DISCLAIMER: NIS America sent us a review unit for us to check out on our Steam Deck. This review may contain minor spoilers.
Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society
Welcome to the Labyrinth of Galleria, a dangerous maze filled with valuable magical trinkets. You take on the role of the Lanterne de Fantasmagorie or "Fantie” for short, a wandering spirit sealed within a lantern. You're assisted by your spirit medium, Eureka De Soleil, as well as the resident witch, Madame Marta. Your objective is simple: explore the labyrinth, search for the Curios D’Arts, and, of course, try not to die.
If you have never played a Dungeon Crawler RPG, the concept is fairly simple. You explore a dungeon in the first person, and every action takes up a turn. Navigating the labyrinth is not an easy task, as there are various obstacles in your way, some of which can be lethal to your party. As you progress, you will learn new abilities to help you traverse the environment.
That's why you have a brigade, a mini army, at your disposal. Every character you bring into combat is created by you, and this is the game's main draw: character customization and growth.
Your various characters are customizable in almost every aspect, from appearance to personality traits, which affect their stats, aptitudes, and other aspects within the game. You can also choose their starting facets (their classes) and skills. Getting into the details of the character creation system would take an entire video, but suffice it to say that it's a strong aspect of the game. As you progress, you unlock more options, including new facets.
In Labyrinth of Galleria, there are multiple avenues for making your puppets more powerful. Aside from leveling up your characters, you can find more powerful equipment within the labyrinth. The items have rarities, and higher rarity items have a chance of getting prefixes. Any facet can use any weapon you give them, but each has a preferred weapon type. There is also a feature later in the game that you can unlock to exponentially increase the character permutations. Of course, to make full use of the system, you will need to grind, but grinding in pursuit of the perfect character is nothing new.
That's only half of your witch brigade, however. Your other half is your soul pacts, which are just as important as your units. You control five covens, and each coven can have its own soul pact. The soul pacts govern everything, from the number of characters in your witch brigade to their donum, or special skills, stat bonuses or penalties, etc. All of this makes for a highly customizable party that is unique to you.
Combat in Labyrinth of Galleria is straightforward in a typical turn-based JRPG fashion. You can attack, defend, use special skills, and some facets have special innate abilities, such as the Shinomashira's ability to do multiple attacks in one turn. The game features a system known as Gore Hits. There are critical hits, but sometimes those critical hits could become Gore Hits, which do a significant amount of damage even to bosses.
However, you can also be gored, potentially losing a limb and taking significant damage. Losing a limb also means losing a portion of your maximum health and access to the equipment in that limb. In the worst-case scenario, you may get decapitated, resulting in instant death and unable to revive until you repair the character at the base.
The enemies in the game have various attacks, weaknesses, and react differently based on the player's character's personality type. Roaming mini bosses are far more powerful than normal enemies, so it's advised to avoid them until you're powerful enough to fight. The game can be difficult, especially in the beginning, and it's possible to wander into areas with higher level enemies.
The game has an auto save feature, but it's better to have a backup save. You should also keep any items classified as “loot”, as they're necessary for side quests. The game’s art style and soundtrack is nothing short of amazing. Harada Takehito (of Disgaea fame) really nails the art design, though at times it does belie the somewhat dark nature of the story.
The story starts out light-hearted but becomes darker as you progress. It explores mature themes and has unexpected twists and turns. It raises more and more questions, especially around the halfway point (or potentially 1/3rd point). However you slowly begin to get more answers to the story and it pays off. A true catharsis factor. A lot of the story is told through dialogue and is more of a reading experience, so be prepared to do alot of reading.
You and me both, Nachiroux.Labyrinth of Galleria is a great game for fans of Dungeon Crawler RPGs and is improved in almost every aspect compared to Labyrinth of Refrain. It runs smoothly on the Steam Deck with no issues. The game isn't graphically demanding, so it can be run at 60 FPS, but 30 FPS is also acceptable as the game isn't reflex-based.
- 60FPS / 60hz Refresh Rate
- 5W TDP
- GPU Clock 600mhz
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