasty boss fights can be just as rewarding as the big victories.
As you survive, you get to play around with what Undernauts has to offer as a video gamey collection of gimmicks. There’s a special ability only the chairman has, a sort of electric shock device that can kickstart the squad’s brains into high gear for a turn. You can boost your skills and use them for free, tank more damage than usual, or ensure the whole team acts first in a round. You can then recharge each one, although you don’t get to pick the order. So there’s an element of meter management in a way that can make or break even simple encounters in terms of resources. The bigger oddity is this “flower” system, that takes energy from the otherworldly forces powering the labyrinth to produce ladders, bridges, teleporters, and makeshift doors. You can effectively brute force your way through obstacles with the power of industry, if you have enough FP to spend. Workers unite and all that jazz.
Experience is one of my favorite DRPG developers. I’ve written about the studio before, and the crux of it is these folks have gone from making Wizardry spinoffs that never left Japan to being a multi-decade DRPG factory. Despite operating in one of the nerdier niches possible in video games, these folks have managed to stubbornly operate in their favored space without having to pivot to profit-seeking nonsense. It’s even managed to release some wild experiments, such as its hybrid horror visual novel/DRPG Death Mark series, or the ridiculously-titled Mon-Yu: Defeat Monsters And Gain Strong Weapons And Armor. You May Be Defeated, But Don’t Give Up. Become Stronger. I Believe There Will Be A Day When The Heroes Defeat The Devil King. which builds a sort of speed-running system around a traditional DRPG foundation.
Undernauts is more traditional than those, but it manages to stand out with its distinct setting, grungy vibes, and strong foundational elements that tie everything all together in a satisfying DRPG package. Experience does like to get a little too cute with how it doles out equipment, and I’ve found myself dealing with some annoying progress walls as a result. But the great thing about Undernauts is I’ve kept my motivation to push against these walls, because I so badly want to see what happens next. There are several mysteries pushing the story forward, the terrifying leech girl only being one of them. Perhaps I’ll come back later with an update, but sadly I’m getting my teeth kicked in by a boss in only the fourth dungeon.
Until next time, dungeon delvers.
