Digimon Story Time Stranger
Digimon Story Time Stranger
Game
Game2021
DUNGEON ENCOUNTERS
Developer Square Enix
Dungeon Encounters is a 2021 role-playing video game developed by Square Enix and Cattle Call and published by Square Enix. It was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Windows. At the time of its release, Dungeon Encounters was the first game Hiroyuki Ito had directed in 14 years. The game received positive reviews from critics for its minimalist approach to gameplay. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
277 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Oct 4, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
77
LovedLoved
149 positive · 44 negative
95% range 71–83%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 149 | 44 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
84 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mixed
390 of 559 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 277 · most liked firstJust watched a Square Enix interview with Hiroyuki Ito about Dungeon Encounters, which includes pearls of game design wisdom such as "I put a value of 12 there because it felt right" and "I can't remember what that's for".
unlabelledView post →I think about Harvestella constantly. I tell people you should play Harvestella and grin like a demon dog when they ask if that's the farming game. Extreme run for Square-Enix only a handful of years ago when they made so much amazing stuff. Dungeon Encounters! God, Dungeon Encounters!
unlabelledView post →If you are like me, you'll read the negative reviews of the game and go "Wow that sounds like an amazing game." If you don't have that response from the negative reviews, this game probably will not be very enjoyable for you.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Also for those that have played Dungeon Encounters and want to learn more about the behind-the-scenes stuff, this 40 minute interview with both the director and producer for the game really is solid www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Sy...
unlabelledView post →Weapons (2025) *Sorry Square, the demo reminded me I have the game on DS and it was time I went back to my parked save. If you want my $ make a new Dungeon Encounters and I’ll buy 2 copies
unlabelledView post →very glad the word of Dungeon Encounters is spreading. The game made for Wizardry perverts
unlabelledView post →A dream come true for anyone who skips cutscenes and dialogue
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An almost perfect game marred badly by not being able to make your own characters and having to grind up an entire new party to rescue your old one if you RUN INTO A LEVEL 90 ENCOUNTER ON THE 12TH DUNGEON LEVEL OUT OF NOWHERE AND CAN'T RUN FROM IT. I have neither the time nor patience for that crap, and wish I hadn't bought this game at all.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →WOW, what an interesting game. I wanted to make sure I completed the game in its entirety before reviewing it. I have a LOT to say about this game, but nobodies going to read my think piece on a game that I find to be criminally underrated. Dungeon Encounters has its fair share of issues, it's far from perfect, but most of the "flaws" I found with this game ended up becoming part of the charm by the end. This game will definitely not be for everyone, it is definitely made for fans of older RPGs…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Gotta love a game where literally all negative reviews are caused by people failing to understand the game. :D One of my characters was eaten by a snake, now i need to level up a replacement, then find the snake that ate her and beat it up to get her back. This rocks. :D
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My final dungeon game right now is Dungeon Encounters! Which seems to have immediately ignited a lot of thoughts in me about empty spaces on maps. So obviously a game by Hiroyuki Ito, it *really* wants you to think about the number and fill in the rest yourself. Spare thoughts coming…
unlabelledView post →I have been playing the deranged game "Dungeon Encounters" directed by Final Fantasy's own Hiroyuki Ito. Its fanatical devotion to stripping all the window dressing off turn-based JRPGs is noble in its insanity. Look bitch, you're going to walk around and pick attacks off a menu and that's it!!!!
unlabelledView post →People tend to mention "Mouse that steals your money and puts you into debt" when they talk about Dungeon Encounters, when it isn't even the funniest Rodent-based encounter in the game. I present to you: Hamster with over 9 million HP.
