Was it Good? - Deathtrap Dungeon

did you ever play those Choose Your Own Adventure books where you turn to this page to do this or this page to do that well back in 1998 they turned one of the most difficult to Choose Your Own Adventure books into one of the most difficult video games imagine mixing Tomb Raider with dark souls then sprinkling on some old Warhammer fantasy aesthetic creating a third person hack and slash Dungeon Crawler exploration and puzzles combined with a brutally unforgiving combat system against Orcs imps snake women even military style rat men you fight with swords hammers flamethrowers rocket launchers or magic spells a very fantasy steampunk aesthetic avoiding traps and ending in a fight against a Dreadnought made of Ward and steel and then taking down a flying dragon then add in so few save points and so many hidden instant death mechanics you're basically guaranteeing anyone will rage quit before finishing the game and then just for good measure lock the entire game to run at exactly 16 frames a second because physics is tied to frame rate the result of this mess of devious difficult design is Ian Livingston's death trap dungeon now as a game death trap dungeon released and went largely unnoticed by both the audience and the critics it was competing with Titans like Ocarina of Time Baldur's Gate and Metal Gear Solid in the same year it felt a few years behind all of its contemporaries it met with poor sales and middling reviews and most people agree it's too hard to be fun so why am I reviewing it on this channel because this time it's personal a hi I'm Josh drove Hayes and deathtrap dungeon has been my personal Nemesis for the last 25 years when I was a kid I had a PlayStation one and a couple of games for it and I would play all of those games to death if I had a game I would beat it games we now consider Difficult by modern standards Crash Bandicoot Tenchu driver akuji the heartless Heart of Darkness I beat every single game I had accept death trap dungeon as a kid this game terrified me the slow character movements the fast enemy movements the clunky combat the low healthy ominous sounds the quick death the hard save points everything about this game was scary and so as a kid I gave up and so death trap dungeon has sat like a splinter in my mind for the last 25 years the uncompleted game the thing that beat me but not anymore we're gonna go back and I'm gonna finish this stupid game I'm gonna find every mechanic and every secret and beat every boss and then finally after 25 years I can answer a personal question death trap dungeon was it actually any good quick warning this video contains giant spiders and creepy clowns as usual a massive thank you to all the supporters on patreon Twitch and YouTube who keep the channel alive more information on how you can support at the end for now let's begin specifically let's begin with this guy Ian Livingston or to give him his proper title sir Ian Livingston because this guy is genuinely a knight of the realm he received his Knighthood in 2022 for a lifetime of services to the gaming industry and recently he even opened the Livingston Academy for studying game design so what did he do well in 1975 Ian started a small gaming company along with two friends Steve Jackson and John Peake the only real product they had at the time was a monthly newsletter about tabletop wargaming eventually they'd start selling wooden board games the company was called Games Workshop yes fat Games Workshop which now make Warhammer and turns over 300 million a year Ian started this then in 1982 Ian and Steve worked together to write a collection of fantasy books which you could play these became the writing fantasy novels and the first the Warlock of fire Top Mountain sold so well the publisher Penguin Books literally told the pair to write more books as quickly as possible so they did each writing separately to increase output and pretty soon we had Citadel of chaos Forest of Doom city of Thieves and way more most of these books have been turned into playable novels on Steam by the way which I've twitch streamed a few times letting viewers vote on choices so far we have not finished a book because they are incredibly hard but back in the 80s these sold incredibly well and the most popular Story by far was death trap dungeon which would see a small sequel in 1986 called the trial of Champions now death trap dungeon has seen three major cover arts for the book The Original the iconic updated blood Beast and the modern Skeleton on a throne that blood Beast is actually a boss in the game by the way we'll see it later as a story it's a pretty straightforward Dungeon Crawler collect items survive traps kill the dragon perfect material for a video game in 1998 so we got a PC version and a PlayStation 1 version the issue is which version should I play because while they're very similar they do have important differences let's start with the PC version it's available on both good old games and steam although the good old games version is better because that version plays the intro cinematics and the steam version does not I know this because I bought both of them to test both versions also have a bug where only one music track plays on repeat for the whole game the PC will version has longer draw distances than the PlayStation and can load larger areas without needing to hide them between loading screens the PC version also features the level Quarry which does not feature in the PlayStation version however the PlayStation version takes the Quarry assets and spreads them out throughout the other levels but the coolest graphical difference is in the PC version as you take damage your character will show that damage getting covered in blood and dirt or scarred skin if you get burned the PlayStation wasn't powerful enough to show that so the feature was dropped but despite these advantages the PC version is terrible now when I play games to record them I like to play them in windowed mode but death trap dungeon doesn't have any graphics options to run in windowed mode you've got very limited options at all but that's okay you can force steam to open most games in a window except this doesn't work with death trap dungeon so you can go into the any files of the game itself and edit them except you can't because this game doesn't have any files the only thing you can do is use the n-glide wrapper but that just overrides the full screen resolution basically there's no way to play this in a window Beyond using a virtual machine but why is this an issue well it makes capturing footage an absolute nightmare because capture software does not like this game and if you need to alt tab all the time the game will crash often and if you die in the game and you will the entire program will minimize do something random in the background then maximize and reload the level from the start not the previous save you had if you need to reload the save you need to die wait for the level to reload press escape to open the options which lags again then load your previous save from that which is incredibly inefficient combine this with how you can't change the frame rate from 16 frames a second otherwise you'd change the behavior of the enemies and you have one terribly made piece of software so instead we look to the PlayStation version the levels are too big to load at once so you have them broken down into smaller bite-sized chunks which is actually far more playable and the view distance is reduced which gives everything this ominous foreboding Darkness unfortunately there are a few PC enemies which don't appear in the PlayStation version but ultimately the PlayStation version is infinitely more playable and has a slightly better combat system so we'll be playing the PlayStation 1 version but for all you PC purists out there stick around for the end because I do have a special surprise for you it's a little bit of footage from the PC version the bit that I could make work so let's load the game up and watch the intro cinematic Fang a town made famous by its creature infested dungeon from his Hilltop Castle Baron sukumvit designed his Labyrinth of Horrors when it was built he issued an annual challenge to all heroes Brave or foolish enough to wager their souls as a prize survivors would be rewarded in riches beyond their wildest dreams while some adventurers get ready for battle on the eve of the quest others less experienced walk foolishly into battle [Music] all right hahaha [Music] [Music] actually okay townsfolk wait patiently in the taverns hoping that maybe just maybe one day A Champion will rise who can conquer the perilous depths of death trap dungeon so crazy Baron succumbit I didn't appreciate the innuendo when I was a child built a deadly Gauntlet and gives a prize for whoever completes it I can get behind this it's gritty hardcore evil and it was made by a company called Asylum Studios a suitably crazy sounding name I wonder what else they've made well it turns out nothing death trap dungeon was their first and only game but if you do type in Asylum entertainment you can find the Bob the Builder game I don't think these companies are the same company now on a technical level despite releasing two years after Tomb Raider 1 and playing a hell of a lot like Tomb Raider 1 death trap dungeon does not actually use the Tomb Raider engine meaning a lot of development time and money was spent effectively building this from the ground up you've got two characters chain dog a Burly manly leather clad 80s fantasy style Gruff Warrior and Red Lotus a scantily glad latex wearing 80 style Femme Fatale Warrior both of them play exactly the same save for a few different animations but let's focus on Red