For context, I played it on PC for 77 hours including the post-game content which I presumed to be obligatory to complete. I highly recommend to use a gamepad or other controllers instead of K+M controls because support is bad in the ported version.

Now, to start with: Undernaut: Labyrinth of Yomi is a first person dungeon crawler at first, then a horror game second. To my surprise, the game remarkably managed to show the correct way to set an ominous tone and a gritty narrative of a sick and twisted world with the story pulling-no-punches when it's required which I personally absolutely enjoyed. You, as the main protagonist will be subjected to numerous morally dubious acts to survive under the whims of otherworldly beings whether you want to or not. And adding to that, the somber visual style captures perfectly the way the story should be told. And I simply adore the art directions and representations of the characters in-game such as the Mad King and The Divine Child which are highly unique and full of depth. Different from the other games, ULoY is a reverse-isekai game where the world takes place in Yomi Ward - Japan during the Showa period. It's a very interesting take on the trope and one I thoroughly enjoyed.

For the gameplay section, you have the freedom of choice to role-play as either Male or Female MC, as well as choosing a multitude of charming portraits for your subordinates with the ability to add backstories and backgrounds for the full immersion. You have 8 classes to choose from, with each diverging into Specialized and Comprehensive jobs. In my opinion, Experience Inc had done a wonderful job of not overpowering one class to another, instead adding great complimentary skills i.e buffs that lasts until returning to base, withstanding K.O etc. Not to mention, fine-tuning the equipment system such as weapons, armors, and accessories having elements of diversity to effectively and efficiently killing enemies and dungeon-crawling.

Obviously, there are two gameplay elements that greatly shaped my entire playthrough. The first being the "Flowers" mechanic to build ladders, bridges, fast-travelling and much more to progress in-game, connecting shortcuts or finding secrets. It's very interactive and simple in design but contributes extremely well for the overall dungeon puzzles in the game. Next is the "Switch Boost" mechanic during battles, allowing you to select 3 wonderful benefits such as "No skill consumption", "Damage halved & HP recovery", and "First initiative + raised accuracy and evasion" to maximize your strategy. There's also the added benefit of speeding through battles if you want to which is a plus for me.

There's also the "Talk System" where you could either Talk, Attack or Use Item to glean information and lore of the game as well as multiple-choices in the dialogues that implies your MC as being money-loving or having a dry sense of humor. Earning money is not a problem in this game, since you will be selling quite a lot of items and junks (which I did) that you could use to upgrade equipment, buy flowers and create items. It's a neat thing to have, that's for sure.

As for the music direction, there's quite a number of reused tracks from Experience Inc's older games such as from Stranger of Sword City which while I appreciate they're being used effectively, I hate that they didn't have much variety and lacking impact in certain areas of the game. Though admittedly, I have found myself quite fond of the Mad King's theme and Kenji Yazawa's "Namennayo!" as well as certain bosses and dungeon themes.

Speaking of variety, the dungeon and enemies designs quality compared to other Experience Inc's DRPGs are somewhat lackluster. Lackluster is an understatement, they really do pales in comparison to Demon's Gaze and SoSC in terms of innovation and atmospheric sense. Whether they have the lack of production values which you could definitely notice since the game doesn't even offer voice-acting or simple battle cries for your party or being simply plain lazy I don't know.

For the main cast, I'd say they are amazingly done with great personalities, no cap. Hanba is your self-centered supervisor, grounded in nature but kind nonetheless. President Kaori is your money-loving mysterious female supervisor, a very cool one at that. The Divine Child is...your main driving purpose in the entire section of the game, at least from my perspective. Her presence and representations are very emotional, depressing and tragic. Which ties very well with the Mad King with his grand delusional obsession to his dream that makes her life a total suffering. The Cyborg, my personal favorite, is your reality-check being made form. I love them all though, really digging their art styles and backstories.

Though some of their flavor text including the equipment and dialogues hint of their world spiritually connected to Demon's Gaze, SoSc, SoSW and so forth which is a pleasure to know. But ULoY is a standalone game with its own self-contained story, so you don't need to play older titles to understand the plot.

