Deep Labyrinth

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Item ConditionComplete in box: the cartridge, the manual and the box, all original; anything beyond that is included only if you can see it in the photos. Look over the photos for condition, packaging and details. Every cartridge's shell, label and board are checked for authenticity when it comes into the store, and it's tested before it's listed. It ships in a collector's bag or a hard plastic case.Item DescriptionA flat tire outside an abandoned mansion is all it takes. In Deep Labyrinth, young Shawn watches his dog Ace bolt into the dilapidated house, his parents follow and never come back, and when Shawn finally approaches, the door swings open and a magical vortex pulls him inside. It's an eerie, fairy-tale setup for one of the stranger RPGs Atlus brought to the DS: a first-person dungeon crawler built around the stylus.Combat happens in real time and almost entirely on the touchscreen. Tap or drag to swing your sword, and draw shapes on a grid to cast magic, a system that asks you to sketch spells mid-fight while enemies close in. The labyrinth's floors twist and branch through hunts for keys and locked doors, save points appear on every floor, and the 3D environments are bright and run smoothly for early DS hardware.The cartridge holds two adventures. Shawn's quest is the first, created for the DS release. The second adapts Deep Labyrinth's original Japanese mobile-phone game: a man talking on his cellphone is sucked through a warphole into the labyrinth and must reckon with his own past to escape, a darker and more introspective story than the first. Each scenario has multiple endings shaped by your actions and performance, and later playthroughs bring helpful items for chasing the rest. The score comes from Yasunori Mitsuda, the composer behind Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, who gave it a Celtic-tinged sound that critics singled out even when the rest of the game divided them.And divide them it did. The touch controls and clunky navigation drew plenty of criticism, and Deep Labyrinth never became a mainstream hit. That is exactly what makes it interesting today. Developed by Interactive Brains, it is a snapshot of the DS's experimental early years, when Atlus was willing to bring over an oddball Japanese project that tried something unusual with the hardware. It's a curiosity with real character, and a Mitsuda soundtrack hiding inside a game most players never tried. Show more