O-Mission Impossible: 10 Things to Know About... Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk
0Labyrinth of Refrain is a dungeon crawler that originally released on PC, PS4 & Nintendo Switch in September, 2018 in the west. It is a dungeon crawler by NIS, makers of Disgaea with a cute aesthetic yet brutally dark intriguing world & story to go with it. Following the story of witch Dronya and her apprentice Luka you explore their story and past and find out why they set foot in Refrain. You play as the soul entrapped in the Tractatus de Monstrum and guide a team of puppets through various unique dungeons. The whole dynamic behind the brigade you command, the pacts that house the puppets you instruct and the coven slots which the pacts occupy makes the game interesting challenging and a worthy experience for any JRPG fan. In this video I aim to highlight some of the more obscure details you wouldn't know unless you played the game yourself. Things I wish I knew, could change or knew before playing myself:
1) Destruction Undetected - As you explore the dungeons you will come across enemy symbols and sometimes obstacles in your path. Alerting an enemy makes them chase you so do so with caution. Fortunately though some actions, such as breaking an obstacle on the tile they move to, does not in fact alert their attention.
2) Predictive Escape Positioning - Getting to learn the secrets of the labyrinth can be incredibly beneficial to your survival and progress forward. In this example I showcase one such trick where you can predict your spawn point upon escaping a battle. By engaging with an enemy facing away from you, you can determine to bypass them upon successful retreat. A useful trick when forced to engage.
3) Turn Order Troubles - To be fair to Nippon Ichi Software, this was their first attempt at a dungeon crawler, and its a particularly good effort, but with its share of glaring omissions. One of the most prevalent, relevant to every fight you have, but in particular hard long boss fights that require prevention and set up turns, is the lack of a countdown displayed on buffs and de-buffs applied. Good luck committing to memory every single buff and debuff applied by you or the enemy in a bid to stay alive.
4) Sort It Out - The other most glaring omission in this game, was a lack of a comprehensive sort function for the array of equipment acquired. As NIS have a fondness to do, the equipment in this game consist of a plethora of statistics. From crit chance, to hit rate, status resistance to charm, it is imperative you are well equipped to deal with the myriad of dangers that lie ahead. How they didn't realise that one would like to sort their best equipment by more than just ATK or DEF and a couple other useless values I will never know, but at least I can say its fixed in the sequel.
5) PC Port Hang Up Glitches - I can't speak for the original release, so I presume its only a problem for the PC port, but on occasion throughout the game it will hang up for a few seconds. Fortunately this never lead to anything more serious and I never lost any progress from it, so its little more than inconvenience.
6) Input Appetite - Another more technical and non-gamebreaking oversight is the game's inability to keep up with fast inputs. If you press A you go forward, but if you go forward into a wall you bounce off it. This often happens if you try to activate a switch, also with A, before the game is ready for it. It takes a turn away from you so it can leave you in an awkward situation but a little added patience where needed can avoid such complications.
7) Mind the Gap - A peculiar one-off where the visuals do not represent the reality of the situation. Here we have a pitfall in front of us, represented both by the minimap on the top right and the jump command in the center. But the floor itself is still visible, it looks like its totally safe. Its true I never tried walking forward to check which information was true, but its nevertheless confusing if not a bit comical. Towards the end of this section we find what a pitfall like that is supposed to look like.
8) Chrono-Logical Mud Exit Numbering - At first I assumed the number assigned to placing Mud Exits was relevant to the floor you placed them in. Actually, its based on a chronological placement order. Which in some ways is a lot easier to track. However note that you can only have upto 4 mud exits at any given time & this ordering can be overwritten.
9) Stockpile Strangulation - This was arguably the most frustrating part of the game for me, mechanics wise, because I love the Stockpile mechanic & its originality, but hate having to wade through post battle screens to turn it off.
10) Double Trouble - Enemy spawns are seeded, not random each encounter.
I hope you enjoyed this insight in what to expect from a game like Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk. Its got its flaws no doubt, but I can honestly say I enjoyed my time with it, and if you're willing to put up with a few inconveniences is well worth your time!
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