The Denpa Men 3: The Rise of Digitoll

Genre: Top-Down Turn-Based Monster Collecting JRPG

Players: 1, Online Content Sharing, StreetPass Support

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Review:

The Denpa Men 3, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2014, is very similar to its two predecessors on the Nintendo 3DS. As such, much of this review will be copied over from the review of the first game and second game, although this game does have a few changes and additions that I will note here.

Like the first two games, The Denpa Men 3 is… odd. This is a JRPG whose closest point of reference (other than its predecessors) would likely be the Find Mii games, with a hint of Pokemon-style Monster Collecting as well. The monsters in question? Tiny floating, colorful, bodysuit-clad men. Picture the character Tingle from the Legend of Zelda series and you have the right idea.

This game has the premise that our world is filled by these little Denpa Men, invisible to our naked eye, and gathering around Wi-Fi hotspots (the game generates them based on the Wi-Fi device’s MAC address). One of the first things players will do when playing this game is to use the Nintendo 3DS’s camera to scan the area around them to look for the little guys and catch them. Different Denpa Men gather near different Wi-Fi locations, and the game encourages you to try searching for them in multiple locations to catch a wide variety.

The catching is done by aiming the camera at them to fire a net, giving this game a small real-time element, although thankfully players can attempt this as much as they want without penalty, other than the frustration and tedium of your desired catch fading away before you can snag them and being forced to wait until they randomly appear again.

The Denpa Men themselves look a lot like Mii characters due to their simple design. They’re not Miis (which seems odd to me – it would have been a good use of the feature), but they could easily be mistaken for them. As such, they are simple, cartoony characters that aren’t visually impressive, though they do have a lot of personality. It seems that this time around the world around them has finally found a way to be visually appealing without clashing with the primitive look of the Denpa Men themselves, going for a look that combines simple shapes and bright colors with more nuance and detail to it, similar to the direction the art style for the Animal Crossing series went… only wackier. The soundtrack this time also ditches the more odd sounds of the prior games for something more melodic, though it’s still not very memorable.

The story this time is once again disposable, having you trying to rescue the childhood friend of your first Denpa Man (possibly the same one you started the first or second game with if you import your profile). There’s not really much to this story, but the plot is clearly not the point here.

As I indicated earlier, players are encouraged to gather a wide array of Denpa Men to be able to form diverse parties, and particularly to have the flexibility to build parties that are best suited for each new area they venture into. Different Denpa Men have varied strengths and weaknesses, as well as different abilities, and there is clearly a strategy to the game where you’ll want to make sure that a new area with a team that has strong typing against the enemies you’ll be up against.

This isn’t a small issue, either – paying close attention to typing can mean the difference between victory and defeat in this game, although thankfully the difficulty has been lowered a little from the prior two games, which could be extremely unforgiving. However, the limited permadeath from the prior games is still present here – if any of your party get knocked out without being revived before leaving the current dungeon, you’ll lose that character indefinitely… or at least until you can summon them back at a steep price.

Even with the lighter difficulty, Denpa Men 3 is a still game that will have you doing a fair amount of grinding, usually at the start of new areas where you can quickly leave to automatically heal up HP and MP before re-entering the area for more grinding. This game’s turn-based combat is extremely simple (each Denpa Man has at most only one ability and a normal attack), but it uses this simplicity to streamline matters – players can easily complete combat within a few seconds, especially when fighting an inferior enemy – at that point, you can simply have your group gang up on the enemy with a single button-press.

I will note that this is one area that features one of this game’s best improvements over the prior games, and one that fixes a problem from Denpa Men 2. As I’ve stressed in my reviews of these games, the Denpa Men games are at their best when they take advantage of the gameplay’s simplicity by streamlining things and making them quick and effortless. Denpa Men 3 gives players more flexibility in this regard, allowing them to custom equip two “strategies” to their touchscreen menu and face buttons, having them readily available to command all your Denpa men to attack without abilities, focus on healing, or go all-out with magic attacks. There are plenty of new strategies as well, such as using items. Players aren’t stuck with just the two they put on the main screen, either – they can still select the others from a menu.

In fact, Denpa Men 3 fixes virtually all of my biggest complaints about the second game. Another big change is that you can once again automatically heal upon returning to your village, much as you could in the first game. And overall, menus seem better-organized too, and breezing through battles feels a lot more fluid now.

This game isn’t just about fixing the second game’s problems, either. There are new features, such as the ability to decorate your Denpa Men’s houses. This seems like a change that doesn’t really matter so much, but it’s nice that it’s there, all the same. For the main gameplay, there are additional abilities, like the “catch” ability that allows you to channel a “captured” monster’s signature ability. And just to make sure that there’s no question that this is the best game in the series (not counting the mobile games, which I haven’t played), the price dropped back down to $10 after the second game’s price tag expanded to $12.

The Denpa Men 3 still has its issues. It still has a weirdness and simplicity that won’t appeal to everyone. However, by this point, the series has managed to grow into something with more hidden depths, and many of the biggest bumps in the road have largely been smoothed out. If you’re craving for a simple RPG that’s quirky and unique, the Denpa Men series is probably worth a look, and The Denpa Men 3 is the best game in the series on the Nintendo 3DS.

tl;dr – The Denpa Men 3 plays much like the first two games, being an odd Turn-Based Monster-Collecting RPG, where the “monsters” you’re collecting are little floating multicolored bodysuit-wearing men hanging out around real-world Wi-Fi hotspots. This sequel fixes many of the biggest problems of the second game, resulting in an overall better, more streamlined experience. It’s still niche due to its odd presentation and simple gameplay, but if you think you might enjoy a simple, quirky RPG, you should definitely give The Denpa Men 3 a try.

Grade: B-

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