Overall, while I'm happy I got to enjoy this game and invest in its world, I do think Experience Inc should've ported with good K+M support, charge a well-deserved price tag instead of ripping their consumer off as well as implementing prime QOL updates i.e permanent SAVE OPTIONS so I could save and backtracking my choices or place in game, fixing text that's not running their usual lines going outside the text box and adding simple battle cries to your party (like they used to do in past titles).

I paid, played and enjoyed it immensely. ULoY is a game that you should not skip if you're a fan of DRPG since the story is a true gem in this genre, however niche it is. Paying a premium price (60$) for a game that's not triple AAA quality is my way of supporting the devs, but for those interested to play do not follow my example and wait for a sale or something.

Onto my closing thoughts, I truly think Experience Inc. have great potential, and I wish more quality DRPG games from them while maintaining the same dark narrative they are known for. Overall a solid DRPG experience 8.9/10.

From what I've seen so far the game is pretty enjoyable. I had one game-stopping bug that was fixed pretty fast by the dev team, but otherwise it's an entirely bugfree experience. Since this is a console port, the ideal controls are via a gamepad, though keyboard controls are possible as well.

Like most proper dungeon crawlers you can create a party of 6 fully customizable characters, explore a dungeon with more of a horror vibe than fantasy, go around, kill monsters, collect resources to open new paths (there's a mechanic where you need special items to create doors, ladders and other environmental elements to progress in the game), talk to NPCs and explore the dungeon.

It's nothing you haven't seen elsewhere and so far the difficulty is pretty easy, but what sells the game to me is the mood and atmosphere which makes this one stand out from all the other crawlers on Steam. And if you have a gamepad the GUI is very intuitive and makes for an overall pleasant experience. The automap is also nice, though it lacks the ability to mark anything or make notes.

Recommended for those who don't mind an easy dungeon crawler and are looking for something different than generic fantasy.

I feel like I haven't played enough to give a truly detailed review, but this is a very niche genre that I greatly enjoy and I want to support it any way I can.

It's a first person dungeon crawler with very old school sensibilities. It's a genre that absolutely isn't for everyone, but I personally enjoy it, and I'm very happy to have gotten this game. Additionally the game has a strong sense of atmosphere and visual style, a welcome bonus.

I said it's old school, but I want to clarify that doesn't necessarily mean it's an ULTRA-DIFFICULT game that shows NO MERCY with ZERO HANDHOLDING! So far actually losing has proven pretty difficult (that may change in the future). Rather it's difficult in a very different way. I remember booting up this game, making my way through the beginning, and being briefly paralyzed at the sight of the game's spreadsheet-esque item and character stats. It's the kind of thing that can be intimidating, but it's a level of complexity I really enjoy in these sorts of games.

Most of you know whether you like a game like this or not. It's an extremely mechanically old school dungeon crawler, which is not a common genre of game, but it has its supporters. I'll throw some quick asides of unique things in this game:

At the start of every turn you can give your entire party a buff. These buffs generally boost offense, defense, or action speed. Buffs regenerate between fights, and slowly over the course of a single battle, but only when you don't buff. There's some finesse in the order of how you use these.

The dungeon itself is modifable via the use of magic flowers. These modifications mostly allow forward progress, or the generation of shortcuts, or help you find secrets. You unlock new flowers over the course of the game, and while simple, they're pretty dang neat.

Your party is highly customizable, with plenty of options for starting builds, visual appearance, and even lets you type your own backstory for characters. Good for people who like to RP the games they play, and adds a bit of interesting flavor text for folks like me.

You can craft almost any item you find in the game, provided you can gather the necessary fun-money from the dungeon. There's a pretty basic upgrade system for items as well, which is neat. Prevents you from having to fiddle around too much with random drops and lets you get exactly what you want for your build.

Hanba's flavor text is very good

Some buyer beware issues

This game is a port to PC and it very obviously was made for this platform second. There's no mouse support, and the game doesn't play well on the keyboard. I would *strongly* advise the use of a controller. Some people have reported graphical issues, I personally haven't had these and I don't know how common they are.

The price is 60$, standard for any triple AAA game while clearly not having AAA production quality. My personal thoughts on this is that I've already gotten more enjoyment out of this title than most AAA games I've played as production value doesn't necessarily correlate to quality. Additionally this is an extremely niche genre, and while production values aren't AAA they aren't exactly cheap either, I recognize they probably have to charge this much to have any chance of making even okay money on this project.