Lotus because my God the advertising campaigns for this game definitely did when death trap dungeon released they went with a very adult BDSM inspired marketing campaign running print ads in magazines such as heroin kills as in heroin female hero and a two-page spread saying there's only one thing more torturous than playing death trap dungeon not playing it showing a dominatrix standing over a chained guy complete with the developer tagline you've been warned they even had supermodel Kelly Brook cosplaying as Red Lotus at the game's launch event so they were really going for the male demographic here the interesting thing is early images of death trap dungeon in development show it with a blonde male protagonist and Red Lotus was only added around mid-development 1997. one year after the success of Tomb Raider so it's likely they wanted to take the appeal of Lara Croft and make it more fantasy in fact one of the earliest screenshots of red lotus's design shows her in in a metal thong with literally just a chain across her chest so yes Red Lotus is just cashing in on Lara Croft that being said I will be playing as Red Lotus because her hitbox is slightly smaller than chain dog and that will matter when the enemy have lots of ranged attacks each level starts with a short description of the level and a vague list of instructions for how to progress find the key kill the boss mostly just set the tone of the level there's no way to re-access this while you're in the level so just remember what you need to do thankfully it's not hard because all the levels are quite short we start off in the Spire remember the PC version has the level Spire PlayStation has Spire Parts one two three four and five due to the level's size I'll do a quick side by side comparison every now and again just so you can see the differences we start by running into the giant dungeon through a triple set of doors Flags waving as we go and then we've got some Fireballs now in the PlayStation version they are shot horizontally in the PC version they are diagonal so minor changes nothing major so let's go first off are there invisible walls keeping you safe no you can and will fall off Ledges and explode into glorious chunks of viscera that is something we'll look more at in the combat section you'll also get killed by traps like Spike pits swinging blades hidden out of sight overlooking treasure chests chests which are bombs switches which activate flamers arrows ceiling Crushers you'll get knocked off Ledges blown up or turned to stone enemies will also stab slice crush and burn you basically if you've played Dark Souls imagine Sen's Fortress but it's 10 hours long and it's the entire game and it hates you so let's look at the movement walk forward and backward tank controls to turn left and right there's no strafing you can also hold sneak to walk slowly or sidestep and while sneaking you will not fall off Ledges pretty much Tomb Raider so far you can also run and while running this little meter will build up this is your jump meter the longer you run the further you will jump from a standing jump to a gentle run a long leap or a super long front flip jumping from standstill while holding sideways does a little backflip in that direction you can also climb onto Ledges if you're able to jump to them but you cannot grab onto a ledge while jumping so you either to make the full jump or you don't you can't hang from Ledges activating buttons switches or levers is all still similar to Tomb Raider although while Lara grabs them and actually uses them in a good animation you just kind of wave your hand at them in death trap dungeon holding R2 can send you into first person mode useful for exploring you can also fire spells or ranged attacks in first person although you don't have a cross hair so good luck aiming anything very important note while using ranged weapons in first person mode you do not fire from the center of the screen you fire from where the barrel of your gun is so if you're holding a rocket launcher up on your right shoulder you look at something in fire the projectile will appear from the top right of the screen if you're holding the flame length the projectile will appear from the bottom right this does mean in a few rare occasions you cannot shoot around corners even though you can see around the corner throughout levels you'll find items like healing potions buff potions magic spell Scrolls and different weapons we'll look at all of these as we find them so explore climb find switches open doors Journey on the floor crumbles away and we fall deeper in another note you will take small amounts of fall damage even on necessary falls for the critical path of the level so there can actually be moments where you need to fall to progress but doing so would kill you this means death trap dungeon has a ton of places you can soft lock your progress we'll find even more of them soon all levels have certain secret Areas you can find normally walls that can be activated as if they were a button so just run round and mash activate all the time just in case you find a secret after each level you'll get this Doom style recap showing enemies killed items found and secrets discovered so on to Aspire 2. find the switch to raise the cage to activate the lever to escape try and avoid the Orcs each level is essentially a very short puzzle a few enemies and a lot of traps now in the opening Gatehouse we also find our first magic spell Fireball so let's have a quick look at spells and the combat system in general because we're about to be attacked by Orcs And we need to know how to fight the combat system is slightly different from PC to Playstation I'll start with PlayStation because it's better both characters have the same weapons and same attacks you all start with your basic swords you have no armor and no Shield you can however hold R1 to block and you'll block any frontal physical attacks but you can't block Magic ranged weapons or bigger enemies if an enemy hit connects with your block you'll stagger them for a second and that's your time to retaliate and strike if you hit an enemy you will often stagger them meaning you can stun lock enemies into a death cycle death trap dungeon actually has directional attacks and the hitboxes of each attack are mapped pretty well to the weapon itself meaning different strikes work on different size enemies if you hold eggs you'll just stab forward keep holding and you'll do a four-stab combo with the final hit being a bit stronger the stab has the longest range and is the most useful attack if while holding extra stab you also hold up on the d-pad you'll switch to an overhead hack which is slower but hits way harder holding left or right while attacking switches to horizontal wider strikes less damage but a broader range and finally holding backwards will slice behind you the backward slice is actually a deceptively powerful attack because it hits quicker the problem is you can only hit enemies that are behind you and you can only block stuff that's in front of you so ideally you never want to be using this so you've got some variety in the attacks a basic block and stagger system the problem with this is every single time you take damage you will be staggered and knocked back no matter how much damage it is you have no Poise and you can be stun locked into endless damage especially if fighting two or more enemies honestly in death trap dungeon taking down two or more is a real challenge because you get bounced around like a pinball and cannot avoid damage there's no roll so the combat system despite having some good ideas block and ripass directional attacks is so clunky and unresponsive it is a chore to use you've got an arsenal of other weapons both melee and range but we'll look at those when we find them on Playstation you press select to open the menu which also pauses the game and you can then cycle through your stuff on PC these menus are cycled through with the F keys and you cannot pause while browsing them along with the weapons you've got potions and spells potions are collected and then used from the menu not bound to a hotkey health potions are interesting Beach restores 15 health and if you pick up a health potion while on 85 health or less you'll instantly use it you can only effectively collect them if you couldn't use them efficiently these are vital then you've got antidotes which cure poison strength potions which increase your melee damage for a short time speed which increases your run the charm of icy cool which negates all fire damage for five minutes a warding potion which effectively acts as a physical Shield absorbing physical damage until it's depleted and an anti-magic potion which negates all magical damage if you're lucky you'll also find the secret invisibility potion which is amazing because enemies stop attacking you while you're invisible one issue here is apart from health potions you can only hold five of each of these and when you use one you have no idea how long its effect is remaining there's no on-screen timer now for spells on the PlayStation select them from a list and that binds them to L1 on PC you just have the spell hot bar open spell scrolls are single use and you have no Mana bar so cast as many as you have your most basic is Fireball big damage nice and simple Main problem with the combat system is there's no hard lock on there's only a soft temporary short range lock on which you can't control so if you're blocking or attacking you might be adjusting as the enemies run around and your spells only ever fire forward making it very easy to miss so back to the Orcs block them hack them to bits literally every enemy is made of sections and your attacks based on