As an RPG fan, NIS America has been one of my go-to developers for a while. Sure, some of their titles aren’t great, but on the whole, they tend to have a solid library. The great thing about them is that they take risks and tweak genres in order to give players unique experiences. Lapis X Labyrinth is one such unique experience, and it takes the 2D side-scrolling Action game and turns things up to eleven.

In the middle of a labyrinthine forest awaits a golden tree, with riches being bestowed upon any who find their way through the labyrinth to claim it. For many years, adventurers traveled to this forest, stopping at a village right outside it. Adventurers kept this village going, but as time went on, fewer and fewer adventurers came to visit.

In an attempt to save their dying city, the mayor of this town reached out to the Guild to entice adventurers to come to explore the labyrinth. You are one such adventurer, who comes to the town in an attempt to restore it to its former glory, and claim the treasure within the labyrinth. At the start of the game, you pick two characters, out of 8 possible classes.

These classes range anywhere from the Witch who is a ranged spellcaster to the Shielder who is more of a tank style character. You can have up to four characters in your party at once, but in order to recruit more, you must go to the Guild. The Guild is also where you acquire quests, so they are a valuable resource for any good dungeoneering expedition.

Before setting out on a quest, you must attempt to gear up. You can equip weapons and armor to each character, as well as snacks for your party which serve as consumable pick-me-ups for tough dungeon encounters. Stats are calculated for your party as a whole. The equipment values of each character are added together to make a total.

Each piece of gear can be widely different based on the enchantments on it. Enchantments provide various benefits and can make two similar looking weapons or armor behave very differently. Maybe one has the fire element attached while another has a stat buff. Depending on the situation, you’ll need to approach gearing your party carefully.

This is especially true because of the Gear Cost mechanic. Your party has a gear cost total, and each piece of equipment has a cost to it. If you reach the limit, you cannot equip any more gear unless you shuffle things around.

As you progress through the game, you unlock facilities in town. They may range from a lunch shop where you buy temporary food buffs, all the way to a blacksmith that enhances the enchantments on your equipment. It takes a while to unlock these facilities, but they do end up being helpful in the long run.

If a character runs out of HP, they are ejected from your party, and with them goes their stats. You can revive them, of course, but if you aren’t able to then you fight on, with lowered stats until resurrecting them is feasible. You can revive allies by touching them. However, if all four party members get ejected, you play as the Quest Kit.

The Quest Kit can only take one hit of damage but can revive allies if it can avoid being hit. Additionally, if you go to the next floor of a dungeon without reviving all allies, the ejected allies will not be able to fight with you.

Undergoing quests in the Labyrinth is a fun, but frustrating endeavor. You are on a timer and must complete the level within the time allotted. Additionally, there are other things you have to manage, such as party health, and your “Treasure Combo” value. Treasure Combo rises as you pick up treasures and items. You are given Treasure points, which influence your grade at the end of a quest.

If you get hit, your Treasure Combo goes back to 0, but if you can keep your combo up there is a chance for greater rewards. Additionally, as you attack enemies, your voltage rises. When a character’s voltage hits the max level, you go into a High Voltage state, with a temporary buff to your class abilities until the buff wears off.

Something else you have to watch for is the Fever Gauge. When your Fever Gauge fills up completely, you go into Fever Mode. As you defeat enemies and open chests, you get Fever Items which increase the gauge. During Fever Mode you are invincible, and enemies drop Fever Gems. Collecting enough Fever Gems causes a slot machine to run, which gives you various beneficial gifts. Fever gifts can only be used during the current quest, afterwards, they expire.

At the end of a dungeon floor, your timer resets, but you also go on to the Floor Results screen which tells you your performance at the end of a floor. You can also eat snacks at the end of the floor, which have a variety of effects. Each snack has a number of uses, which refill at the end of a dungeon. Once you have gotten to the bottom of a dungeon, you face a boss encounter, and then are given your Quest Results.

These results give you a rank based on how long you took to complete the quest, how many floors you cleared, the danger level, the treasures you collected, and the number of times you reached Fever Mode. The frustrating part is, if you run out of time before completing the quest, you fail it completely, even if you’re multiple floors down.

Personally, I find the time limit component in Lapis X Labyrinth to be entirely unnecessary. The game is complex enough as a dungeon-crawling platformer that they didn’t really need to add any time element to it. The pressure the timer puts on you prevents you from really being able to explore and collect things the way you might want.

To be honest, Lapis X Labyrinth is a fun game, but the fun doesn’t last for a sustainable amount of time. The combat mechanics get stale after a while, and in most cases, you can just forego your special attacks and spam your regular attacks to get to your desired destination. I also find the lack of a consistent storyline to be somewhat frustrating, but it feels very similar to games like Dragon’s Crown, so if you are into that sort of thing, Lapis X Labyrinth will scratch that itch nicely.

There is no English Voice acting for this game, so I found the audio to be annoying and quickly muted it. The art style is beautiful though and is very consistent with what you might expect from a NIS title. If you like side-scrolling platformers, dungeon-crawlers, or NIS America games in general, this will probably do the trick for you. It isn’t the best thing they’ve offered, and it does get stale quick, but Lapis X Labyrinth isn’t a terrible experience.

A Nintendo Switch copy of Lapis X Labyrinth was provided by NIS America for this review.

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Lapis X Labyrinth

$58.76 USD

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Beautiful Art Style
• Interesting Concept
• 8 Classes to Choose From

Cons

• Time Limit is Restrictive
• Combat Gets Stale
• Not Much Variety in Content

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