Set deep in the Austrian Alps, Microbird Games’ Dungeons of Hinterberg is one of those weird titles that seemed to explode out of nowhere and jump to the top of my wishlist. You play as Luisa Dorfer, a young Austrian woman with a Bavarian name (that’s the only German-Austrian link, I promise) who visited the botanical gardens of Vienna when she was a child. During that trip with her family, she swears down that she saw a witch in the distance. Now Luisa is off to the tourist hotspot, Hinterberg, which is rumored to be hoaching with magical, mystical dangers around every corner.

Returning to Austria as an adult, Luisa is escaping the workaday lifestyle she’s found herself in, vacationing in Hinterberg, where phone and internet services don’t exist as a result of the bountiful magic in them there hills. Her goal is to explore and adventure through the mountains and such, completing the Panini sticker book of Austrian dungeons hidden deep within the mountains. By day she’ll investigate and collect items from the dungeons, achieving her goal to explore and be adventurous, and by night she’ll explore the town, buy stuff from stops, and make friends to fill out a literal compendium of people to meet.

From the art style alone and the design of menus, you can tell the influences are Zelda and Persona. The Zelda influence is more often than not the dungeons and bosses being more puzzles to figure out than combat encounters to challenge and excite. Each of these is based on the different bits of mechanics to play with and keep your dozens of hours refreshing, even if the combat is more Arkham than it is anything else. Light attack, heavy attack, and because the year starts with a 2 and a 0, there is a stamina bar for your dodge rolls.

Starting every day chatting with one of your friends in town, you’ll get to pick from four mini hub-worlds that splinter off into Crash Bandicoot level select doors. The difference is you have to fight your way to those doors at least once and they are miles away from each other. In the afternoon you’ll run around the hub-worlds and dungeons, some of which are quite small and simple, others are a bit more complex to drill home some of the powers of each of the hub-worlds and the dungeons therein.

Providing you complete the dungeons and don’t want to magically bury someone six miles into the Alps, your evenings and nights are spent making friends with the town folks, buying potions, upgrades, and beyond. The very Persona-fication of being influenced by a JRPG without feeling as tedious as some of them. Truth is, I didn’t really understand much of this social aspect to care too much about it early on in gameplay, as it mostly felt like numbers going up in a menu. Nothing to care too much about in the short term.

That, and a couple of other comments, might suggest I don’t like Dungeons of Hinterberg, but I do. I found myself enjoying the world, the story, and even the gameplay to an extent, especially if you can get past the “Light attack, heavy attack, now combat roll!” The story itself arguably is the most interesting and poignant as we speak. As I say, you are a tourist, someone looking to get away from being a young Lawyer (scum), so Luisa went to a tourist hotspot in a place that fascinates her.

All of which is great for her, and great for business in town (you’d think), but at what cost? One of the first interactions I had was with the kids by the cinema, Thea and David; kids who can’t use mobile phones in the 21st century. They also can’t access the internet and are constantly asked by tourists where the public toilets are. That’s all fine if you live in a city, getting asked once in a while, but Hinterberg is a small village on a lake, the tourists practically outnumbering the residents.

We saw it in Spain and even Hawaii: Sure, your money is great, it is doing things for an economy, but what exactly are people living here getting in return? Treated like dirt? Treated as second class for the tourists coming in, having their lives put at risk to put on a show and provide for the tourists who want to do (in this case) the dungeon exploration thing? If it didn’t rain 90% of the time in Scotland, I’d be out there with Super Soakers too, moistening everyone as they drink their £8 coffee from some pretentious place owned by a landlord that rents out their place on AirBnB.

Not too dissimilar to my rant, the plot is dancing the fine line of questioning your actions while explaining why it also does good to a degree. All while not being “both sides” about it, as there is a clear statement of intent, Dungeons of Hinterberg doesn’t feel as if it is angry and blames everyone. There is a clear small-scale political aspect, something you’ll understand as you venture out into the world and talk with certain people in Hinterberg.

So to loop back on that social aspect I said I didn’t care too much for in the short-term at the start, four perimeters deal with your success in this evening/night aspect of Dungeons of Hinterberg. Renown, Amusement, Familiarity, and Relaxation all come from spending time with Albert, Dog, Alex, Hannah, Klaus, Thea (and David), and Blade (Renaud). Alongside spending time with them or giving them gifts from shops, you get active benefits from creating a friendship with everyone: Alex and others give an extra HP slot, Dog (a literal dog) helps find a hidden dungeon or two, and others give items and other stat buffs.