the direction will remove sections and this is a lovely touch this door needs a silver key shown by the silver skull icon around the edge each level has three keys silver red and gold you'll notice the keys down here in the corner you'll also see a chalk arrow on the floor pointing the way these arrows are always good and they do not trick you and now we meet the imps possibly the most annoying enemy in the game and that is saying something imps are fast they don't do much damage alone but in a group they will shred your health they run around giggle they Moon you and then attack with little Forks the issue here is they're short and if they're close to you your attacks will go over their head so always use wide slashes you'll also notice on this first level everything dies in one hit but enemies even the same enemies get tougher later in the game nice and early we've got moving platforms time those jumps fall and you will die and then this lovely moment call the lift by pulling the switch which drops bombs onto the orc killing it showing us both traps can kill enemies and bombs are dangerous that's a nice touch but then traps go back to being sneaky and this war moves and blasts you with Fireballs death trap dungeon is very much a game of trial and error you'll survive if you already know how to survive but lovely touch here when an enemy explodes within a confined area blood and gore will stick to the walls and ceilings dripping down that is a beautiful graphical touch now while chain dog and Red Lotus do play pretty much identically the graphical flourishes are different and I do appreciate the very extra way that Red Lotus front flips while climbing up a ledge by now you'll be fighting not with the enemies but with the camera you cannot manually control it but you can go into first person view whenever and then leave and the camera will try try to Center itself behind you that's very janky but it's just about workable it's kind of this awkward combination between static cinematic cameras like Resident Evil and actual following third person camera and it's never in the right place sometimes you'll open doors or flip switches and get a sneaky view of Secrets somewhere like this gun but you've got no way to reach it don't worry if you do miss something the only Advantage is getting items early you'll never fully miss something raise the cage flip the switch and the blocks around the room shift into Giant Steps which is very cool and now we have spiders spiders poison you and poison Stacks up to three times and for every second you'll take one damage per poison stack antidotes will cure all Stacks currently on you but if you get poisoned and you don't have an antidote you are now a dead man walking you will die because poison doesn't drop off so finish the level before that happens this leads to an automated platforming section jumping from and to these moving squares and you have to make every jump except this one don't make this one because this is a trap and it will lower you back down to the ground got this game hates the players now interesting point this section is in the PlayStation version but not the PC version and I think it's one of the best sections it's a shame this is not on PC but we reached the end and enter the third Spire we get told to avoid the automatons because you can't kill them and find the Venom sword now how do you save because you don't actually save between levels on either version to save you must find a white floating skull thankfully these are unlimited saves unlike tomb Raider's crystals but while exploring you might also find some gold coins if you find a red save skull you must pay five coins per save and there are only about 50 coins in the whole game so use these very sparingly I do like how you can see your character model looking at the enemy automatons as they go past that's nice these enemies are called nakaras they are unkillable so just run past them and despite being fantasy death trap dungeon is very heavily steampunk with robots steam power and gunpowder also skulls skulls everywhere get in this lift and see how that pressure gauge starts to build when we're at the top leave the lift quickly or get burned by a flamethrower and you now know pressure gauge means fire this area is slightly different on PC it's bigger and it has imps while the PlayStation version has fire pits where you drop some blocks using some switches and eventually find the Venom sword now quick quiz what do you think the Venom sword does maybe it does poison damage wrong what a silly thing to think the Venom sword actually does extra damage against poisonous enemies in fact it does so much extra damage it's kind of essential to have for the next bit we will very soon see how effective this is but remember all special swords have a limited life every hit wears them down and when they are close to being degraded you'll get a red flashing warning on the screen once it's broken just go and find another so how important is it to find these well the regular sword takes 15 to 20 hits to kill one of the snake girls the Venom sword takes three flames on imps on a seesaw and into Spire 4 layer of the snake girls we open on a wooden walkway guarded by swinging blades attacked by an Amazon warrior in red underwear hang on snakes swinging blades walkways this is just the opening of Sen's Fortress there is no way that this wasn't inspiration for Dark Souls we fight into the crusher room and finally meet the snake girls they're fast they're poisonous and they have flails meaning even if you block an attack they may have dodged out of the range of your retaliation thankfully those massive Crusher traps work on the enemies too so just lure the snakes under those you'll be fine in this extremely decorated room seriously I think they went a bit too hard on the textures here I finally find the Warhammer a permanent weapon which is rubbish it's slow it has no Combos and it has shorter range the only time you will ever use this is when fighting the two scorpion automatons on the last level look one fight takes me to six hit points because I get bounced around between damage you make one mistake in death trap dungeon and you are staggering yourself into death group fights are incredibly dangerous I do however love the jumping level design of most of the levels backtracking into new passages and new routes with keys ending up where you began and then diving deeper depth up dungeon does have solid level design into the Labyrinth go to open the door and no door only fire this is the moment when the designers were like okay they've completed the Spire they've had their fun now kill the player at every opportunity the Labyrinth level is timed you'll hear five Chimes as you play and after the fifth chime a load of minotaurs will spawn so play quickly minotaurs can be killed but they're big and powerful and even if you successfully block their attack you will still take one or two damage look if this game ever gets a remake I know it won't but if it does please for the love of God sort the wall textures out a horde of imps not a problem for my new spell razor spell it flings a bunch of daggers out in a fan in front of you very effective against fast-moving stuff you'll also discover pretty quickly that if you're someone who likes to hoard items and not use them you'll die death trap dungeon gives you stuff to use if you have a spell or a potion you will need to use it pretty soon flying through the Labyrinth and spot the Blunderbuss goddamn I want that gun right now as soon as you get Firepower the whole thing gets very very very slightly easier find a magic Warhammer another limited use item and the only weapon which can kill the magical Rock Golems so don't use this until you find them however on the PlayStation version The Quarry level is missing so you only meet about two Rock golems in the whole game which can be easily avoided grab the gold key find the door and onto Labyrinth 2 golems and Alchemists important note your health carries from stage to stage and level to level so if you end with low Health you'll start with low health and save points are not always at the end or start of a level often they're in the middle after a big fight and those fights often have unblockable projectiles so good luck ah the silver sword another limited use item this one does massive damage against Undead soap zombies skeletons animated armor and ghosts in fact it's the only weapon that can hit or block ghosts which is strangely similar to The Cursed way weapons in Dark Souls 1. unfortunately it's around here that enemies discover Firepower and choke points now sometimes you'll find a chest while death drop dungeon doesn't have mimics it does have chests rigged up to Flame Jets or Arrow traps or general explosions so opening them will kill you now credit where it's due most of these traps are visible you can see the flame jet tube above this chest before you open it play close enough attention and you'll often spot dangerous stuff before it happens but not all the time random mechanic as well you do take damage when you fall but you also use health potions as soon as you touch them so falling onto a health potion normally ends up being neutral grab the red key and now things get a bit unfair watch I open this door and boom Arrow trap in my face no warning no Hint by now you're just dodging back after any door or chest and now we meet the crazy Alchemist bomb throwing Rusty saw wielding insane doctors the trick here is to close into melee combat with them fast otherwise their endless bombs will shred your health and when they die move back because they explode I do like the warning Graphics of arrows around the corpse going in and then out