unlabelledView post →At some point, somebody decided that every JRPG would be a playable anime, and boy do I get bent out of shape every time I'm reminded of that. Shall we list the other sins of modern JRPGs? Scripts written for children, stories more stale than last week's challah, combat that goes nowhere and tries nothing. DUNGEON ENCOUNTERS jettisons all of that, and with all the cruft removed it's like a bolt of lightning. It's cruel, it's uncompromising, it's so opaque it has a puzzle based on Superbowl…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dungeon Encounters dares to ask the question "what would you get if you took final fantasy and boiled away all aspects of the game other than ATB combat with the trash enemies in between bosses?" The answer: something exceedingly unfun.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I know I am the Shiren Guy but also am happy to be the Dungeon Encounters guy any day of the week. A pure work of genius, better than any game design masterclass
unlabelledView post →I only recently started expanding my horizons so I don't have nine games to recommend yet, but if you'd like an offbeat game suggestion from me then please consider Dungeon Encounters. It's barebones, but so dynamic and intriguing if you're into filling out maps and hunting for secrets.
unlabelledView post →Of course a game that asks gamers to use their brains has a mixed rating.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My submission for #manifestojam2026 is called "You should love Dungeon Encounters". It's about Dungeon Encounters, why it's cool and why Game Designers should stop turning themselves into servants for their players. mokka.itch.io/you-should-l...
unlabelledView post →I honestly enjoyed this game, but I simply can't recommend it to your "average" rpg gamer, or gamer in general. This is a very simplistic game. There are probably like ten battle animations in the whole game, several enemy sprites are reused all the time, the only map differences are in the color of the background and the music played during fights. Speaking of the music, it's all played in a single instrument. One of the main reasons I cannot recommend this game to most people is that this…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am a hardcore veteran of dungeon crawler games, spanning back to Wizardry, Might and Magic, and other classics. This kind of game is my jam. I am going to give this game a positive review, but do understand that the game is severely flawed in several ways. The first thing I am going to say is that this game conveys the core essence of the dungeon crawler very well. The exploration and gradually increasing complexity of the dungeon fields are interesting. There are a good variety of combat…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a hidden gem of a game, it tinkers around with the common tropes of RPGs in a refreshing way: No heavy-hitting story-- there is just one paragraph and a challenge: get through the dungeon maze. No random encounters-- you see the encounters on the map, you can view your battle log to see what monsters you'll face within said encounter so you can change your gear load out appropriately before you fight. No traditional "side quests"-- the side quests come in the form of riddles, math…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've had 3 separate people message me while playing this game to ask the same question: Is it good? It's great if you're an extremely weird person like me who enjoys numbers going up and filling in squares but you've also got the patience of a saint. Or at least the patience of a 2000's MMO player. If you want to buy it but see all the negative reviews talking about ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like sudden high level fights or monsters putting you in extreme debt, here's a hot tip from your ol' pal. Very early…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to like this game, but man....it's just not fun. I like grindy games. I like old school RPGs. But there needs to that "keep ya going" factor--that element that hooks you in and makes the game addicting, or the very least enjoyable. Some kind of challenge/reward pathway. This game doesn't have it. The character development is shallow and not diversified (which I think is the nail in the coffin tbh). The exploration element is tbh, fairly good, especially with the occasional…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →No story. Minimal UI. Math riddles. Classic ff combat. Gear progression. Dungeon crawler. Maps with cordinates. Sick game. Would play again
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dungeon Encounters feels like an Excel Game and you either love or hate that.
unlabelledView post →If the description and negative reviews sounds like your thing you will love this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I enjoyed the riddles/puzzles. I like that characters get a unique model on the map. I enjoyed the remixes of classical music (though perhaps they should have used a suite instead of thematically unrelated pieces). However, this game seems to be one of those intentionally difficult and frustrating ones with the light at the end of the tunnel being, "Well, we eventually give you skills to stop all of the mean things." As such, the mechanics have little to no explanation and/or justification.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Square Enix (Dungeon Encounters) settles copyright lawsuit with mobile studio HK Ten Tree over reused assets from a cancelled mobile game without permission. www.gamesindustry.biz/square-enix-...
