PICDUN 2: WITCH'S CURSE
Picdun 2: Witch's Curse is the 3DS sequel to the company Intense's DSi Ware game Go! Picdun. It is a very inexpensive game at just five dollars on the Nintendo eShop and has a LOT of bang for your buck!Picdun 2: Witch's Curse is a First-Person dungeon crawler, reminiscent of the original Phantasy Star's dungeon sequences. I had been curious about the original Picdun since its release but the lack of details on it in the DSi shop made me pass it by. Picdun 2 came out and I grabbed it the hour it was placed on the market, after having watched the video trailer for it first.
The player takes the role of the main character as well as one of three lovely ladies in which you will constantly swap through as you progress. The storyline is the main character is a boy who wishes to get a romantic life with a woman and feels that gaining fame, fortune, or displaying bravery will earn him his goal and so he enters a tower to obtain all three. Along the way he meets up with three women who all have their own agendas. Rather than give them each names and an in-depth back story, they are simply named after their weapon choices; Whipper, Archer, and Sorceress.
The "tower" as they call it, is more like a really large hole as every floor is completed by traversing down to the next floor rather than up.Whilst trying to find the "stair" which is a glowing pillar of light in actuality, the player has two or more side objectives on each floor.
The first is polishing off every spot on the grid map. Each floor is shaped as an object, and the puzzles tend to relate or tie-in somehow to that shape. For example, the floor where you meet the Whipper is shaped as a bullwhip. Once you have stepped on every tile the floor has to offer a sound will denote completion as well as the word "COMPLETED!" will appear engulfing your entire top screen like a sumo wrestler in a mason jar. To help you with this task a pedometer can be found on each floor that will display how many tiles are left to step on before the full image is completed.
The next objective is tied to the storyline. Apparently, each floor has a curse on it and to break this curse you must reveal then read from a hidden plaque which will appear at the starting point of each map as soon as a puzzle is solved. This is where things get REALLY tricky. Remember how I mentioned you will swap and drop the ladies constantly? This is due to the clues which are on white plaques being only visible when with a particular partner on each different floor. This can be done by locating a pink plaque that is a Friend Rendezvous Point at which the woman you need for that floor will be waiting. These puzzles can be REALLY hard to figure out by the clues, which was a plus to me as most puzzle games or riddles come far too easy for my liking. I have been stuck on almost a quarter or more of the nineteen floors I have completed thus far due to not understanding what I am supposed to do. But don't stress out! If you get stuck, you can always go back later on thanks to the elevator on certain floors that allows you to pick a previous floor you have been on and start climbing - or rather descending - from there once again. Once you solve the riddle and then read the plaque a sound and on-screen text will denote completion.
The final objective, though not as common, is acquiring new gear for your partners and you. Also done via white riddle plaques and then locating the item once the riddle is successfully solved.
As you complete each floor you can easily keep track of what floors you have completely filled in and which you have found the curse and broken it on. When you move to the next floor, or choose one via the elevator, the floor names appear as a list with a square to the left and a border around both. The background behind the floor number will change from blue to yellow to denote the curse is lifted from that floor and the square to the left will show an animated image of the object the floor was designed to look like once it is filled in.
Now, let's talk gameplay! The RPG is your standard Hit Points, Damage, Defense, and Level can all rise with Experience gained. Random encounters make power leveling possible, which is nice. However, the combat is both real time and slightly turn-based. With the L-Button or the D-pad you can raise a shield to block attacks. Y and B both swing your partner's weapon vertically to attack a single enemy at a time. A and X swinging horizontally to attack every enemy on the screen at once. It really reminds me of classic Dragon Quest games where the whip hits all enemies but swords hit only one. If you perform what most games would call a Perfect Guard by raising your shield just as the attack connects, a series of button presses will display on-screen. Hit them all in order from left to right before the timer expires and you will deal massive damage to that enemy. This is known as a Special Power. Each of the ladies has a different quirk. The Whipper is easiest to use as no matter how many enemies you want to always do a horizontal swing for your attack as she will always output more damage that way. The Archer excels at picking enemies off one at a time, but I still do horizontal attacks until only one enemy is left with no problem. the Sorceress is pretty useless to me as she has the lowest damage regardless of what attack she does; her area is the Special Power, which I haven't noticed the damage being much better with her. Whenever you level up your health refills as well as each floor has a fountain on it that allows you to fully restore your HP seemingly as many times as you wish. You can also flee - or try to - but I haven't needed to.
Each enemy has a different attack pattern and you will want to figure out the timing for raising your shield in order to survive. Your partner cannot attack while your shield is up and visa versa. Also, there is a meter for how often as well as how much damage your attack will do. On the lower right of the screen you get a gauge that fills. Once filled you can attack for your maximum damage, anything less will result in damage based on the amount filled at the time.
You can find whips, shields, bows, and wands as well as flasks to fill with water and refill your health with hidden on some floors. I like how each one looks and behaves slightly differently. I found a whip that the description read as having a fire-based attack and whenever I do a horizontal attack with it a burst of fire hits each enemy after the initial swing animation has ended.
The graphics are mixed between 8-bit sprite pixels for the maps, Anime-esque art for the 3 women, CG for the dungeon and your shield, and what appears to be cell shading for enemies. The 3D effect REALLY shines during combat and the depth while exploring the dungeon is beautiful. There is one monster type based on a chair - yes as in you sit on it - and whenever it attacks with a forward bite, the 3D visual always amazes me. The animation is so smooth that I really feel as though a cartoon chair is biting at ME rather than the character I play as.
The sounds are also mixed. Music is decent quality and changes often enough to not get annoyed by it, and sound effects have that 8-bit choppiness to them which actually seems fitting.
When you get stuck on a floor while trying to solve a puzzle, you can end up leveling three or more levels on that floor. Early on this may seem absurdly broken as I was level eleven on floor seven and took no damage even when not blocking with my shield. Now I am on floor nineteen and am level twenty-two and I take more damage than I would like. The reason being the enemies seem to jump rather than gradually get harder. I went from obtaining twenty-six to ninety EXP on one floor to gaining one-hundred fifty or more on each enemy on the next. Suddenly I went from killing every enemy on screen with my Archer's horizontal attack to her doing a third of an enemy's damage with her single one-on-one attack.
All-in-all, with the promised sixty plus floors, sometimes drastically hard puzzles, intriguing storyline, unique gameplay, and brilliant visual effects you can't go wrong with Picdun 2: Witch's Curse! It is a five dollar game available on the Nintendo eShop that is well worth ten or more dollars for all it has to offer.
I give this game a score of 9 out of 10 because I reserve 10s for truly breathtaking games and hey, for five bucks you can't ask for more!
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