Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!

You can guess the genre as the name suggests, “Explore the Dungeon” is a dungeon crawler in its entirety. It offers you a 100-floor labyrinth that needs to be completed.

Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW! on the 3DS is shameful. Yes, I’m sure there are an insane amount of fans of the retro games niche but when they’ll play a game as lazy as this one, they’d rather feel ashamed of their favorite genre. The whole game basically seems a rush-job, with awful animations all around and cut-scenes looking as if they were made using MS Paint.

Plot (1/5)
Although the game comes without any solid plot, that’s fine. The story revolves around you following Princess Bubblegum’s orders and trying to get to the bottom of prisoners’ outbreaks from the dungeon. You can choose Finn, Marceline, Jake or Cinnamon Bun along with a few other unlockable characters. But it doesn’t really matter as to which character you choose because the story is entirely the same with each choice.


Gameplay (1/5)
The same lack of effort can be seen in the overall gameplay as well. Moving at a snail’s pace with no option to run seems a nightmare in itself, but it is coupled with a perpetual frame-rate issue. In simple words, the entire game seems to run in slow motion.

You have the routine button configuration with buttons for attack, block, dodge, super power and sub-weapons. The worst part is that you don’t even need mix any of these up as your normal attacks are enough to help you move along the game.

All the different characters have their own distinctive styles or powers. Jake and Marceline allow you to traverse gaps whereas Fin enables you to equip more items. But in the end it doesn’t really matter which character you choose as regardless of your selection, you can breeze through the game without any serious challenges. Boring, right?

Yeah, the first few floors are a good start to the game. But you would soon realize that each level is a flat-out repeat of the previous one and you’re pretty much stuck in a timeloop for 10 levels unless a new theme arises.

The enemies are poorly designed and barely resemble characters from the animated series, and the bosses are no different. The dungeon layouts are based upon the same formula which consists of a staircase that is always on the opposite end of your starting point. The vague foe designs plus the inability to gain experience from killing them couple to ensure you that you’re only wasting your time ‘exploring’ in Explore the Dungeon.

Final Thoughts
I honestly believe that while this game was under its development process for the 3DS, somebody should’ve had a look and scrapped the project completely. Because it is safe to say that Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW! is a total disaster and WayForward has really set an example for others now.