The Quest of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos is a comedic fantasy role-playing game developed by Artefacts Studio. Inspired by the French audio series Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk, the game follows a group of unlikely heroes as they embark on a dangerous quest to retrieve the Amulet of Chaos. The main plot revolves around The Party, a group of adventurers consisting of a dwarf, an elf, a barbarian, a wizard, a thief, and a ranger. Each character has their own unique abilities and personalities, which adds a layer of humor and diversity to the game. The objective of the game is to explore various dungeons, solve puzzles, and defeat enemies in order to progress in the story. As the story unfolds, the heroes find themselves encountering a myriad of comical and challenging situations.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes and Violence. The official description reads as follows: This is a tactical role-playing game in which players control heroes as that explore dungeons, search for artifacts, and complete quests/missions. From a top-down perspective, players follow a storyline while engaging in turn-based battles with fantastical enemies (e.g., zombies, vampires, trolls). Characters use swords, axes, clubs, and magic spells to defeat enemies. One location depicts torture machines/instruments (e.g., rack, iron maiden, stocks) and several large splatters of blood on devices, walls, and the floor. A female character is depicted with bouncing breasts and deep cleavage; the dialogue contains some suggestive material (e.g., “No, she’s not gonna take off her clothes when you use that skill”; “Talk about a ménage-à -trois”; “Not everyone gets the dizzies in front of a pair of knockers, you lecherous old bat!”). The words “f**k,” “sh*t,” and “a*shole” appear in the dialogue.
The campaign offers a good mix of classic characters, the location in which the adventure happens is unusual, the tactics are rich and the gameplay is enjoyable if the script and voiceovers didn t dump a bucket of hog slop all over everything, we d be in business. Unlike Dwalin s sacred axe which it was verified and confirmed to be working like this, I have not verified all of them, but i am assuming that maybe some of the other side quest COULD work the same.
As the story unfolds, the heroes find themselves encountering a myriad of comical and challenging situations. One of the standout features of The Quest of Naheulbeuk is its turn-based combat system. Players must strategically position their characters and utilize their individual skill sets to defeat enemies.
The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos Review
On the list of “genres that aren’t in need of a parody game”, you’d think that cRPGs would be near the top. Although shooters and hack-and-slashers have started to become too serious for their own good, it’s long been a staple of sword and board games to have a fair amount of self-aware humour in them. Even in the genre’s darkest outings, there’s always more than a few jokes made about how every fantasy game is just a glorified Dungeons and Dragons game. However, because we’re officially living in the weirdest timeline, Artefacts Studio chose to ignore this and make their own attempt at a silly turn-based combat game with The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos.
Unlike with most games in the genre, The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos doesn’t try to waste your time introducing you to its world or story. Immediately after starting a new game, you’re given control of a pre-created party full of the expected set of fantasy characters, thrown into a dungeon and given a quest to find an amulet. A narrator then tells you that the reason you need to find that amulet is because that’s what groups of mercenaries do, that the dungeon is actually full of enemies that’ll need killing for essentially the same reason, and you listen to few snide remarks about your party before being set loose in the game’s world to follow quest markers and listen to witty lines from your party.
This review is sponsored by Durandil Swords, the preferred swords of all warlocksAs appreciated as the no time-wasting part of the introduction is, the problem is that the game wastes your time by asking you to sit through what amounts to the most painfully mediocre cRPG experience this side of Company of Crime. Over the game’s 20-odd hour runtime, you can expect to do the same thing that you can do in literally every other turn-based combat fantasy game. You manage your party’s inventory, level them up, keep them healed and play through turn-based fights that aren’t terrible but aren’t great either. You accept quests, complete quests, deal with in-fighting within your party and so on and so on and so on.
None of this is particularly bad, but none of it is interesting or more enjoyable than it is in every other game in the genre, either. Playing The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos elicits the same feeling as watching the Netflix knock-offs of Game of Thrones. The core idea of what makes games like Wasteland great are still here, but they just don’t feel quite as good somehow. The combat feels a hair too slow, the leveling up feels a bit too fast and you can’t customise your party’s physical appearance. None of these things ruin the game, but it’s also hard to really enjoy it when you know that there are better games that you could be playing.
