The Dark Spire is a first-person dungeon crawler centered around exploration and turn-based combat. You start from the first floor of a huge tower, with an empty map and vulnerable characters, and get to slowly strengthen your party, complete cryptic quests, and clear each of the differently-themed floors. Though I dropped it a bit less than 3 floors away from completion, I found this game really hit an addictive stride for over a dozen hours. Its constant flow of medium- and long-term goals almost always made me want to make one more big run back into the tower.

Many players would likely consider one aspect or another of this game to be a deal-breaker. You'll need to grind, especially at the start and at a few later difficulty spikes. Many quests require either endless poking around or use of a guide. You'll have to uncover the map tile-by-tile, and use a limited spell to see where you even are on it. There is a large amount of backtracking through environments that can feel samey. And being D&D-based, there are dice rolls governing everything that can go very wrong for you at any time.

I found that most of these limitations made the game more rewarding rather than frustrating. I felt like I got to really learn to navigate the maze-like areas, shaped my party in ways that mattered, and actually accomplished and earned something even on "fetch quests". Even just making it back to town from a long trip into the tower felt huge sometimes, as did unlocking much-appreciated shortcuts. The rough edges of randomness were also made palatable by a pretty friendly save system that saved me several times.

One problem that led me to eventually drop this game is the combat, which is fun and strategic in theory, but has a painfully slow pace. Particularly in battles against 10+ enemies, the amount of text boxes you have to skip through can be ridiculous. The tedium is really felt at that 10-15 hour range when it's time to stop and grind for a bit. Even early on, though, you'll go entire turns where neither you nor the enemy even land a hit, which really drags on.

The interface as a whole is quite clunky and hard to use, making basic repetitive operations take too long. The fact that this dual-screened DS game based on exploration makes you hit a button to pause and open the map every time is a big annoyance, too. Like, just put it on the bottom screen. To sum it up, the game in many ways could use some streamlining, and its pacing suffers as a result. That pacing is already a bit off, anyway, as it has you spend too much time getting your bearings on the plain 1st floor and start area of 2nd floor before heading off to cooler upper areas.

Still, I liked how the game developed as it went on and how I felt more and more confident as my characters gained more and more abilities and stats. The areas get more interesting in their themes and objectives and visual design, and there are little tiny bits of story that are cool as well. Most of the story, though, is player-driven. It's one of those games where the most memorable moments weren't scripted, and in that sense it succeeds as a role-playing adventure.

This game is worth trying for anyone interested in a truly old-school-inspired RPG adventure. Just for your own sanity, save often, make sure to get the best gear possible, and probably have a GameFAQs tab open while you play... A game like this, but with a better pace and more streamlined combat (maybe even just straight-up action combat like King's Field, idk), interface, progression, etc. would probably suit me even better.