Go! Go! GOTY! 2024: Dungeons of Hinterberg
By Mento 7 Comments
- Game: Microbird Games's Dungeons of Hinterberg
- Release Month: July
- Started: 28/12
- Completed: 30/12
January, when most rational people start putting together their GOTY lists for the previous year, is nigh upon us and yet I couldn't help but want to squeeze in one more review before December (and 2024) was over. In this case, I don't think I've heard anyone talk about Dungeons of Hinterberg at all despite both being a Game Pass game available to all subscribers (I think; hard to tell with all those new tiers they introduced) and being very good, or certainly in the GOTY conversation at least. In fact, I might brook some controversy here and say it was debatably the best Zelda game this year, even in spite of its status as a Zeldersatz. No Stamp Guy here but then you can't have everything.
Dungeons of Hinterberg follows Luisa Dorfer, a tourist looking to escape her rut as a fledgling lawyer who had her whole life planned out and now feels regret for missing out on the danger and excitement of being in her twenties with no clear destination in mind. Fortunately, a hip new tourist destination for athletic yuppies happens to be right on her Austrian doorstep: the Alpine resort town of Hinterberg, which despite steadily losing appeal for its outmoded winter sport facilities has made up for it and then some by being one of the only places in the world to have honest-to-goodness dungeons filled with magic and monsters and treasure. Despite the risks presented, hordes of well-equipped rich kids, influencers, and adrenaline junkies gear up and descend on the place for their annual slaycations. (Honestly, this has inadvertently proven to be a good way to hype myself up for the second season of Solo Leveling too, which does something similar with its setting but with a good deal more urgency and far fewer souvenir stands.)
Gameplay is mostly in the 3D Zelda mold as you run around dungeons taking on little arena-style battles, maneuvering across harsh terrain with a few traversal skills, and solving environmental puzzles. A neat feature is that each of the game's four regions—the grassland hiking trails of Doberkogel; the foreboding forest of Hinterwald; the snowy mountaintops of Kolmstein; and the pestiferous marshlands of Brünnelsumpf—has their own magic associated to it, which are represented by two spells you can use both in and out of combat. Out of combat, they typically feature in the environmental puzzles: Doberkogel, for instance, allows you to summon a large spherical mine that damages enemies caught in its blast but can also be used to weigh down switches while exploring. My favorite is the ice snowboard you can summon while on Kolmstein, since it greatly cuts down on travel time and is involved in some neat slalom races and rail rides. When you're not traipsing over the four regions' overworlds or delving into their respective dungeons, you're back at the town of Hinterberg following the game's other half: the social sim, a la Persona and its kin. You can choose to hang out with people or ply them with gifts to move their friendships along, or focus on one of your four vacation-based social stats (renown, town familiarity, amusement, or relaxation) which unlocks a few of the more demanding NPCs you can form an acquaintanceship with. Each NPC has a number of useful passive boons or items to earn by advancing your friendships with them, such as high-quality gear or more health and MP slots, so it's worth striking up conversations whenever you find yourself back in town for the evening.
While the combat is the game's weakest aspect it's also not bad, as the little wave-based fights can be challenging and daunting if the enemies are at a higher level than you or include some of the more formidable foes. The game determines "level" in this case by the equipment you're wearing, since this is more a standard Zeldersatz without experience points and levels in the usual sense, and assigns enemy encounters and dungeons numerical values based on their difficulty. Usually, you won't have any issue with a dungeon at or below your equipment level. In combat, you have the standard dynamic of a combo-ready light attack and a heavy attack finisher but can also supplement them with the aforementioned magic (your MP slowly regenerates as you damage enemies with physical attacks, or can be restored with randomly-appearing pick-ups) as well as "attack conduits": special high-damage attacks and buffs that slowly recharge their cooldowns after each use. There's only a smattering of enemy types but they all have their own tactics to overcome, and more so when combined with other types: a group of ranged units would typically be the first targets to chase down so they're not pelting you with magic missiles from behind as you're taking on the heavier tanks, but they might have spawned with some aggressive pursuers that it wouldn't be smart to ignore.
The star of the show here are the eponymous dungeons themselves. Normally you'd expect a Zelda game to have somewhere in the region of half- to a full-dozen dungeons if they're going the extra mile to make each one feel unique or have some special conditions to solving their puzzles, but Hinterberg goes the extra mile with a total of 26. There's a little repetition here and there—as stated, you get a pair of spells per region that are required for solving puzzles, so each of those region's 5-7 dungeons will share some mechanics out of necessity—but the game does a fine job presenting a slightly different set of challenges for each. Most dungeons are around half-hour affairs too, excepting perhaps the handful of boss fights, so Luisa's certainly getting her money's worth on this questionably therapeutic sojourn. Highlights include a few zones with Super Mario Galaxy-style micro-planetoids with their own gravity wells, an Escher-esque puzzle dungeon where you're often walking across walls, and a few that go for a fixed isometric camera perspective for a bit of visual flair. The overworlds between these dungeons also give you plenty of work to do, between enemy encounters on the critical path or tougher fights just off the trail that guard treasures or a handy shortcut. There's also junk lying around everywhere for an easy means of raising cash or procuring crafting materials in a hurry as well as a few scenic spots if you want to take some time off from dungeoneering and chill out, earning some useful stat boosts in the process. There's not always a huge variety of activities on offer but both the life sim and the day trekking aspect give you plenty of options to consider.
Dungeons of Hinterberg is not a game that's out to challenge your skill level or tax your gray matter. Its vacation-y vibes sort of preclude all that. Instead, what it gives you is a relatively substantial open-world action-adventure/social-sim hybrid with a fantastic cel-shaded aesthetic and ambient soundtrack, a wealth of imaginative dungeon design usually only found in games stamped with Nintendo's own brand, a (mostly) appealing cast of tertiary characters to get to know via a bunch of optional social link cutscenes if nothing too intense in the manner of a summer fling (probably for the best), and a whole lot of grown-up themes about the importance of taking it easy occasionally and discovering how little you knew about your true self until you came to this attractive but dangerous new environment. "Finding a stranger in the Alps", as it were. Wholly recommended and I'm glad to have found one last treasure for 2024 (besides the few more Game Pass jams I have planned for January, of course, and this copy of Ys X I got for Xmas, and... OK, well, I won't be done with 2024 for a while even after tomorrow). (Rating: 5 out of 5.)