Brave Dungeon + Dark Witch Story: Combat

Genre: Compilation / Top-Down Dungeon Crawler / Turn Based RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Brave Dungeon + Dark Witch Story: Combat, released on the Nintendo Switch in 2017 and ported to PC in 2021, is a Compilation of the two named games: Brave Dungeon, which was previously released separately on Nintendo 3DS earlier the same year in 2017, and Dark Witch Story: Combat, which as far as I can tell is only available in this bundle. I should note that while both of these games seem to be extremely loosely connected to the Legend of the Dark Witch series of Action-Platformers, neither of these games plays at all like those titles.

Here is what I thought of both of the games in this collection:

Game	Genre	# of Players	Grade
Brave Dungeon	Top-Down Dungeon Crawler / Turn-Based JRPG	1	C+
tl;dr Despite being an extremely simple and repetitive Dungeon Crawler, there’s a lot to like about Brave Dungeon. It’s very grind-heavy, yes, but it’s fun to grind with some interesting upgrade mechanics and an equipment-crafting system. If you’re looking for an RPG to turn your brain off and just fight in repetitive battles, this is surprisingly enjoyable. But at the same time, this means that those seeking complex and engaging combat will not find it here.
Dark Witch Story: Combat	RPG / Misc.	1	D
tl;dr This game is presented like a Card RPG, but it doesn’t play like one. Instead, you have a game that basically plays itself, with the player given extremely minimal opportunity to interact with the game. All you can do is grind for improved stats, and then cross your fingers and hope this leads to better outcomes in battle. In short, this game is terrible, don’t play it.

Clearly, between these two games, Brave Dungeon is the better of the two by a long shot. Both games are extremely grind-heavy, but Brave Dungeon is a game that actually entices me with its grind, while Dark Witch Story: Combat seems to offer nothing of any value for me to do other than watch and hope that all my grinding results in a win.

It makes sense why these two games were paired together – both games share many of the same assets, the same well-animated pixel art monsters and nice hand-drawn backgrounds. I’ll note that Brave Dungeon’s character artwork seems much higher-resolution than in the Nintendo 3DS version of the game too. And for the soundtrack, this game uses some appropriate energetic music, but I caught at least one theme that I recognized from one of the $2 Nintendo 3DS eShop games, which has me thinking that this game’s music is either purchased from an asset store or pulled from public domain.

Here’s the thing, though… despite all the corners this package cuts, despite how shallow and grindy it is, I could almost forgive it for all of this, just because I do find Brave Dungeon a pretty enjoyable game despite all this. The problem is, this release is priced at $9, nearly twice the cost of Brave Dungeon on Nintendo 3DS. We’re being asked to pay nearly twice as much so we can be forced to get a crap game tossed in with a good one.

Is Brave Dungeon + Dark Witch Story: Combat worth it after all that? Ehh… honestly, if you’re looking for a Top-Down Dungeon Crawler, you do have better options on Nintendo Switch, and even if none are quite as inexpensive as this one, I think you’re better off spending the $11 extra to get Crown Trick, Tangledeep, or one of the Voice of Cards games. All of those are much more well-crafted and high-effort affairs than what you’ll find in Brave Dungeon… and you won’t be stuck buying the terrible Dark Witch Story: Combat along with it.

tl;dr – Brave Dungeon + Dark Witch Story: Combat pairs the simple but surprisingly compelling Dungeon Crawler, Brave Dungeon, with the terrible self-playing RPG with a card aesthetic, Dark Witch Story: Combat. As much as I enjoy Brave Dungeon, I feel like the $9 price of this package is bloated due to the inclusion of an additional, terrible game. And at that point, you might as well spend another $11 to get one of the multiple other, much better, Top-Down Dungeon Crawlers on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: C-

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