@Play: Torneko’s Mystery Dungeon Finally Localized Into English

‘@Play‘ is a frequently-appearing column which discusses the history, present, and future of the roguelike dungeon exploring genre. Due to other things going on I haven’t done a recap of the recent Nintendo Directs, but there was one thing mentioned that was extremely relevant to this blog: at long last, Square Enix has released a localization of the first Mystery Dungeon game into English. Here’s a trailer. (2 minutes) I’ve represented this game before as Taloon’s Great Adventure, and it’s long had a fan translation. Now it has an official way to play it, though it seems like Spike Chunsoft had nothing to do with this recreation. The play seems mechanically very similar to the original, just with much sharper graphics. The characters and monsters are still represented using the original 2D pixel art, just presented in 3D dungeons. Title screen There are a few modern Mystery Dungeon niceties, like a bar showing progress towards the next experience level and an on-screen display for…