I'm okay paying a premium for a decently produced experience that's hyper-catered to me, I could understand someone else not feeling the same way

Those are my thoughts, I personally am deeply enjoying this game and I'm very happy it got made. I really hope the devs find success with this title, and that they continue to go on to do great work in the future

From the prolonged life and death struggle to survive in the hostile environs of a blockaded mining complex, cut off from any form of outside assistance; to performing - under duress - morally dubious acts to sate the whims of otherworldly beings to whom life and the living have no intrinsic worth; to the expectation from your corporate superiors that, even under threat of - and after experiencing - pain of death, you will continue to operate your day to day routine mining spirit electricity so that your company's board members can post record profits and justify their seven figure bonuses and six month vacations in unnamed tax havens; Undernauts reveals itself to be a fantastical metaphor for the everyday situation for many of its players, that of the constant and unspeakable pressure of attempting to carve a living from the ossified, crumbling husk that is the modern day Gig Economy.

Like this post to petition Yomi-Noo to release a Spicy Red Seafood flavor.

Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi, originally released as 黄泉ヲ裂ク華 (Yomi Wo Saku Hana), is a turn-based first-person dungeon crawler (DRPG/blobber), but with modern quality-of-life features that make it more forgiving and less wasteful of your time.

Mechanically, this is a polished and streamlined DRPG experience that serves well as an introduction to the genre, as well as a more relaxing experience for old-school fans. Specifically, it offers:

• Auto-mapping: Not that special, but nice to have.
  
• Auto-walking to places via the map: Very nice and modern. The route avoids hazard tiles whenever possible while still reaching the destination. The walking is sped up (faster than you could move normally). You can still hit random encounters en route; auto-walking resumes once you're out of them.
  
• No character permadeath: They're knocked unconscious and can be revived at base for a fee. It's still possible to hit a Game Over, but at least you don't lose hours of character investment.
  
• Free re-speccing and re-assignment of stat points: Extremely generous. This is where I feel the game respects the player's time. You can adapt to new tactical demands without having to farm up new characters.
  
• Quick animation-skipping and command repeat in battles: Each turn, you can choose whether to step through move-by-move normally, or just skip all the text and animations. If you do need to grind, this makes it extremely efficient.

The game also has an interesting Boost system that adds another tactical layer to the combat. Arguably, it makes the battles easier by giving you tools to tilt things in your favour.

Don't get me wrong - it's still a challenging game. The challenge comes from the player's decision-making rather than from any archaically punishing mechanics.

Where the game really shines, though, is in its visual presentation and theme: Undernauts is set in an alt-history 1970s Japan steeped in supernatural horror and bleak salaryman culture. The surreality of trying to maintain corporate normalcy in the face of grotesque monsters and horrific bloodbaths lends a dark humour to the setting, and I love it.

However, there are bad parts. The devs who ported this game from the PS4 made a couple of contentious decisions:

• Not adding mouse support: This is a deal-breaker for some players. Personally, I played this game entirely on the keyboard and quite enjoyed it; no wrist strain, and I get to keep both hands on the keyboard so my actions feel fluid and efficient. I honestly didn't even notice the lack of mouse input until I saw it pointed out by others. (I'm sure I'm in the minority, though.) This being a console game, the gamepad control scheme is decently laid out, if you prefer to stay off the keyboard.
  
• Keeping the console-style text input: There's no defending this. Any time you're prompted to enter any text, you're thrown into a fullscreen UI with just a giant text field and label. Sure, this is how console games do text input because they don't normally have keyboards, but it's inexcusable on a PC. (It's exceptionally bad when editing characters' 4-line biographical blurbs: each line is its own text field, you edit them one at a time without being able to see the other lines, they're limited to 50 characters per line, and there is no visible character count. I immediately gave up on customising any of the names and blurbs. At least the defaults are good.)

The game is still receiving updates at the time of this writing, and the devs seem responsive to issue reports in the forums. I have slim hopes of them ever adding mouse support or a proper text input system, since those would require huge changes. Despite that, I still enjoy this game as-is and hope that more people will discover and enjoy it, too.