to show you the range of the explosion more automatons walking flamethrowers these cute looking little guys are actually deadly if you let them start vomiting flame all over you thankfully you can stun lock them with combo attacks they also explode on death the main danger here is getting close to them without getting burned you know I think the main reason I was so scared of this game and struggled as a kid was my natural lean of playing defensively hanging back looking for an opening avoiding the enemy which kept me in the danger zone of bombs flames and traps but now after years of Dark Souls and Elden ring I've learned the safest place is usually right up in something's face smashing it with a sword using bombs yourself however is tricky you don't have an aimer but you do have a small charge meter at the top when you throw them just make sure you do throw them because no charge just drops them and then you'll blow yourself up in this level on four hit points which is not a great place to be Labyrinth done though welcome to the circle small snakes with creepy clowns killer jugglers and possibly a dinosaur or two and very unnerving circus music foreign I think the evil circus aesthetic is underused in Dark Fantasy and I think this is as far as I ever got as a kid because clowns are creepy enough without trying to kill me now you look a choice of switches don't choose wrong or you'll release a snake girl and likely die also say hello to Giant boot imps these things cannot be killed and will sneak up on you and kick you off Ledges but also pin you in corners and boot you to death so just run away fast the circus level opens up to these Crossroads above the tents in the PC the task is carefully navigate all the tents to find the exit PlayStation's the same but broken into three smaller parts also check out this secret which adds a Teleport to the bottom of an otherwise lethal drop so you can now fall onto the teleporter and survive so momentum is not conserved through teleports you'll start to notice a load of paintings on the wall women writhing around a demon these are the daughters of the Demonic cultists described in the game's manual which actually has a rather detailed breakdown on the history of every enemy in the game oh God I need to open this box but I just know it's going to blow up so I do it oh God it's a Jack In The Box clown face that is so much worse I wish it had blown up this thing is just all kinds of creepy Finnish circus worn into the clown tent along Coral filled with clown art also hidden flame automatons oh it's a fun time at the circus thankfully by now I found the Arc of power spell which is a somewhat homing ball of lightning which explodes and kills up to three close by enemies which is super useful here now this automaton charges down the corridor and kills you if it touches you and you need to run away I'm getting the same Vibe here as the Chariots in Elden ring there is undeniable inspiration on the future of video games in death trap dungeon new enemy Warrior priestessers these angry women throw homing magic at you which bounces around hitting you a few times or close up they will poison you now one at a time they're not an issue because you can block them but two or more you're in trouble thankfully on death they're one of the few enemies who often drop health potions and spells into the Pavilion of horror and with no Venom sword snake enemies take their sweet time to die you'll also be spending more time looking for Secrets such as trying to activate every single wall as a hidden door because health and items are now essential like this chest of supplies oh nope that was a chest of missiles my mistake remember every death means replaying a huge amount of level just to get back here and now a trade-off there's a Venom sword down there I kind of need it but getting it will mean taking full damage now you'll start making small choices is it worth losing health or losing progress just to get better weapons and the answer is always unfortunately yes I'm getting very Soul Reaver Vibes the issue is death trap dungeon has a relatively solid movement and combat system but it doesn't have the fluidity of gameplay to allow the player to really feel that they're mastering that system yes you have a lot of choices and things to do but unfortunately trying to do any of them is clunky and awkward unlike Tomb Raider with its fluid movement and grid-based level design allowing for precision jumps and perfect Landings or Soul Reaver with its fast combat and responsive blocking and dodging death drop dungeon tries to be both of these but ends up being a weaker version of either remember death trap dungeon was teased back in 1996 with the original Tomb Raider but released in 1998 going up against Metal Gear Solid Ocarina of Time gex and the gecko thief the Dark Project and Tomb Raider 3. every design element of death trap dungeon platform in combat exploration stealth was being done better by other games at the time its only selling point was how hard it was and name recognition but most of the difficulty doesn't come from well-designed encounters or long complex levels which allow the player to show Mastery over systems it comes from how awkward the game is to play or how the Steam Reviews put it it's like Dark Souls except instead of fighting enemies you fight the controls and the camera hey look some zombies silver sword it is your time to shine and then we enter the first Pavilion and a clown car arrives and spawns a ton of evil clowns I remember this was the moment that kid me gave up I could never kill all these enemies and you know what adult me gets that too because I die again and again and again this is a brutal fight the sheer number of enemies with ranged attacks means you're taking constant chip damage and being staggered backwards into more chip damage The Pavilions are actually one of the hardest combat Encounters in the game because once an enemy chases you they will not stop and this area is very small the second Pavilion is snake women and the third is zombies both are easier than endless clowns but the fourth and this is another difficulty spike is a pit fiend a very angry dinosaur-like enemy the pit fiend cannot be blocked so no tank and spank it also cannot be pinned or trapped against any scenery and believe me I did try and because you don't have any roles or iframes you can't get close enough to it to hide behind it because it turns faster than you can search can navigate it even if you could its tail is also an attack the pit fiend is here to teach you a lesson that no RPG player likes to learn you need to use your consumables Fireballs razor spells greater razor spells which set a dangerous AOE on the floor and the Blunderbuss if you've found it strength potions speed potions you basically throw everything you've got at this guy and remember dying means reloading now thankfully there is a save point right outside but reloading does take a few seconds and these add up this took me 20 minutes of retrying Dino Boy down circus over into the pit objective find the red sword kill AG rash the demon this is the demon we've seen in pictures with women so it makes sense his Harem of warrior priestesses charges us from the start hey this is a secret area that's pretty cool but if you activate the wall within the secret area you find another secret area kind of like the tree root in Dark Souls 1 leading to the Great Basin behind double fake walls the pit is a shorter level but you'll get more sneak peeks of firearms so death trap dungeon has seven melee weapons and 7 ranged weapons and while ammo is limited for the better range weapons they are devastating when you get them like how you need to fight through waves of snake girls and then a four-armed snake ninja Priestess with ninja claws and dual poison swords but if you do kill them you get the flame Lance a machine gun of tiny explosive Fireballs okay now things are looking up deeper into the pit new objective find Two Bells and ring them to open the way okay I know we've had some coincidental comparisons to Dark Souls but ring Two Bells to open the way is literally the plot of the first half of Dark Souls 1. thankfully there do seem to be fewer flame traps in the up nope never mind they're here they're just hidden better it's around now you'll start to rely on the protective properties of the warding spell unlike time limited potions warding lasts until it's absorbed a set amount of damage so there's no point not casting it just be aware it doesn't carry over between levels and you don't have a counter to show how much Ward you've got left you can also go into first person mode and use the flame Lance to snipe which is extremely useful it's a shame the draw distance isn't longer could have cheesed way more fights like this silver switch more skeletons find both bells and then get very very lost this level is a complex loop it's like three figure eights all joined together with teleporters and ledgers and ringing both Bells opens a wall somewhere but I cannot for the life of me find where it takes a good 15 minutes of searching eventually I find a red key and then the first jump that needs a full run up nice to know they've actually used the jump ranges the next pit section starts by giving you a load of items and that's never a good sign so grab everything and walk into the temple red ragged banners hanging down the musty brick walls this is a gauntlet a spectacle of fights from start to end but hey look jest is this safe no that's an instant kill trap now if you look up you can see this trap and if you find the secret wall you can activate a switch which locks the Trap before it activates and makes the chest safe but I did not see