Hey there! I'm Yoshinori Ono, CEO at Lasengle.
Welcome to my blog and thanks for dropping by!
Flipping through my old diary, I realized that it's been a couple of years since I've been overseas for business. My last trip was in January 2020, to Portland.
Now, two and a half years later, in a very different role, I'm back in the US again, this time for the Anime Expo in Los Angeles.
It's been three long years but finally, Anime Expo is back!!!
Would you look at that!! You can imagine how amazing it was to be greeted at the entrance by this huge banner celebrating the 5th anniversary of Fate/Grand Order.
The Fate/Grand Order panel discussion was attended by over 2,000 fans.
Seeing everyone there, thinking over the last three years as we waited to bring the event back, I got a little emotional. Sure, we're not quite back to how it was--attendees had to show proof of vaccination or a negative test result to gain access--but it gave me hope that it won't be long till this will all be far behind us!
Anime Expo is an event that has some real special memories for me.
That's me in 2019, cutting the ribbon at the opening ceremony.
I did a little more rummaging in my photos and unearthed this gem:
Recognize it? Yep, it's the Fate/Grand Order booth from the 2019 Anime Expo. Pretty cool, huh? This was just a photo that I snapped to send to the president at Delightworks. I wasn't working with them or anything back then. Funny how things work out, isn't it?
I've always believed that what I do now will lead to something great in the future. It's why I never stop being excited about what's waiting for me round the corner. I hope you all never lose that feeling too!
And, what's waiting around this corner is my featured game for blog #18, Dungreed.
Writing this blog, I remembered that 2019 is the same year I started playing Dungreed. Not to say I've been playing it every day for the last few years (I'm not that addicted), but once or twice a year when there's an update or whatever, I get the urge to pick it up again.
Dungreed is a side-scrolling twin-stick action shooter.
The controls are typical for this genre: left stick for moving, right for aiming and firing.
The game has a fantasy vibe, so weapons are swords, axes, spears, pistols, rifles, magic wands...in other words, there's not much call for precise aiming. And if you use the target lock-on feature, and enable auto-aim in the settings, you pretty much eliminate the need for the right stick and it plays more like a side-scrolling platformer.
Dungreed is also a roguelike. You explore the procedurally generated dungeons to collect weapons, armor, and other items to clear the stage and level up.
If you die, you lose all your items, but you keep your XP and your level still goes up. When you rescue villagers from the dungeon, they'll open a shop in town, giving you access to customizable features. These can be used to enhance your ability before heading back into the dungeon.
There are two main ways to customize your character in Dungreed. One is with standard skills, like long-range attack, defense, attack speed, dash attack and so on. The second is by using skill points earned from leveling up to select abilities.
You can switch between how you want to customize it as much as you like and I had a lot of fun trying out different setups. Defense skills with max HP boost ability, speed attack skills with critical hit ability, or a balanced skill/ ability setup. I like how you can customize the character's strengths depending on your mood or playing style.
But, it doesn't always work out how you planned it. I might be planning to rush enemies head up, and load up my character with close-range skills and defense abilities, only to end up in the dungeon finding long-range weapons with slow reload times. Best laid plans and all that!
There are some weapon and item combos that give you a special set effect with certain customizations, and others that just work well together. Once you work these out, you want to try out even more setups: "Okay, so this time I'll set long-range skills and power-boosting abilities, and hope for a magic wand with homing magic and that item that makes bullets bigger for long-range weapons. All I need is a bit of luck and I'm set to go!". The more you learn about the different synergies, the more combinations you can think of and want to try out.
Every time you find a new item, it makes you rethink your combos and setups: "Oh wait, if I can pick up this item when I've set my skill to fast attack, I'd be invincible!" And you're back to the drawing board, thinking up what customization to try out next.
It's this cycle of discovery, hypothesis, and testing that keeps me crawling back to the dungeon over and over! The luck element means I can't always get the item I need, so I have to keep trying till I do. So yep, it's pretty addictive.
Another unique thing that I love about Dungreed is the inns. These are shops located in the dungeon where you can buy food.
Eating food will give your stats a boost for the floor that you're on, but as you eat, your Satiety level rises and eventually you're too full to eat more. In other words, you can't boost all your stats at once. I like how this adds an element of strategy, you have to try and balance boosting your stats without over-eating (kinda like real life, right??).
You can bring your Satiety levels down by moving to different rooms--which is a neat little trick that encourages players to explore more rooms in the dungeon. Eating boosts stats, you need to be hungry to eat, new rooms bring down your Satiety, so you explore more to empty your stomach and then boost your stats. Clever, right?
After playing this game for so long, I have to say that nothing beats a Dungreed run where everything just falls into place, when you find the weapons and items that perfectly match your skills and abilities, and then give everything a boost with food. Honestly, it's the best feeling!
But, even when things don't pan out, there's still a lot of fun to be had in figuring out how to make the best of a bad situation: using food, weapons and items to make it through. That combined with the intuitive controls and just the right amount of dungeons makes it a game that you keep coming back to. Which is why even after clearing it a bunch of times in the past, I'm still playing Dungreed today, years since I first picked it up!
I believe that the preparation I do now will lead to a great run in the future, and that's why Dungreed always keeps me excited about what's waiting for me in the next dungeon. It's this cycle of discovery, hypothesis, and testing that keeps me coming back for more.
That's my take on Dungreed!
Thanks for reading.
The next game is calling my name so gotta go--till next time!
Yoshinori X（Twitter）