Developed by: MicroBird Games
2023 was a monumental year for generational video games, with GOTY contenders released every couple of months. Personally, to me, 2024 isn’t quite living up to the high standards of last year, with big releases being few and far between. So, now’s as good a time as any for clearing some of my ever-growing backlog or playing something remotely interesting on GamePass or PS Extra.
That’s where Dungeons of Hinterberg came about, a game I wasn’t aware of until my brother mentioned it was a game he was interested in. I had one look at the screenshots on the Xbox store and knew right away it’d be up my alley.
Right away I’m caught by the art style, a low-poly cel shade that while simple, uses bold outlines to make it pop. To my knowledge, cel-shaded games seem to be a thing of the past. It's a timeless style that when used right, never ages. Games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which hasn’t aged a day in the 20 years since its release. Even a more recent game, Hi-fi Rush, has such a cool Saturday morning vibe going with its cel-shading that I know it’ll be still fresh in 20 years time.
You are Luisa – a lawyer, burnt out by mundane life and bored of the 9 to 5. Looking for some excitement in your life you venture to Hinterberg, a snowy Austrian resort village. The once quiet, humble place is now a bustling tourist attraction, thanks to the catastrophe that happened years before when the power of magic and portals to dungeons suddenly appeared.
Now tourists come from all over the world, including your character too, to conquer the 25 dungeons. These dungeons are scattered across 4 reasonably sized biomes. Portals to these dungeons are hidden all over the place, including some out of reach physically and others which are above your current level that you’ll know to tackle later on in this 13+ hour adventure. Each of the biomes has about 6 or so dungeons scattered about and themed to fit within the locale, which I really liked.
Most of these dungeons take about 20/30 minutes to beat, which is just the right length too. While most don’t overstay their welcome, a handful I did grow impatient with, due to how long they drew out a simple puzzle solution that I knew the answer to right away. This made me try to forcibly speed through the over-padded execution with a few techniques such as rolling off ladders that weren’t so high up to skip out the long animation of Luisa grabbing the ladder slowly and being oh-so careful while descending. If it looked like a reasonable height for me to skip it entirely by essentially falling off, then so be it. But I soon found out that Luisa’s tolerance to fall damage is comically small, even if it was like 2ft, she bailed out dead.
Whenever you enter a biome, you’re given an intro cutscene that pans over the entire area and hints at points of interest. All 4 of them vary stylistically from each other, boasting wood forests, ice mountains and rainy swamps. Progression is non-linear, but each time you enter a locale for the first time you have to seek out the skill shrine. You’re usually led right to it and don’t need to spend any time wondering where to go. These skills are power-ups unique to that location. In the first biome you encounter – Doberkogel - the first power-up is a bomb that’s pretty self-explanatory with its use. The other is a ball and chain that helps yank certain walkways closer. The cool thing Dungeons of Hinterberg does is use these power-ups within the overworld and all the dungeons in it. It reminds me a lot of the older Zelda games, before the newer open-world Switch ones. It takes the idea of basing a whole dungeon around a single-use item but improves on that by not making the item obsolete by the end of said dungeon. You’ll be using the same items over and over in the 6 or so dungeons within a locale in new and exciting ways but with some on-the-nose uses that please puzzle lovers regardless.
Strolling around town I did notice a cool visual flair, regardless of whether it was a technical limitation or stylistic choice, NPCs in the distance are coloured grey and characters close by are in full colour. A subtle, yet pleasing trick that really helped sell the bustling nature of the village.
Going about your business and not following the golden path, you’ll most definitely come across signposts that are coloured like hazards, showing numerous enemies. These are tough fights, if you’re not equipped correctly for these fights, you’ll likely be defeated in one shot. Even if you have perfected the dodge roll, these monsters are sponges and fights can be prolonged.
One of the issues I have with the game can be seen as a negative or a positive, depending on who you ask. The puzzles are very straightforward. None of the 25 dungeons stumped me for long, even if the room was big with loads of contraptions and gadgets. The solution is so on the nose simple. I know it won’t be the same for everyone, but it does seem like an obvious design choice to make the puzzles not challenging to the point some players will lose interest.
That said, certain dungeons are a joy. There’s an early one that has you riding a minecart and changing the tracks while avoiding enemies on other carts and one later that has you grinding through the sky while skimming past small planets that’s very reminiscent of Super Mario Galaxy.
While dungeon crawling and solving puzzles take a good amount of the runtime up, the other half and probably the bigger half is the endless battles against enemies. Called Kobolds, these mythical apparition-like creatures are plain in design and for a game with so much combat, I was disappointed by the lack of variation of them.
