Cubed:
Rogue-likes can be a pretty engaging subgenre of RPGs. The core design philosophy of these types of games is always about survival and exploration of dungeons with many floors. Most rogue-likes are step or tile based and every action the player makes counts as a turn - whenever a turn is taken, all the enemies or hostile elements on the dungeon map will also make their move. Thus a constant power struggle of survival and careful actions takes players' focus. Sometimes rogue-likes take from the action RPG playbook and try to mix things up by putting an emphasis on direction character action and manoeuvrability, instead of traditional turn/tile based control. In the case of Excave, which has opted for a more action-oriented style of dungeon crawler and very simplified rogue-like concepts, the title is so barebones and simple it lacks any substance. Cubed3 descends into the mind numbing dungeons of Excave on 3DS eShop.
Gamer's Palace: "The small price of 5€ already tells you that Excave is a small game. However, the game has to many flaws and drawbacks. Whether the use of the touchscreen, the rather complicated control, the opponents that are always the same or the lack of opportunities, actually there is a lack of anything everywhere."
Pocket Gamer: Teyon has announced that Japanese studio Mechanic Arms's dungeon crawling RPG Excave will be out in Europe on March 26th. It'll cost €4.99.
Despite these nitpicks, Excave is a decent hack and slash game that can be picked up and enjoyed in short gaming spurts. There isn't much of a story and the character development is non-existent. If you just want to explore and hack away at enemies, Excave will meet those requirements at the affordable price of $4.99 on Nintendo's eShop.