unlabelledView post →Narratively sparse, but mathematically satisfying.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I waited until a sale to try this game because I was hesitant to pay full price, and I was right to be skeptical. This game is minimal to a fault with little visual appeal, a lack of interesting character development, and infuriating music. There's simply no fun to be had.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Usually, when Dungeon Crawlers get talked about, its usually in danger of one of two pitfalls: hewing too close to classic series of old, or desperately trying to sell itself as something its not (ie, a soft game genre). Caught between tradition and the need to expand, the question of "how" is almost an afterthought. But now, thanks to Ito scrounging enough loose change to his basement cubicle to craft a game, we have that answer. Similar but via a very different route to his coworker Kawazu,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dungeon Encounters isn’t a bad game at all. The game mechanics, such as they are, work in a focused and cohesive manner, the character and monster designs are great, the writing, as little of it as there is, is creative and interesting, and Nobuo Uematsu’s soundtrack is on-point as always, this time with Rock & Roll rearrangements of classical songs. I never ran into any bugs or technical issues, and it even supports a bunch of quality of life features, like ultrawide resolutions, multiple…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I didn't think this would be for me like, at all. I was into JRPGs as a teen but grew bored of them, it's a real struggle to make myself engage with turn based battles anymore and had I just looked at the screenshots for this I would have shrugged and continued scrolling. And then I read that one negative review about a guy getting into thousands of in game currency's worth of debt and I was ♥♥♥♥♥♥ SOLD. This is like the pure distillation of a dungeon crawl, honestly it feels a little like…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Oh hey I just noticed Squenix are having a sale again which means you can get stone cold classic design masterpiece Dungeon Encounters for less than a tenner. Plays best on steam deck if you have one of those, as it was originally a Switch game!
unlabelledView post →The game 'Dungeon Encounters' is so UI it feels like it's taking the piss, like there's the least possible not UI, it's all UI, fuck you no level art just UI - but there is something weirdly compelling about figuring out the battles
unlabelledView post →I would probably not recommend this game at full price. But at the 50% off I paid for it, yeah, sure. There's no story here beyond party members' character bios, and one note you can read near the end of the game. You just pick your guys, head off into the dungeon, and start mapping the place and fighting. That's all you're gonna be doing for 99 floors. And it's pretty good, actually. The game is supported by fairly strong mechanics from its dungeon exploration to its battle system.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You may notice that the reviews for this game, at time of posting, are 'Mixed.' If you watch some gameplay and think to yourself, "Ew, where are the flashy graphics? Where's the compelling storyline? What kind of moron would pay money for this?" This game is NOT FOR YOU. If you watch some gameplay and think to yourself, "This seems like exactly the kind of game that pushes my buttons, in a good way!" then you are correct and might play this game for 57 hours across 5 days like I did.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Imagine you distill down the essence of a JRPG... and then use the dregs? Virtually no interesting story, character progression, tactical or strategic choices, or even exploration. Way too many design decisions that simply punish you with annoying wastes of time for exploring the game - fight the wrong new enemy for the first time? Characters get stoned with no possible way to prevent it, nor fix it, until you randomly find (or look online) the location of a shrine to fix it. Which is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What game from 2021 deserves to be our first deep-dive of 2026? ♟️- Dungeon Encounters 🧠- Scarlet Nexus 🏜️- Shin Megami Tensei V 😈- Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Patrons at any level can vote until Saturday at Noon PT! Winning game gets a full ep in February! www.patreon.com/posts/panthe...
unlabelledView post →A dungeon crawler, but the DM hates you.Does things likeinstakilling a party member, inflicting them with a status that forces you to leave their dead body behindsetting you into extreme debt and then teasing you with new shopshitting your entire team for their full life bar because you didn't meet an arbitrary unrevealed conditionspawning enemies 50 levels above your party in an early zone that you can't flee fromforcing tedious run-backs on any deaths or status; forced juggling of party…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This review was having seen most of the first 50 floors of the 99 level dungeon. The perfect review that sold me on this game was the one that said something like "You should only buy this game if you read all the negative reviews, and thought that sounded like the game for you." One counterpoint I'd make on early complaints is that if your party wipes, it's really not that hard to get retrieve the bodies, and as the game goes on, you get plenty of abilities that lets you get back to where…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What a peculiar game. Essentially it's an extremely stripped down party-based dungeon crawler. And by stripped down I mean there are no classes, no spells, no abilities, nothing of the sort - not even consumable items of any kind, really. There is some unique equipment, but it's rather limited and a lot of the time situational. All your characters get is HP (self-explanatory), PP (determines what and how much equipment you can put on) and equipment: 2 weapon slots (weapons are…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a VERY hard sell for 90% of people, but it's the holy grail for people who love simple turn-based combat and keeping notes outside of games. Everything here has been trimmed down to its necessary components, a completely focused experience. Also you can recruit a dog.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Working on maps for the current game and looking at maps in DUNGEON ENCOUNTERS for research, and it's interesting how a couple of the strata really are just one line for the floor maps, but how they use it changes how you have to engage with it some mental gears are clicking into place
unlabelledView post →Very niche but well made game. If you're a fan of dungeon crawlers like Wizardry or traditional roguelikes, you'll probably enjoy this. If you're expecting a traditional Square Enix JRPG, you should probably steer clear.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is what some corporate exec would call an RPG. It doesn't deserve the title. It is an overpriced, incomplete battle system.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you love quirky RPGs/dungeon-crawlers and have yet to give Dungeon Encounters a try, I would highly recommend doing so now. It is an absolute *gem* of a game!