that until afterwards skeletons and snake girls ride up some moving Ledges for more switches and then a problem I have no antidotes and these enemies can poison new on hit so if I get hit I am dead so I need to do this whole section perfectly one hit means a full level restart I do like how this long jump over a pit switches to a cinematic camera lovely touch it feels very much like the opening bit of Devil May Cry 1 where you jump over the horse statue I think death trap dungeon however struggles and sways between wanting to be a cinematic fantasy adventure with the focus on set pieces and spectacle and wanting to be a pure mechanical Dungeon Crawler and fighter with the focus on player control and with the limited Hardware of the time it mixes both quite poorly like how this chest is trapped and activating its switches to another cinematic camera but unlike the jump where you're just watching the motion happen you're still in control here and if you don't move you will die due to the Trap but the quick unexpected camera angle makes moving with tank controls quite tricky also don't fall into this pit if you do both walls will spawn endless lightning spells and you will die pit 4 into the catacombs this huge open spiral tunnel that's quite impressive so I took a peek over the edge and get pushed in by what okay so I got go back and it turns out the walls move right this whole level is just one giant trap I have to say this though regular viewers will know that I love me some vertical design negative space the impressive nature of nothingness and this level does it really well level design may be frustrating but it's very impressive you'll notice a Golden Gate we've not used one of those before we'll see what it's for soon oh good the spiders are back and the zombies too and ah right the gate is a teleporter now this level is a bit nerve-wracking because I think I can jump down a few levels but I'm not sure is this the intended path am I making a mistake but here's a touch I like fall damage is based on the height of the fall and there are very few out of bounds instant death Falls if you could survive a fall even if you land somewhere You're Not Meant To Be You Will Survive so you can potentially cut chunks out of levels oh look at this guy Monday is am I right uh we all feel like a skinned face on a brick wall sometimes Death Pit leap to the door open it surprise it's arrows okay this one got me I know that I praise stacking mechanics but now they've stacked traps together which I have to praise but by hate touche game touche oh a quick note about projectiles like Arrow traps the Blunderbuss or most ranged attacks the projectiles are physical models in the game they have travel time and they can be interacted with if fast enough they're not just animations I like this also in the PC version if you get hit by an arrow trap the arrows will stay stuck into your character which is a very cool effect fight more spiders and all in all great level just the right amount of Challenge and freedom and finally we find the red sword this thing does extra damage against demons and dragons and is vital in taking down the demon boss we're going to find deeper into the pit don't get crushed by the stone blocks also don't go into this door because it's trapped and you'll die you know they've really captured the essence of the old Fighting fantasy books when one wrong choice instantly kills you they just need to capture the essence of ah actually I have my thumb on the last page I'm going to go back that mechanic that'd be great a gaunter to Fireballs skeletons and missiles and this lovely bit sprinting along a ledge just barely ahead of jets of flame actually quite cinematic into pit six we're told there are only two enemies down here problem is they're both pit fiend and we need to kill both of them somehow now I really like this level because you can tell they're trying something different you start on the Rafters and beams above the main area and if you're careful you can walk the whole way staying on the beams there are traps trying to push you off and if you fall down you'll have to fight the pit fans but if you're smart you can grab a load of weapons and items up here and then just rain death on the pit frames from above this is a lot easier than fighting in melee it will however eat all of your items now a secret I didn't discover until later there's actually a trap on this level designed to kill the pit fiends I'll show you that soon once they're both dead explore to your heart's content find Secrets drop into another deeper Arena and get attacked by two forearm ninja snakes but then quickly climb out and shoot them from a distance as well reminds me of that bit in Elden ring where I cheese the two abductive virgins by standing on the Rock and just whipping them I think I'm better at death trap Dungeon Because I've got years of knowing how to beat unfair games finally at the end of the pit and we discover the demon staying at range is a bad idea because they've got Fireballs so run up stick on the red sword and hack away and when the demon eyes they summon another version of themselves what you're meant to be a one-of-a-kind enemy why do you respawn well it's not a problem because it turns out the red sword has exactly enough durability to kill this demon twice and with agrash down we're off to the Belfry this is part of the sunken Castle we start with two switches one surrounded by skulls the other not a reverse psychology I see that would mean the skull lever is the safe one no it was reverse reverse psychology the safe looking lever was actually safe a timed Bridge section and then some new enemies tough nights I could use the silver sword but I want to save that for ghosts a pit full of spiders fun times very few antidotes funner times mostly just pray not to get poisoned this is an interesting room a lift to four chests but the room has pressure gauges around the side and we know this means fire you've only got time to grab one chest and get out thankfully I choose the chest with the ankh a powerful item which instantly gives you 100 hit points and can take you over 100 best item in the game hands down oh the Knights of crossbows now this is fine because that means they suck in melee combat I love this bit you finally enter into a Grand Arena and the camera zooms out but you are still in total control this is a good combination of Epic and cinematic while still being tight and mechanical it's moments like this which raise death trap dungeon from poor to quite decent it's just a shame these moments are few and far between make it to the sunken Gatehouse despite being called sunken there's no water in the game at all kill this Knight and watch out for the War Pigs tiny pigs with bombs strapped to them that will run at anything and blow up doing massive damage but if you can survive them you can pick up a few yourself my notes for this part just read all floor equals trap and yes can confirm from now on in the sunken Castle almost all floor does indeed equal trap fight along the castle ramparts to this tower look simple just jump to the platform in the middle what can go wrong oh right the platform flips every few seconds and throws you to your death of course this puzzle is actually a four-way jumping speed puzzle needing you to activate a couple of switches fast and not miss a jump or importantly over jump and if you do time the jump and land well be quick because the floor you've landed on will crumble and you'll die this is a brutal puzzle and dying here means a long walk back to try again which is a shame because it's a well-designed puzzle it's just frustrating because failure means so much lost progress there was a reason that Eldon ring put save points outside of bosses or very close to difficult bits because it understood that the run back to the difficult bit was not the best gameplay Belfry 3 find three switches we start by falling down but it's okay I'm still alive hey that floor tile looks different maybe that's a lift to get me back to where I was it was not a lift loving the red and gold color scheme and decently placed combat sections here the switches are all behind secret doors which open when everything is dead and we've got a more Egyptian feel going on really pushing the comparisons to Tomb Raider here find all three switches relatively quickly and now we're off to the sewers meaning moss-filled tunnels and the Orcs are back the sewers are a more traditional level just a big maze with switches and enemy is actually quite ambient unfortunately I do need to access a bridge and the enemies have discovered the value of snipers so I Sprint madly across lest I be peppered with Buckshot and Rockets and knocked into a pit of death so as two objective find The Hive this means more tunnels and the ghosts are back and the Orcs get bigger this is a less linear level two switches open the end door but you've got a lot of route to access them and the ending is a pretty cool fake out you run at what you think is the final door but fall through the floor that's a nice trick Welcome to The Hive now death trap dungeon doesn't have a traditional Souls like poison swamp level but if it did this would be it eggs hatch into insects almost everything is poisonous and most things now fly meaning without a lock-on system you're either waiting for things to land or manually aiming which means you can't block the only saving grace is we get the flamethrower now this thing eats through ammo but also does insanely High unavoidable damage to basically everything so use it sparingly but my God please do actually use it lovely touch here chests are replaced with flesh pods which gives items I like when they update the Aesthetics