Answering Your Questions | The Crawl

[@BladeBlur]

Glad to be a new subscriber and gonna support you on your future endeavors

[@TheCrawl]

Thanks, Daniel! I appreciate the support 🙂

[@Ashenbubs]

Grats on the subscriber milestone mate! I’m so sorry you had issues with your video footage, but I’m so glad you salvaged your audio! I can’t imagine how much of a pain that was. Here’s to many more milestones soon mate! Keep up the incredible work~

[@TheCrawl]

Heyyy, thanks buddy :) I always appreciate the support

[@HPRshredder]

This puts my mind at ease. Finally; my questions are answered. Looking forward to your future projects. Excellent tips on getting into the industry btw

[@TheCrawl]

I am glad I could dispell the mysteries surrounding my enigmatic persona 😂

[@mischa3343]

Grats on the 1k! Now you're like past 1.5k! Haha the thumbnail shows your handsome face then my heart sank when you said your footage got corrupted. Amazing answers, such a rich video with so many good points. And thanks for answering my question! Filled my heart with joy hearing your answers. Love your taste in games, and love your balanced, thoughtful tone and the way you discuss games. Here's to more subs and people finding your channel. Lookin' forward to more of your vids! Playing as Tau in a 40k dungeon crawler would be sick.

[@rocketshipevan]

Great list of favorite games! I'll add Arx Fatalis, Dungeon Master (still very playable IMO), SMT Strange Journey, Might and Magic 6 (or any between 4-7). Congratulations on 1000 subs!

[@TheCrawl]

Damn good list of games! Arx Fatalis is incredible, and SMT SR is in my top 3 SMT games for sure. As for dungeon master, have you played or heard of Dungeon Master Nexus? It's a japan-only Saturn game, but it's awesome and very playable with a guide.

[@rocketshipevan]

@@TheCrawl Oh, cool! I have come across it once but couldnt find much info on it at the time. I will look it up! What are your other favorite SMT titles? I have only played II, III and SJ... and the offshoots DDS I and Persona I and II. I really need to try out more of the handhelds, I just dont like playing that way.

[@TheCrawl]

Along with Strange Journey and SMT 3 Nocturne, I really like both Soul Hackers games, both DDS, and SMT V as well. I also like most of the Persona games, with P3 Fes as my favorite of those.

[@YourFriendJacob]

This was a wonderful Q&A! That really covered so much and I appreciate you answering my questions. I'm looking forward to future videos from you and I think your idea of possibly making a video about the realities of being a games journalist sounds like a fascinating one!

[@TheCrawl]

Thanks, man! I'm glad you enjoyed it and appreciate you watching :) I'm excited to share more about my next big video projects, might have to chat about some of them with you behind the scenes 😉

[@gordonfenn7373]

Congrats on the milestone! This has inspired me to talk to Robert about Hitoshi Sakimoto this evening. Keep up the good work!

[@CAGEMETAL]

I love this video in background for drawing for some reason, it's soothing

[@Ziondood]

Keep those fun discussions going man! 😊

[@TheCrawl]

Thanks, buddy ♥️

[@rocketshipevan]

Im playing Undernauts right now and absolutely loving it. Reminds me of a mix between SMT Strange Journey and an old Wizardry game. Great atmospheric music, very thematic with this construction worker/salary man thing going on. And I think my favorite thing that dungeon crawler can do, is that feeling of being trapped. You might have a safe home base but you are stuck in this world and the only way out is forward. I have avoided any reviews on Soul Hackers 2, cant wait to play it!

[@TheCrawl]

I 100% agree about the feeling of being "trapped." The sense of feeling stuck then fighting tooth and nail to find safety or just eek out a path forward is what I love about the DRPG loop.

[@themidnightaristocrat]

Seeing footage of the upcoming Warhammer 40K game "Boltgun" made me consider a 40K style dungeon crawler. The art style is amazing, I want to get it just to analyse the levels!

[@TheCrawl]

Woah, I hadn't seen Boltgun before your comment. It looks awesome!

[@HPRshredder]

3 months and you're almost at 2k!

[@Scarcheeze]

I hope you can negotiate the enemy and become ally just like the smt series. it will be awesome.

[@ty-xq7bl]

I would really like to know your opinion on how the DRPG genre can improve, it seems so rigid with new releases how can the genre improve? Why don't more DRPGs use procedural generation for their levels?

