Where Sakura Dungeon Succeeds

Demon Master Chris’s Combat System

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VP is health, AP is stamina; You only ever need 1 VP but your current AP represents your ability to dodge; keeping AP high is important to survival



Guard command lets you use AP to temporarily boost dodge in the short term, while Recover command lets you recover AP for later usage but temporarily decreases dodge; Guard/Recover duality means that defensive play has meaningful choice and means that paying attention to the enemy is important



Read your opponent, learn their general rhythm, then try to anticipate it to dodge their attacks and exploit their attempt to Recover



Attacks against low AP characters turn into Critical Hits, which also cause clothing damage; naked characters lose all VP regen and thus can be taken down with ease



Random encounters remain legitimate threats unless you are absolutely positively ridiculously overleveled



Bosses absolutely must be outwitted and stripped in order to reasonably defeat them

Sakura Dungeon’s Simplications, Changes to DMC’s System

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Sakura Dungeon replaces Guard/Recover duality with a single, one-dimensional command that simply restores AP with no downside or other effect, thus removing the rock-paper-scissors triangle of Recover->Guard->Attack->Recover for an overly simple continuum of "be defensive<-->attack more"



Dodge gain from high AP reduced, attacks are more accurate in general: now the majority of all attacks hit their targets without having to consider the target's own AP, meaning random encounters become boring and routine extremely quickly



Critical Hits now far less dependent on AP state of target; attacks on low AP targets not guaranteed to crit, while high AP targets can sometimes still be crit anyways



Less predictable nature of Critical Hits mainly serves to surprise and annoy the player, instead of directly rewarding you for playing well or punishing you for making mistakes



Stripping to eliminate regen mechanic simplified; changes rhythm of boss fights entirely, turns bosses into statchecks rather than actual thinking challenges; devs outright encourage the player to simply grind to prepare for bosses, rather than rethink their strategy or try different approaches



CP/Flow system that Sakura Dungeon introduced feels snowbally without adding very much interaction with the opponent; since bosses have been turned into statchecks, CP/Flow system only serves to reinforce the mindless, boring "strategy" of "grind until you can beat the boss lol"



Where DMC plays like a fighting game with thinking forward and counterplay, Sakura Dungeon plays like a SNES-era Final Fantasy title where you just attack through random encounters and bosses alike repeatedly to eventually take them down at length

Holy tl;dr Batman

On October 31, 2013, a dungeon-crawling game known as Demon Master Chris was released. On May 31, 2016, its spiritual successor, Sakura Dungeon, was initially released on Nutaku, the version of which I have played for many hours already. (It’s why I have next to no time played on the Steam version, which I have purchased purely to leave this review. Yes, I care that much.) Now that it’s out on Steam, I can leave a more visible review of it here.I have played and replayed Demon Master Chris for some triple-digit hours., on the highest difficulty no less. Unfortunately, I’m finding that the more I play Sakura Dungeon, the more it makes me want to put it down and instead boot up Demon Master Chris once again.Firstly, let’s not sell Sakura Dungeon short where it inarguably surpasses Demon Master Chris. The artist has noticeably improved in the three years between the games, and the music and SFX are of much higher quality. Frankly, I think the plot might even be a little better; I enjoy the personalities of the main protagonists more.My problem is that at heart, I’m a tryhard and a grognard who likes to delve deep into the inner mechanics of games. Just what is the game engine like underneath Sakura Dungeon’s new, sleek, and shiny chassis? What got tweaked from DMC that had me finding myself wanting to play the older version instead? In order to make a fair comparison and highlight the minor but important differences, I’ll have to explain DMC’s original system in more depth.Too long for Steam. Read the wall here:Sparknotes:Still too long for Steam. Read the longform here:Moar sparknotes:I will honestly praise the art, music, and overall aesthetic polish that are all a step above what’s in Demon Master Chris. For all that I’ve vomited about how the internal mechanics are RUINED FOREVER(tm), the game plays out as a respectable turn-based RPG in its own right; I have not yet encountered any major bugs or obviously unintended game imbalances or exploits. I will also continue playing Sakura Dungeon to its completion, exploring the CP system a bit more, as well as replaying it on a lower difficulty; my views on the game may change and if they do I will revisit this review.But as far as I can tell right now,(Note: Demon Master Chris isn’t on Steam, for obvious reasons. Google it yourself. You’re an adult on the internet, you should know how. At least I hope you’re an adult.)