of interactable stuff to match the area you're in Chrono Trigger did this with chests too fight through a ton of insects admire the gooey flashy textures and then accidentally fall down a slope and meet the insect Queen two things here first I like how you can slide down slopes like Tomb Raider and I dislike how much of a damaged sponge this queen is at a distance she spits poison barbs at you and up close she lunges and bites you but the up close attacks very rarely hit I think the character model is being pushed back by the Queen's model and you actually get pushed out of the danger zone so I try to get close but about one in three of my attacks actually hit her you can tell you're hitting an enemy by the spray of red pixels I try every weapon every spell and after 10 minutes of hacking away she is still not dead but I'm out of antidotes so I need to restart the level and then I discover I did it wrong you're not actually meant to fight the queen this way you can but it's a bad idea instead creep around a few more tunnels find a new weapon The Infernal Device which is a slow but powerful rocket launcher then creep up to the room above the Queen the ceiling is covered in stalactites and shooting these sends them plummeting them down onto her there aren't many times you can use the scenery in a battle it's a shame they don't use this design more I critiqued medieval for using mechanics once and then just forgetting them and moving on so it's the same here if you want this to be the tactic of killing a boss or an enemy maybe have parts of the level require you to shoot something to progress so the player knows they can actually do it like in Ocarina of Time you get the slingshot then you have to shoot the eye above the door to open the door teaching the player hey shoot the eye looking things which you then have to do on the boss nice progression bug Queen down into the final part of the sewers the Medusa sisters snake girls who can actually turn you to Stone we're told to fight past them and find the leader of the Orcs a Gluck storm fart that's his actual name love a bit of visual storytelling here stone statues of adventurers who have arrived before you also a hidden Easter egg remember the original blonde-haired design of the main character he's down here as a statue just be aware the stone gaze is a very real risk and you'll instantly die if it hits you the only counter is to use an anti-magic charm an item you should have at least one of by now to completely negate it hack up the Medusa sisters like any other snake girl Venom blade if you have it then finally find the grenade launcher one of the highest damage weapons due to its insane rate of fire just don't get cocky because flame traps do still exist finally find the awkward warlord he's a rather pathetic sorcerer anti-magic charm and hack away no real danger here into the trenches remember the skaven from Warhammer fantasy the rat men with machine guns and artillery yeah you're pretty much storming a skaven military compound rush in take out the foot soldiers then climb out the trench into no man's land and charge across this level feels open and fun there are cannons shooting at you you're up against defensive pillboxes filled with Blunderbuss wielding rat men mortar towers minefields and defensive flamethrowers as a structured Army unfortunately for the ratman The Infernal Device is a really really good weapon with great range and they drop a lot of ammo for it these rats also have a rather amusing habit of blowing themselves up quite often which is the most skaven thing ever this level is three distinct areas The Trenches the fortification and the tunnels below and then there's a key hidden in each of them so find all three open the main door to the base just be careful because the bridge is covered in mines which are hard to spot trench 2 destroy the rat Command Center meaning run through a Minefield Dodge the pill boxes descend into the Warren tunnels below now the tunnels are a tight space filled with mutant ogre rats kind of like minotaurs but faster I love the contrast between the wide open Battlefield above and the claustrophobic Warren below with above being ranged focused and Below being melee this is good design just watch out for the rats with blunderbusses because they will shoot the stacks of TNT and it will blow up and you will die ride up the lifts into the pillboxes overlooking the battlefield until you find a gold switch flip it and that drops the defensive wall into the main base which is heavily fortified with missiles bombs and mines so Dodge your way in climbing side and just wreck everyone I'm feeling slightly more confident with the combat system despite its limitations and having a ward spell helps a lot trench 3 navigate the inner tunnels kill the Rat King this leads to a giant room with a giant rat clearly the guy who makes all of the rules at first this guy's pretty scary but rat meat flamethrower not a problem anymore there are actually two giant rats down here both turned crispy with some thrown flame but in a lovely touch I find two spiked pit traps further in clearly this is an inbuilt way to lure and kill the rats if you don't have any ranged ammo while it's not quite activating the scenery like the salad type bit I do appreciate the design of the level being dangerous itself Rat King himself very easy flanked by an honor guard of a few ogres and a few Gunners if you've got razor spells left shred through everything rat bass stormed into the inverted Castle the longest and most frustrating level inversion is perhaps the most difficult level from PC to Playstation because it's a massive level made of nine Towers all connected by Thin walkways and flying turtles and you need to move from Tower to town are unlocking the route to the center the thin walkways between Towers often have you walking into a gunner or flame toward enemies so sprinting at them and then jumping at the last minute to hopefully avoid their attacks is needed but sprinting is likely to have you fall to your death there are a ton of rats in the amount of Chip damage you'll take here from short Falls to unblockable range is enough to kill you twice over so I hope you've got some health potions stockpiled important note about stockpiling items there are cheats on the PlayStation to just unlock any level you want but if you do that and then go to that level you will only ever start with your basic sword no potions no magic spells no extra items which makes the level incredibly hard so ironically the easiest way to finish the game is to not cheat to skip levels but to play it from the very start so you can stockpile as much as you possibly can for the harder levels this might also be the only part of the game with endlessly respawning enemies these rats just do not stop but push through them and you'll get to the hall of spooky green eyes all the surreal Grace and calm of the flying turtle we're told to watch out for the giant boot but thankfully this thing never actually finds you I fight a wave of rats and and the third part on three hit points thankfully I do see a health potion so I Sprint at it which of course is a trap and spawns even more enemies it's cool how you can see the bridges below you from the other Towers but these are technically on the PlayStation part of another level so if you do fall down to them you'll be teleported back to the bridge you are on which is a novel way of dealing with the level size issue all I need to do is grab this golden key the problem is doing so causes the floor to crumble and I Fall to my death in fact grabbing this key might be one of the hardest puzzles in the game because you need to activate a series of switches in a specific order take some teleporters flip some more switches and softly gently carefully walk onto the crumbling floor but big problem here if you somehow like I was able to do jump as the floor crumbles and make it out alive you've now soft locked your game there is no way to progress you need to do this in the right order and if you mess up which you will but you won't know until you realize that you're stuck you must restart the whole level this is like those Lucas Arts puzzle games where you don't fail until later on because you've missed an item right back at the start when you do finally grab the key you hear this ominous thudding from below and the fear when you can hear something but not see it is so much worse foreign s are rock Golems so time for the magic hammer to shine more ratman barracks and artillery storage but notice the chalk arrow on the floor they've never lied to you yet so this is the same drop off the path and find a nice little secret contrast this lovely helpful bit with riding a lift into an ambushed by four mortar rats you need to leap off the lift quickly or be blown into tiny steaming chunks another timed jumping puzzle with switches and more awful camera angles making lining up the jump pretty difficult and now we ride the flying turtle calm Serene through this door into another angry aggressive Ambush the issue here is you're guaranteed to take at least some damage because you can't block ranged attacks so leap off the turtle hack and slash away around and pray that you survive you'll also notice a life-giving ankh hidden down below so I drop down and grab it but oh no it's a trap flamethrower will just kill you instantly but then watch how the turtle descends down the tunnel and I'm thinking right maybe I need to drop down grab the Ang and fall quickly onto the turtle to avoid the Flames so I do that and that works but no it doesn't because you go into a second flame trap basically this is a bit where you need to use the charm of icy cool to negate the Flames then