However, spending time with them, also increases your Renown, Amusement, Familiarity, and Relaxation. This is “important” later on as you explore more dangerous dungeons and get loot from chests, picking up weapons and armor as you explore and do this whole adventuring thing. You know, as you do. The trouble is, despite the fact you are constantly building up these stats by spending the night reading many text boxes, I almost want to say most of the loot isn’t worth it. At least going in hard on one specific thing like amusement after it being your least favored social trait.

While exploring dungeons and the hub worlds, collecting pieces here or there, you’ll also pick up currency for exploring and defeating monsters. Hinterbucks, as they are known, are everywhere and if you can handle the combat fairly well, you probably won’t have to bother with potions to up your health or MP either, leaving you more HBs to buy gear. This is where I end up saying the combat is not very fun after a while, and it gets rather same-y.

With enough Hinterbucks in your pocket, you can walk right up to the shop next to Hannah and buy the best gear possible after a couple of dungeons, and the same again as you progress. Any dungeon weapons and such you find will most likely be around the stats of the most powerful weapon you can find in the shop, be it weapons, body armor, (knee) pads, or leggings. None of which change up the look of Luisa in the first place, it is numbers in a menu and making fights a lot less tedious.

However, weapons themselves aren’t the only useful things in battle, each hub world has a magic type, changing how you maneuver and interact with the world of Hinterberg and the surrounding areas. Kolmstein has a hoverboard, Brönnelsumpf has a jelly cube and plasma ball, Doberkogel has a bomb and the spikey ball from a flail, and Hinterwald has a mini-tornado to help traverse puzzles. Basically, you have a long-ranged attack/puzzle-solving beam and a short-ranged, movement-based solution that may also come in handy during fights. The bomb is self-explanatory on that one.

There is a clear loop, it is enjoyable to interact and play around with, and I think the pacing doesn’t feel like a slog as some of its JRPG inspirations might sometimes feel like. However, the combat does become one of the weak links in the daisy chain of gameplay loops, oftentimes leading me to chorus a harrumph near the end of Luisa’s stay in Hinterberg on every “surprise” battle in dungeons. The so-called “problem” is that it is serviceable and nothing more, a real-time system that is replacing Persona’s turn-based tactical fights against monsters under a school.

Dungeons of Hinterberg‘s gameplay isn’t complex, and that’s one of its saving graces. While the combat leaves something left to be desired with further special attacks and buffs through charms and otherwise helping it, the act of mashing buttons doesn’t keep fights exciting towards the end of the 12+ hours. Many times I was looking forward more to the puzzles of the dungeons, even if some of them weren’t great. The pacing and brevity overall stopped me from wanting to climb over some hills and slap some people.

Performance-wise I have seen minor momentary dips that nose-dived the frame-rate. Though noticeable, they weren’t long-lasting even with every setting turned up as far as the options menu will allow. Nonetheless, speaking of the options I think it is worth noting that the accessibility includes some screenshake options, an expansion to the FOV, “static picture frame overlay,” and a disable player death option.

It does feel, however, that the options menu was a last-minute design meeting; with every menu in Dungeons of Hinterberg being stunningly designed in that Persona-like vein, the options feel like an afterthought. Of course, it isn’t the end of the world, but there are no font options or UI-scaling, sadly. Two things that I think could have helped here in particular. I’m not asking for “a pretty options menu,” that would be dumb, but something about it makes my eyes glaze over as I look for things to change.

To continue the more technical aspect, I did notice a couple of hindrances or oddities here or there. There are a couple of quests where you’ll collect a bunch of absolute crap that would fill an inventory if you had one to manage (thank Christ you don’t), but as a result, you do have to sell a lot of stuff. Now, with a keyboard and mouse that’s fine, but with a controller as you have 150 monster fur to sell, that’s when the UI/UX clashes a little. Thankfully the switch between keyboard and mouse and your controller of choice is smoother than it is for The Crush House.

Honestly, I can’t complain too much about Dungeons of Hinterberg even if I tried. The story is light enough and fun, the gameplay for the most part is engaging, and the world is delightful with characters and places I like almost from the word go. Ultimately, Dungeons of Hinterberg is easily creeping up my list of top games in 2024 – which is either a compliment to Microbird Games or a damning statement on games this year. Nonetheless, I’ve got a feeling I’ll be talking, thinking, and playing Dungeons of Hinterberg for a little bit longer.

A PC review copy of Dungeons of Hinterberg was provided by Curve Games for this review.

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Dungeons of Hinterberg

$29.99

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Great world and story.
• The best of Persona and Zelda glued together, and it works.
• Cozy and comforting while also having a sense of layers.

Cons

• The combat does get rather boring after a while.
• Very minor performance dips on activation of some spells and the odd UX issue here or there.