The best Experience game on Steam. It's a conglomeration of their games. And, possibly their most accessible. Nearly all the sounds are from Stranger of Sword City, there's even characters you can even use. There's a story; It makes sense, it's explained well enough, and it's not convoluted. Music is top notch as always as well. Exploration is standard first person DC fare. You walk in grids and your map fills in. However, to make things non-standard, Experience added hidden doors and the like, that can be accessed with Yomi Flowers (something that you can craft). This kind of encourages exploring every block. And, the mechanic is unique like SoSC's hiding and SoSW's bait. Oh, yes... there's also crafting, leveling up skills, and tons of gear. Too bad there's no VA. If you're familiar with games like Etrian Odyssey, Labyrinth of Refrain, SoSC, Demons Gaze, and Saviors of Sapphire Wings... combat-wise, that's what you're getting. You create a party consisting of 6 members (from 10 or so classes) and dungeon crawl for loot (and to progress, obviously).

Pros:
Enemies have animations and are not just static images (something new to Experience games)
Auto move (Experience staple) - open the map and set a place you want to walk to (as long as you've been there)
Default is not so grindy - though you can make it as grindy as you want
Great art as usual
Switch boost is interesting

Cons:
No res past 1080p
Some portraits look lower than 1080p
Combat does not auto progress (seems to be an Experience thing) - you have to press a button to progress each character turn (or you can use Fast, which uses the last command for all characters - only recommend this when finishing off enemies).
My previous saves did not back up, but you should be able to find them here and back them up manually just in case.
C:\Users\"your user profile with no quotes"\AppData\LocalLow\Aksys Games\Undernauts_ Labyrinth of Yomi\Save

But, let's be honest, it's not going to sell at $60. None of their games are priced at this level. $40 would be max IMO, but seeing how good dungeon crawlers don't come around very often, and Experience keeps pumping them out, I'd pay $60 to keep these coming. I still recommend this, but you may want to wait for a sale.

Its impossible for me to recommend a wizardry style Dungeon RPG at AAA prices that doesn't even have something as very basic as mouse support. Avoid without a very good sale.

Like a lot of folks on here, after getting through a chunk of the game, I can recommend Undernauts wholeheartedly ... for fans of the genre.

If you're NOT one such (and, let's be honest, very few people are these days - even after Grimrock, grid based DRPGS have very limited appeal in The West), and you're curious about trying it out, this game IS a very accessible example of its kind (with a few simple but well implemented quality of life features that cut down on the usual sadomasochism in the genre, and a comparatively gentle difficulty curve to the battles and resource management mechanics overall), so it's not a bad place to start if you really don't care about the price ... But if you do, well, that could turn out to be one costly experiment, as these are often slow burns in the beginning, and you're unlikely to get a good assessment within the refund window.

So unless you're a big time Dungeon-Head, I'd either wait for a sale (if one ever comes) or start with some classics that are cheaper or even free. I mean, I am not gonna tell you to go emulate Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux for the 3DS ... but ... you know, that is something some people could do ... otherwise, if you are lucky enough to own a 3Ds, you can get the game and play it as Glob intended. And if you don't own a 3DS, you can still emulate legally by purchasing a physical copy, I believe, off of ebay or whatnot. It'd still be cheaper than this game (for now). Look, I am not a lawyer ... I'm just using SMT Strange Journey as the example, because if you're not a grid based, first person dungeon crawler fan, but are curious, chances are that you've at least played Persona and whatnot ... Strange Journeys is very much ... not Persona, but it does have Jack Frost and, like, bufu, and what have you in there, so you might feel more familiar. And in my opinion it's not the most difficult game in the world (not easy either, but hardly soul crushing).

If you're NOT a huge dungeon-head, but are determined to spend the big moneys, just be aware. While this has a "Triple-A" price tag, it is not a Triple-A game ... the reason it can get away with this price tag is that there are comparatively so few games of this kind being made that the huge dungeon-heads like myself will pay full price without complaining too much.