ride the turtle all the way back around nice little looping secret more rats find some potions on a natural potion shelf which is a nice touch and then struggle to find the exit you need to activate this tapestry which is a secret switch for the end door which is never used again in version part 7 the automaton Dreadnought boss now this is a super cool bit and very much shows the progression of Warhammer you're warned there are two optional bosses in this level and advise to run past them they are constructions of wood and steel walking dreadnoughts with flamethrowers and giant claws they will corner you in a tiny room and are incredibly powerful thankfully I've been saving all of my flame Lance ammo for such an occasion and I just unload everything and taking these things down is satisfying in version 8 more rat Men start the level running across a small Bridge into a flame turret okay game I see how it is you want to play unfair fine I can play unfair grenade launcher everything time this gets me into a large room effectively a wave-based Arena small flamers run at me then more big automaton dreadnoughts and even some trapped chests which explode when you open them but then there's a very strange trap here when you kill the last Dreadnought in this room the center of the room descends as a lift and you need to be standing on it when this happens otherwise you will miss the lift there's no way to call it back and you have to restart the level because you cannot survive the fall in Version 9 one of the most frustrating unfair Levels by far bit of a gimmick really you have to ride the turtle through the whole level while enemies spawn on Ledges left and right and in pill boxes around the side of the level and try to shoot you off you've got a grenade launcher with a fast rate of fire High damaging arcing water and you need to take out everything before they hit you you don't often die from taking damage you die from being knocked into the abyss but this is not just a shooting gallery halfway through you need to jump to another turtle because the one you're on flies into a wall and kills you so there's also some Parkour halfway through finally after about 30 attempts I make it to the other side never been so relieved to see a save point jump into an arena and take on two flamewalkers then two dreadnoughts and then the final toughest automaton the Scorpion these things are faster than you so no point running away they will grab you in melee and just rip you apart the only way to win here is to manually aim the grenade launcher down in first person and preemptively flood the arena With Grenades before they reach you with the inverted Tower down we are on to the final level which is essentially four major bosses in a row the first is the blood Beast that famous death trap dungeon cover art we open in a nightly Hall and I've just got no time for any of you so the flamethrower is coming out again and with the Knights all crispy we head into the lair of the blood Beast this thing sits in a bulbous mass in the center of a Mossy room and throws poison at you and if you get close you got plaws pincers teeth and a scorpion style tail to deal with the only way to hurt the blood Beast is to hit its direct central eye which is surrounded by fake eyes this means only about one in three attacks will harm it and only if you are perfectly accurate so using stab is your best bet the only Advantage you have is if timed well you can block all of its melee attacks the disadvantage is failing to block means you get poisoned and I'm out of antidote so this is a very long very careful fight stab block weight cannot afford to get greedy this ends up being a 15 minute slog but after enough lucky stabs the blood Beast goes down one step closer to the end next up the Hydra a multi-headed dragon fight through some Warrior priestesses anti-magic charms holding their lightning back then drop into a massive Hydra Arena the Hydra itself is waiting in a small cave in the corner and once it spots you it will give Chase into this huge Square Arena flame breath fireballs and poison this thing is mean thankfully it does have a weakness much like the bug Queen if you get right up next to it it will just keep spinning and try to bite you but it will miss you most of the time so you can start hacking away but this doesn't do much so I grenade it then vomit rocket launcher magic hammer I throw everything I have at this Hydra and I don't seem to be making a dent I check for environmental gimmicks there are switches on the wall which seem to link to a door but no combination seems to open it so I just keep throwing everything I have at this Hydra until I am out of ammo I can tell I'm doing something because I can see blood splatter so I just keep hacking away with my sword 17 minutes it takes 7 19 minutes of constant hits with a regular sword to kill the Hydra this is ridiculous but when it finally dies the door opens and I get a Venom sword which would have been really useful 17 minutes ago blood beast and Hydra down next up the flying electric dragon vial 4. the objective here solve the switch puzzle raise the Black Spirit sword and use that to kill the dragon now you don't need the spirit sword to kill file 4. you can just grenade him but the sword makes us a lot faster what is not faster however is actually getting the sword this level is a huge Square arena with missile Towers at Each corner and lifts to two different levels of walkways crisscrossing the arena you can activate the turrets to fling Fireballs at vile 4 but they're not very accurate and not worth using the sword puzzle is a bit of a challenge find a hidden switch on the top level which opens a door somewhere which leads to another switch and another door while doing this though you have to admit a flying dragon boss in the PlayStation 1 is pretty impressive especially as it clearly has some scripting following the player landing on the floor or hovering above you and shooting electricity down there's a lot going on here it's also not often you take down a dragon by shooting 150 grenades at it but hey death trap dungeon was all about that Dark Fantasy Punk life when you finally get the Black Spirit sword each hit does massive damage but also saps your own life so get vile for to land which takes absolutely ages then try and get close to him and when you can't this is the time to finally use the invisibility potion sneak in hack away take him down the final level is a huge reading with multiple layers around the edge a central platform and one angry red dragon flying around occasionally just spewing Flames everywhere the objective find the red sword kill the dragon this means avoiding the very tight timings of some Crusher blocks climbing around flipping switches making some long jumps over some spike traps and then taking some teleporters down from level to level now Quick Trick if you manage to find the correct route to the floor you'll find potions Scrolls Health angst and the red sword along with four switches which send pulses of lightning at melkor weakening him but this is a secret area the way you're actually meant to get the red sword is much harder just off from the main Arena you'll find this room a long full speed jump over a pit if you make it you'll get the sword but if you do that you'll activate a magic trap and die so how do you deactivate the trap with a complex and very tightly timed series of four trapped switches of course activator switch jump across the room open a secret door flip more switches Dodge the Fireballs this creates from a dragon statue find another switch hope you've got a charm of icy cold to survive this unavoidable flame pit then another switch to more fireballs and spreading through a door just in time also doors can Crush you so don't stand in the doorway but if you finally do all of this free the red sword return to the main room tele to the central platform wait for Melco to land drink every potion you have cast every buff spell and hack away like your life depends on it because it does with determination and a little bit of luck melkor will go down and you'll get the final cut scene showing that melkor was actually an automaton driven by an imp it was imps all along and that after 10 grueling hours and More Level restarts than I could count is death trap dungeon a brutally hard unforgiving badly made third-person Adventure game which defeated 10 year old me has finally been finished childhood dream achieved death trap dungeon beaten it's taken a couple of years but finally I can wipe that stain from my gaming record and I feel much better for it but I do need to address the elephant in the room I know there will be people especially in the comments who say but Josh you didn't really finish death trap dungeon you just finished the PlayStation version which in many ways is the inferior version it's easier it's shorter there aren't as many enemies if you want to reclaim true Mastery over this game you'd have finished the PC version as well well guess what I did after finishing the PlayStation 1 version I wanted to be thorough so I downloaded the PC version played that entirely through as well and now we can compare and contrast death trap dungeon round two sit down we're not done so despite being an absolute nightmare to run play and record I needed to be thorough it's the same game with greater draw distance a few more spike traps and the Quarry level which contains a brand new the inverted castle level has got awful because of how big it is and the final bosses are much harder but if I want to claim true dominance over death trap dungeon I need to beat it all so let's do this notable differences include the opening level having the door switch on