Combat is serviceable, controlling Luisa is very slippery and there’s no weight to her attacks. There's no block or parry, having to dodge incoming attacks with a stamina-eating roll. You can stagger enemies with enough pressure but the way to tackle battles is just waiting for an enemy’s cooldown on a move and punishing, rinse and repeat. They do try and add other layers to combat with special moves called ‘attack conduits’. You can mix and match up to three at a time and they all vary in practicality. It reminds me a lot of the combat systems the modern God of War games have going for them, a basic light and heavy attack with flashy specials that you’re eager for the cooldown to let you use again.
Rumble in games has been a standard since its first inclusion about 25 years ago, this game is no different. A weird choice and a personal small nitpick was how it's used everywhere but in combat. The more I played the game the more I thought about it, with no rumble to indicate weapon feedback or even being hit. A game so reliant on combat being a major pillar of what makes up the fabric of Dungeons of Hinterberg, I lost all immersion and interest in most fights as paired with the floatiness of Luisa, it just felt flat.
Even though I’d class Dungeons of Hinterberg mostly as an RPG, there’s no traditional levelling through EXP. It’s done through how good your equipment is, based on 2 stats, attack and defence. Simple enough for anyone to understand, upgrading gear can be done in two ways, buying at a store in the main hub or looting chests. To boost your stats even further you can pin charms to your gear, these charms add sub-abilities, some increase attack or your MP gauge but there are unique ones that add abit of flair to combat, like one that when you time a frame perfect dodge, you’re rewarded with a slowdown effect, much like many character action games nowadays.
Days play out in cycles much like they do in the RPG series, Persona. During the morning you’ll be having daily chatter with friends about what’s occurring in Hinterberg, Tourists talking about how lively and rewarding it is to be here and older townsfolk who have lived here for generations, hating the publicity magic has brought the town and wanting it to go back to how it was. Your afternoon is spent exploring the locales for dungeons and evenings are entirely up to you with how you spend them. This is where the biggest Persona like attributes come from, the social links. There are about a dozen or so NPC’s you can befriend, By dedicating time to hang out you’re rewarded with stat boosts. Very similar to charms, boosting attack, defence or MP. Most of the NPC’s are fellow dungeon dwellers, you’ll see them about in the overworlds. Another reward for getting friendlier with the townsfolk is their usefulness in tackling dungeons, a few will accompany you through. Someone that’s able to clean gooped armour to boost the stats back up and while I never found the right person to help, there’s someone that’ll help you open special locked chests.
The social stats are split into amusement, relaxation, renown and familiarity. Everything you do in the game earns social stats, hanging out with certain people boosts particular ones, completing dungeons does another and spending free time to yourself does others. You’ll have snobby stubborn hunters turning a blind eye to you until you have enough renown, as the game has milestones you need to reach with certain stats to talk to a few folk. None of them really add any value to the story or your experience but there’s one guy called Travis, a seasoned slayer, who you’ll see in dungeons and around town who’s keen about knowing of your experiences. This did make me emotionally attached to a couple of the cast with how supportive and kind they were towards you.
At the end of every day, you return to your dorm. You have a choice of going straight to bed, either staying up watching the local TV or reading a novel. Staying up past a reasonable time rewards you with stat buffs but punishes you the next day with 25% less health as you’re exhausted, it makes you think carefully about whether the risk of over-exerting one evening is worth the harder challenge in the dungeons the next day.
When you do rest your head, an on-screen tally chart comes up with stats of everything you’ve achieved in the day gone. Friendships grown, dungeons finished, and monsters beaten. You’ll get a decent amount of money from looting chests, but the majority and bigger cut will come from the end-of-day reports.
For a game I had no preconceived opinions on I was pleasantly surprised with Dungeons of Hinterberg. Even though it's an indie-made game, it felt like a double AA release that you would’ve seen in the PS3/360 era, I mean this as a compliment. Almost matches the many games it borrows influences from but falls short with flat boring combat. It’s a lengthy experience that borders on overstaying its welcome, but when played in intervals can be a delight with some fantastic puzzle design and a sense of wonder in the varied biomes. If you have Xbox GamePass and are at all interested in Zelda-like/puzzle-focused games, then Dungeons of Hinterberg is worth a pop at the very least.
Platform: Xbox Series S
Hours to beat: 14
Pros:
Variety of dungeons
Artstyle
Useful Power-ups
Cons:
Flat combat
Shallow social aspects
Monster design
Rating: 7/10
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