Now, I have no love for any specific company or corporation. I reserve my love for humans and animals. But to defend the suits at this particular company, as well as a few similar ones, this price tag is honestly (if perhaps sadly) justifiable and to be expected in a situation where there is both limited supply and limited demand. It's basically an enthusiast market. These games aren't technical marvels (quite to the contrary) and they don't have massive budgets, but they also aren't easy to design well and cannot promise huge returns on investment. You're going to get repetitive reused textures, pretty "meh" graphic and UI design, palette swapped monsters, no voice acting, and basic visual novel style presentation. And you're gonna pay Elden Ring launch prices out the nose for it, probably even a few years down the line. That's just how it be. And, like, it's not that it's intentionally trying to look "retro." This is literally just what it is.

If anything, while I would prefer not to pay that amount, I honestly kind of understand and can appreciate a comparatively specialized company sticking to its guns like that. When you have fewer potential buyers you can't afford to undercharge and then make it up in volume ... if you don't charge a certain amount, you don't make a profit. If you don't make a profit, you don't make any more games. It sucks, but its also basic economics. The more niche a thing, the more it costs.

In this particular case, I don't know all the details, and my instincts are telling me that this game might be a BIT overpriced even factoring in all the above. It's a bit of a delicate balance between price gouging and just plain charging what you need to sustain a genre of limited appeal. There's a company in the tabletop RPG space that charges 100 bucks ... for a PDF of their game, and I am honestly not nearly as chill with that, because I happen to know that market and know that they could, if they wanted, get at least four buyers, if not more, at 25 bucks for every one buyer they'd get for the 100 bucks ... I mean, 25 bucks for a TTRPG pdf is something people spend. A full hundo? You have to not merely be an enthusiast but fall into the very narrow band of being too poor to afford the physical copy for 200 bucks, but somehow rolling in enough disposable income to spend half that amount on a gosh darned file. It still baffles me. That said, video gamers are, on average, an even more persnickety lot that tabletop gamers. so while in tabletop getting 4 sales at the 25 price point per sale is honestly more viable that one sale at 100, in this situation I suspect it breaks down much more along the lines of the 50 people who WILL buy the thing, no matter what, and everyone else, who WON'T buy it no matter how cheap you make it.

But at the end of the day, in the immortal words of Leonard Nimoy, "everything is worth what it's purchaser will pay for it." I am not an economist ... so, you know, it is what it is ... I dunno. I don't regret the purchase, because I knew what I was getting into and it has met all of my specific expectations and scratched all of the itches I so desperately need scratched. But if you're not an addict, blowing a chunk of your paycheck on a fix of The Good Good Stuff doesn't make a ton of sense.

So, if you are a fellow enjoyer of this particular brand of distraction from the dawning realization that our entire civilization is slowly slouching towards the most banal and vicious apocalypses imaginable, you already know what this is. It's a Wizardry clone. The writing is nice. The dungeons are well designed. The loop and the grind are both there. It's anime as heck, and while it does have a modern day Japan setting, technically, the story heavily skews towards fantasy. It's no Strange Journey or even Labyrinth of Refrain (that one is still top of my Japanese DRPG list of the past few years, and is still being sold at what many would consider a "Double-A" launch price, with very rare sales dropping it closer to 18 bucks), but it's gonna give you what you need, baby, that good, good dungeon juice, that sweet, sweet grid crawling, lo-fi, repetitive, numbing action. Oh yeah ...

Do you like old school Wizardry? Do you wish it had modern day conveniences like automapping, resurrections, teleports, quick travel and quick combat? Are you okay with a game that takes a bit of time to get going, but is a really smooth experience once it gets going? (about 30 minutes to get your party up and running).

If you like old school dungeon crawlers, but don't want one that's insanely difficult because you didn't 100% min-max your party or know all the over powered race/class combos, this is a good one. It will punish you if you get sloppy. It has room for error at the lower levels. It builds on itself.

The sole downside is the price. It's steep, but you're probably getting 30-60 hours out of this if you play all the way through and that's pretty much par for the course. It's good, it's fun if you like the playstyle and honestly the controller set up is really solid and I don't even mind that it doesn't have good keyboard support.

It does need a "quit game" function that closes the game. That's just an oversight.

Imagine Etrian Odyssey in a world set similar to Solo Leveling manga/anime (commercialisation of resources extracted in dungeons) and with very dark overtone. The storytelling is deep, immersive and engaging, makes me want to explore further not just to gain levels and loot, but also to uncover the mysteries of Yomi.