[@TheCrawl]

Oh man, both excellent questions! I'll start with *How the DRPG genre can improve:* I think the biggest thing DRPGs need to do is to experiment with different combat styles and RPG systems. And to a lesser extent, try new settings, art styles, and story ideas. If you look at some of the most popular DRPGs of the last several years, they're all super unique takes on the genre even if they stick to the core design philosphy. For examples: -Dungeon Encounters uses a unique Active Time Battle system mixed with a really interesting take on armor/HP and attack-type weaknesses, plus a novel graphical presentation, making it easily my favorite DRPG of the last several years. -Severed has a brilliant and vibrant art style, and a combat system based on gesture controls and timing where you attack specific enemy body parts to deal damage. -Star Crawlers and Vaporum gained wider popularity by going for different settings/art styles (space sci-fi and steampunk, respectively) compared to the standard medieval/high fantasy of many DRPGs. -Zanki Zero also broke out of the normal DRPG niche thanks to its tropical post-apocalyptic setting, real-time combat, survival mechanics, and anime-inspired visual novel gameplay (The fact its made by the Dangonronpa folks also helped, tbf). -And MegaTen is arguably the most popular DRPG series because it's constantly trying new combat ideas and world settings, and experiments with different ways to present the dungeons and world. Soul Hackers 2 may have received average scores, but it's a really great DRPG that evolves the genre without sacrificing the core dungeon crawl experience. SMTV's open world zones might seem like a major departure, but they're structured very similarly to dungeons (plus it still has a few giant dungeons later in the game). And Persona might not seem like a DRPG, but it's still rooted in old-school dungeon crawling. That said, part of why DRPGs are so niche is because their adherence to old-school ideas is part of why people play them. Games like Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and The Elder Scrolls might come from DRPG backgrounds and may even inspire some players to try out the turn-based, grid-based stuff, but those gameplay ideas simply aren't as universally enjoyed as action-adventure RPGs where you freely roam open worlds. On the other hand, as more RPGs move to action combat, streamline their roleplaying systems, and try to reduce the overall difficulty, fans of hardcore RPGs to appeal to wider audiences, indie DRPGs and old-school RPGs in general tend to hold onto those rigid gameplay systems that are missing from mainstream games. That's great for fans of the genre who want to grind and explore challenging dungeons, but I still think it's possible for DRPGs to grow even with their highly-specific focus. *As for procedural generation:* plenty of first-person DRPGs do use randomized dungeons! It's not as common as hand-crafted floors, however, since many DRPGs are trying to tell a story with its environments and level design. By contrast, many roguelike RPGs are more mechanics-driven and want each run to feel different, so randomized levels make more sense. Plus, it's just really fun to hand-craft bespoke dungeon layouts as a designer, as opposed to letting proc-gen do it all for you. It's also easier to get lost in a first-person game than a top-down or side-scrolling game like, say, Mystery Dungeon or Chasm. But even with those caveats, plenty of first-person DRPGs use randomized dungeons. Star Crawlers and Gloomgrave are good examples, as are the Wizardry Summoner games on GBA.

[@ty-xq7bl]

@@TheCrawl This man knows his DRPGs! Was not expecting such a detailed response. I used to enjoy or maybe tolerate DRPGs. Etrian Odyssey and SMT. Not sure if persona 3/4 counts. Nowadays I can't really bring myself to play them, part of the reason may be because the menus or the gameplay being repetitive. Also in terms of turn based combat, I prefer slay the spire style combat more where the tools you have are random every turn but how you use them and the results are completely in your control. In old school DRPGs, you can't control who the AI will choose to attack or whether or the outcome of the attack which makes it seem unfair. Another reason is the perspective gives me headaches for some reason but I also have this feeling with boomer shooters. Used to be able to play them fine. I also do gamedev in my spare time and always have the itch to make a DRPG and remove all of the things that put me off about the genre but also keep the things I like about it, managing resources/survival and decision making. The truth is that it's a huge undertaking to make something that feels fair and replayable. I think this is where roguelike deckbuilders shine and to me they are the new type of dungeon crawler/turn based game. You still have to weigh the odds but it always feels fair.

[@213jibberjabber]

One of my favorite Dungeon Crawlers that changed gameplay up was the Genesis version of Madou Monogatari, all the battles were real time, with you doing your magic attacks with Motion inputs. If you got proficient enough at it, you were able to deal a lot of damage at enemies before they were able to attack you.

[@alexandermckay9521]

34:20 Soul Hackers 2 music

[@TheCrawl]

You know it 😉

[@alexandermckay9521]

@@TheCrawl 😸

[@thomasffrench3639]

38:38 so what you’re saying is that critics don’t care about mechanics (what the game actually is) and focus way more on the presentation/set dressing? That can’t be, I thought they were game critics, not visual design critics. Jokes aside, it does seem annoying that critics will downplay a game’s mechanics and design which is the artistry of games, and instead focus on the more surface level elements. Like I get that they were trained on writing, but if you are talking about video games, you need to understand how mechanics work, because that’s the main reason people play games.

[@haz8984]

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