the upper level and not the lower one leading to a steam pipe which damages you there's no steam in the PlayStation version The Crusher fight is against Orcs not snake girls and there's a new trap a ball on a chain over a chest which will smack you off if you're not careful you're also Frozen during cut scenes so if you activate a trap and then a cutscene plays you cannot Dodge out of the trap in time you'll still die the first level is a vastly different layout the circus however is basically the same you get the first Venom sword here there are more skeletons and now I discover the cheats if you type Elvis you activate no damage mode tools to unlock all items or caffeine to restore up to 100 Health now every single site will tell you the skip level cheat you need to type taxi then pause the game by pressing p and cycle through the levels with plus and minus but this is wrong you actually cycle with the pointed brackets this is a perfect example of every cheat website just blindly copying each other and no one fact checking things actually work now despite knowing these cheats I won't be using them I'm here to suffer plus if you skip forward levels you skip forward without your items which makes it even harder the Labyrinth is the same except this almost unavoidable missile trap across a higher Bridge which requires you to run into the missiles because the switch to turn it off is next to the launcher those Ultra tough scorpion automatons also appear on this level instead of the last and the sound effects of the save skull keep strobing even when you're not near them seriously the game sounds like this [Music] no this is where I discovered the projectiles can get stuck in you which is awesome and then on to the Quarry a level completely missing from the PlayStation version Rock golems and Bottomless Pits descend into the Quarry and find this lovely Touch of a map of the maze drawn on a wooden board I love it when games have in-game in-universe hints find the magic Warhammer and actually get to use it to smash up some golems and then curse the camera angles for making jumps harder to line up than they need to be oh when you die in the PC version prepare for a 30 second long minimize restart reload Loop about 40 percent of my Play Time on the PC version was literally just waiting for things to load get piled by Golems then discover a new mechanic the invisible teleporter room you must follow the chalk arrows on the floor exactly to navigate this room if you step off the invisible path even a little bit you'll get teleported back to the start not difficult just tedious this level ends with a Golden Golem boss however you don't fight them you find a switch underneath them move some pillars which hold up some floor then lure him over the now weak floor and watch him plummet to his death took about an hour to do this level the pit is the same as the PlayStation version except more poison spiders and the red tapestry Temple has a few more traps and more Warrior priestesses and the game crashes here quite a lot for some reason the vertical descent into the catacombs is longer with more golden portals but then this lovely moment remember the sliding blocks which pushed me off the edge in this version you can lock them which shows an actual stone beam sliding in front to lock the bricks almost every save point in this level is a red one needing coins and this skeleton just gives up and runs off the edge the Cinematic flame ledge run is different too needing more jumps and the double pit fiend level is basically the same start on the Rafters but here I discover the actual trick of this level there is a flame trap room in the back activated with a switch just big enough to fit a pit fiend in so lure them all the way to the room flip the switch and get some crispy fried fiend saving all your precious ammo for later killing the demon is the same doing The Belfry is the same except they've added a pit fiend at the start which leads to a short running section over a crumbling floor the Great Hall is however the only different bit it's the only PC exclusive enemy this giant crawling green hand which kills Itself by falling into a spike pit another thing that Elden ring would then take and perfect years later The Hive however very different a lot longer way more complex and oh my God it is on the PC The Hive level is a poison swamp look plants a dangerous pit with platforms to jump over a poisonous area death drop dungeon has a poison swamp bit it truly is dark souls zero the bug Queen fight is also different instead of having to find the room above and shoot the stalactites in peace you find the rocket launcher then enter the semi-circle boss room and you need to shoot the Stalin tights while dodging the poisonous barbs quick tip if you bind first person look to right click and attack to left click the game is now a first person shooter sewers are the same however the Medusa section is Pitch Black and you're meant to cast the Firefly light spell to give you some ambient light this is the only time the game messes with local lighting which is a shame they should have used this more however after you've killed one of them the whole area lights up anyway there are a few more jumping puzzles and a longer unlock Loop The ratman Trenches is literally exactly the same but the inverted Tower the longest bit is just God awful more enemies more traps and the turtles for some reason make this constant droning noise which does not stop [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] Turtles aside my fingers are starting to cramp because no one was meant to use this god-awful movement system for over eight hours I finally use the invisibility potion against the dreadnoughts because they are faster on PC and I love the burn skin effect you get when a flamewalker gets you that's a lovely touch more dreadnoughts more scorpions and I discover if two scorpions pin you between them they actually prevent each other from hitting you and scorpions can be hurt by the magic Warhammer which is a very nice touch the shooting gallery turtle riding level all good this bit again alright major bug here if you save at the start of this level which you're encouraged to do because you literally spawn on a save point then you reload that save you will not be placed on the turtle you'll be placed down on the floor below where you currently are which you shouldn't be able to get to this is just a black pit and you cannot die here because there are no enemies and you can't restart the level so you'll just soft lock yourself this means I need to cheat for all the weapons to get grenades to blow myself up to die to restart the level on the turtle survive the turtle ride kill more automatons reach the final four bosses now the level here is slightly different you still got in a central circle room with four statues of each boss around the edge you have to fight them in a specific order the blood Beast is first which is the same as the PlayStation the battle is exactly the same then we're off to the Hydra make sure you stay on the beams above activating four switches in four corners and this opens the arena to get the Venom sword which means the kill now takes 10 minutes not 17. vile for the electric dragon is however the hardest boss by far worse than melkor getting the Black Blade takes a while because there are homing Minds which chase you and he very rarely lands on the floor in the PC edition this was 45 minutes of pure awful gameplay melkor is exactly the same with the PlayStation version but takes ages to land but eventually after about 45 minutes again he will die so now finally after 25 years and both the PlayStation and PC versions beaten I can answer the very simple question death trap dungeon was it actually any good no no it was not it's a brutally difficult game made difficult by good design but by bad systems and clunky awkward to use interfaces it's got moments of Promise like the overall level layout and the looping design in most the levels But ultimately it's just not fun to play the music is fine but also forgettable the two main characters are absolutely identical and Red Lotus only existed to leech off the popularity of Lara Croft at the time it's a mix of combat puzzle cinematics set pieces none of which are ever the focus enough to declare it to that type of game and it ends up being the weakest of all of its aspects as a PC game it's poorly designed with very few accessibility options and just terrible software in general as a PlayStation game it fails at least a good four or five years behind all of its contemporaries but none of that matters because 25 years ago this game beat me and now I have beaten it so take that sir Ian Livingston take that Asylum entertainment death trap dungeon is down I have completed the walk I have gained the riches I have bested Baron succumbit and almost a quarter of a century on eye of extract did my revenge on this stupid game out of 10. cheers for watching another massive thank you to all the supporters on patreon Twitch and YouTube who keep the channel alive you can support from only one pound a month links to the patreon twitch Twitter and our Discord are in the video description below and as always remember townsfolk wait patiently in the taverns hoping that maybe just maybe one day A Champion will rise who can conquer the perilous depths of death trap dungeon [Laughter] [Music]

Channel: Josh Strife Plays

Views: 1,006,674

Keywords: classic gaming, retro games, older games, retro review, gaming reviews, nostalgic gaming, nostalgia games, playstation 1, playstation 2, n64, dreamcast, classic rpg

Id: 9v_H93nnTxU

Length: 71min 2sec (4262 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 01 2023