So instead of relying on its gameplay, the game tries to focus on its writing, which it does with mixed results. As mentioned previously, The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos fancies itself as a parody game, and it does this with Deadpool humour. Throughout the length of the game, every character breaks the fourth wall frequently while swearing and using sexual innuendos. It’s a bit crude and it’s very hit-and-miss, but for the most part it’s enjoyable to listen to your party’s banter. There are also some fun item descriptions and skill names, and these two things combined help to alleviate some of the boredom that can be found in the gameplay or when trying to pay attention to the game’s story.
Funny, this doesn’t look like my room.The story, then, is okay. Like with the gameplay, it’s not terrible but it’s not great either. Your initial task of finding an amulet quickly turns into something more than that, and without getting into spoilers, the story plays out about as you’d expect it to. Over the course of the campaign, you’ll meet some characters that spout lines from that aforementioned hit-and-miss writing, and you occasionally go on a fun quest, but the story is never captivating or interesting. Every time you boot up the game, you’ll likely forget what was going on in your previous session because of this, which is far from a good thing.
On a more positive note, though, the game’s audio design is definitely worth calling attention to, even when the rest of the art design isn’t. Between the game’s voice acting, music and sound design, the game doesn’t quite offer an audio experience to rival Pink Floyd, but considering how bland the rest of the game is, it’s definitely a highlight of the overall experience. The voice acting in particular is fantastic, with genuinely skilled voice actors reading almost every line in the game. The music and ambient sound is great too, and although it doesn’t quite rival games like XCOM, it comes surprisingly close and this helps to make a mediocre game occasionally more enjoyable.
Girls are naked under their clothes? This changes EVERYTHING!However, none of these things can quite offset the extreme prevalence of bugs in The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos. Although it’s rarely worth calling attention to a game’s technical problems when they’ll likely be patched out soon, the game has so many of them that it’s definitely of note here. Throughout our playthrough, Jump Dash Roll encountered quite a few lines that were in French when our game was set to be in English, a number of crashes to desktop, one story-essential vendor being bugged and a handful of infinite loading screens. At times this seriously hindered our ability to play the game, which when the game wasn’t very good to begin with, made it hard to keep playing to the point where we could reasonably write our review.
So with this in mind, and the rest of the game’s mediocrity, The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos is a tough sell. The game does have some solid writing, and the audio work is surprisingly good, but the rest of the experience is either painfully mediocre or flat out bad. For fans of cRPGs there are significantly better options on the market, and for people looking for a laugh, there’s no shortage of games that can provide that, either.
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The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos is the game equivalent of a Netflix knockoff of an HBO show: it’s not terrible and it has occasionally fun ideas, but it’s still worse than the source material in almost every conceivable way.
Speaking of the party…
The game also incorporates elements of choice and consequence, allowing players to make decisions that affect the outcome of the story. The humor in The Quest of Naheulbeuk is an integral part of the game. The dialogue is filled with witty banter and pop culture references, making it an enjoyable experience for players who appreciate comedic storytelling. Overall, The Quest of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos offers a lighthearted and entertaining take on the fantasy RPG genre. With its unique characters, humorous dialogue, and challenging gameplay, it is a game that is sure to delight fans of the genre. Whether players are looking for a laugh or a challenging adventure, The Quest of Naheulbeuk delivers on both fronts..
Reviews for "Embracing the Humor in Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos"
1. Amy - 2/5 stars - I was really excited to play "The Quest of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos" because I'm a fan of fantasy RPG games. However, I was highly disappointed with this one. The graphics were mediocre at best, the gameplay was repetitive and boring, and the storyline was confusing and hard to follow. Overall, it lacked the depth and immersive experience that I was expecting. I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone looking for an enjoyable RPG experience.
2. John - 1/5 stars - "The Quest of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos" is hands down one of the worst games I've ever played. The controls were clunky and frustrating, the character development was non-existent, and the combat system was extremely unbalanced. It felt like a rushed and unfinished game, with constant bugs and glitches that ruined the overall experience. Save your money and time, and look for a better RPG game because this one is simply not worth it.
3. Sarah - 2/5 stars - As a long-time fan of RPG games, I was truly disappointed with "The Quest of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos." The humor in the game fell flat, the voice acting was grating, and the quests were repetitive and uninspiring. The game seemed like it was trying too hard to be funny and ended up being cringeworthy instead. Additionally, the lack of customization options and character variety made the gameplay feel dull and unengaging. Overall, I found this game to be a letdown and would advise others to consider other RPG options before choosing this one.