unlabelledView post →I don't get the negative reviews for this game being exactly as described?
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Breaking news; A very mediocre, leaning on terrible, game had amazing ideas and solid concepts that inspire you and your projects. I'm looking at you, "Dungeon Encounters", SquareEnix. 😠 #gamedev
unlabelledView post →Dungeon Encounters is very bare-bones and minimalist, but that just means that the parts that remain are done well.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Absolute bare bones garbage - there's more atmosphere on the Moon. Plays like a mobile game, only without the complexity.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just a little too shallow for my tastes. As far as I can tell, all the characters are exactly the same- only differentiating by what you equip them with. They can equip a weapon OR spell in each hand, and that's their moves. There's no rock paper scissors, no buffs or timing- it almost feels like playing Octopath, except your whole team has only sword and spear equipped, and every enemy breaks to sword and spear. And also you don't learn moves. Three's not enough mechanically to make up…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dungeon Encounters is on sale right now on Steam. I picked it up last night after being curious about it since its release in 2021, and finally played it for a bit this evening. I was ready to not like this game. It is peak, and I should not have doubted.
unlabelledView post →The problem with my most recent obsession game being Dungeon Encounters is now all of my ideas are ' what if its a JRPG' lol fml
unlabelledView post →This might be the worst game I've ever paid money for. The decision density of this game is so low that it approximates a vacuum. That applies to both the combat and the upgrade loop. The traversal system is incredibly tedious, as is the requirement for manually take notes about map locations. It's a game so shallow that it doesn't deserve most of your attention, but designed to require all of it by intentional omission of quality of life features.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Kind of sad to see this game get Mixed reviews. It's more appropriate to say this is an old school traditional rpg where the game has been stripped down to it's bare bones ignoring many other nuances like graphics, story telling or a complex/detailed world. However, the underlying core gameplay is still very fun despite it looking like... well... this. This is where the emphasis on the non-traditional design is apparent (Which lead to the negative reviews). Some of them are as follows: A…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After playing the game for 40 hours, i believe that sometime fancy graphic are not necessary, because our greed and fear are simply what we need for a good time in a dungeon.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to like this game. It has some neat concepts. I knew the graphics were minimal. That didn't bother me. What bothered me was the grind. The game forces you to go up and down 10 or more floors with characters not equipped to handle any of the enemies you would encounter, just to do a stone to flesh or to revive a party that fell...and they do fall. A lot. As a result of this tedium, it pays to have multiple high level parties...but that, within itself is more tedium. And when it…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fired up Dungeon Encounters. Holy shit, what a deranged, raw, pure game design. Just poking my brain in the neuron activator over and over. Old school dungeon crawling distilled down to its absolute bare essentials. Echoes of incredibly strange old PC gaming design a la Wizardry/Might and magic.
unlabelledView post →
Posts are quoted from public profiles with links to the original. Want yours removed? Contact us.
You Might Also Like
similar titlesDRAGON QUEST VII Reimagined
DRAGON QUEST VII Reimagined
Game
FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH
FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH
Game
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection
Game
DRAGON QUEST I & II HD-2D Remake
DRAGON QUEST I & II HD-2D Remake
Game
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
Game