Dungeons Of Hinterberg Review (Xbox Series X|S)

Dungeons Of Hinterberg is a very, very good name for a computer game. It has a vibe, the word Hinterberg, you see, a very specific sort of vibe that Microbird Games has absolutely nailed.

When you say Hinterberg to us, we sense adventure, we demand mysterious mountains and picturesque (but very weird) villages. We want awful German outfits, strange woodland creatures, gnomes, and mad guys who stand about in tights listening to rap music on a beatbox.

Amazingly, all of these things - even the mountains - are in this game. And they are beautiful. The cel-shaded/hatched cartoon style may be divisive, and it's purposely rough and strange around characters' faces at times - but it also puts us in mind of a very cool PS Vita game, like Gravity Rush or something like Sable. It's not trying to be a graphical powerhouse, but the art direction and style are cannily chosen, making for an indie effort that has a great personality of its own and, for us at least, looks exactly as colourful and dreamlike (and strange) as we had hoped.

Jumping into the game, you assume the role of Luisa, a fairly irritating upper-class lawyer type who's burnt out on being highly successful and cool in the city. Luisa has decided she's switching it up on a holiday, where she can be highly successful and cool around other highly successful and cool people somewhere that isn't the city. The twist here is that the holiday involves going into dungeons and slaying monsters for the fun of it. So it's the RPG dungeons we all know and love, turned into fun adventures for hipsters who need a break from drinking oat milk in their fibreglass thinking pods at home.

We're not huge fans of any of the characters in the game - not sure if you picked that up from the last paragraph - but we are also perhaps not the intended audience for this particular sort of narrative experience. Hey, maybe you'll find it massively relatable! In any case, the game gets over this hurdle fairly quickly, and it's something we were able to excuse, even taking into consideration the social aspects that we'll detail - because everything else is so good here.

And, even though the actual dialogue isn't our cup of tea, it has to be said that placing your dungeon-crawler within a "realistic" setting and world has worked out very well regardless. It helps ground all the monsters and dungeons in a weird sort of semi-reality that makes exploring all the regions on offer a unique treat. It also gives us a way to forgive some of the overly annoying chatter from NPCs, because we all have mates like that in real life, innit.

Hinterburg gives you four different regions in which to explore overall, each one coming in the usual palette mix-up between seasons. Moving between regions sees you gain new magic powers from a skill shrine, and these powers are exclusive to the area you obtained them. So, you'll start out with fire-based magic skills in the first area (I'm not looking up how to spell it), then move onto the second region where wind-based stuff comes into play. This is the game's finest element. Microbird has crafted some really quite complex and fun puzzles to play about with in areas that feel great to wander around. As the music tinkles and winds along, some deer dart across your path and you get busy trying to figure out how to get Luisa onto some platform or other (lift her up with the tornado attack, FFS!) it slips into a lovely old-school Zelda vibe. (It's the faces, the hideous N64 Zelda faces. AHHHHHHH!)

The gaining of new powers betwixt regions is another great idea that works well here, although they are quite samey at times, and the constant shifting between these as you fast-travel between regions and backtrack for goodies, makes for dungeons that don't grow as stale as they might had we been given all the powers at once.

Luisa can also use Attack Conduits, which are collectible programs that allow her to pull off a bunch of fancy moves in combat, such as spinning around with her sword or jumping into the air and landing for an AOE attack. Further to this, she has access to collectible charms which give you stuff like perfect dodge slowdown, an attack boost or shockwaves when you kill an enemy. All very run-of-the-mill, and the fights here are small scale and not too difficult - as long as you're at the right monster-slaying level.

Dungeons are all labelled with advised levels for the posh tourists, you see, most high level ones are unreachable starting out, due to strong-ass baddies or environmental obstacles, and the game is wonderfully freewheeling in how it plants Luisa in Hinterburg and lets you just hang out and explore and talk to people or wander off and find dungeons if you can. It has a Persona-styled day-to-day setup, although we didn't really feel as though we needed to concentrate or focus on it that much as the game isn't that complex, but it feeds into the simplified social structure of proceedings, which in turn feed into Luisa's constantly increasing stats. It's also very familiar and easy to get into the flow of.

Spend time between dungeons talking to locals, and you'll find yourself with very simple fetch quests and the like which, when completed, give you upgrades to stats that also unlock perks such as the ability to take screenshots - you'll get that from a photographer! - and a bunch of others we won't spoil for you. The main narrative convos here are OK, there's a reasonable cast of core characters, but the NPCs you meet outside in the world as you explore are Pokémon-franchise-levels of basic. Which is a bit of a shame, but we get it! It's not some huge game with 100 people working on it, and it works for what it needs to for the most part.

Once in a dungeon things really tighten up too, with the vast majority of your time spent using your abilities to solve puzzles. It's a good decision, fitting in with the chilled tone of the main story and playing to the strengths of some very decent environmental problem solving. The combat is fine enough too, it follows the Souls playbook closely with spacing, timing of attacks, lock-on and all that jazz, and it does a fine job - although we can't say the framerate always feels totally rock solid during busier encounters. There are some fresh ideas on enemies and attacks along the way as well, but don't go into this one expecting massive scraps and terrifyingly dark and dangerous dungeons.

But really it's the vibes here. It's the colourful regions, the laid back nature of the puzzles and combat and a world that's genuinely intriguing to explore, that makes this one worth digging into. It doesn't need massive boss fights or over-elaborate systems to work, it's not going for that sort of thing at all. It's a holiday dungeon crawler. Dungeon-crawling where you can wade in and batter everything if you've prepared properly. Then you can hit the nearest trendy tavern and have frothy (and no doubt very expensive) beers with one of your painfully hipster pals.

Go in with the expectation of a huge challenge or complex narrative and you'll be disappointed. However, if you want a chill-out game that looks and sounds gorgeous and does its dungeon-crawling and NPC banter a little differently, we reckon you'll be a happy bunny. We really do like the cut of Hinterberg's jib, and it's exactly the sort of thing we'd love to see given a sequel.

On a final note, AND with regards to performance, beyond the minor hiccups we experienced in performance mode, all was well, with no bugs of any serious kind on our run-through. There is a quality mode which we've yet to put to the test in detail, but it also seemed smooth (was hard to tell the difference, in all honesty).

Happily, there are accessibility options worth mentioning, too. The game treats death very lightly by default - experimentation therefore relatively painless - but you can also switch player death off entirely which is great. There are comprehensive tutorials for every mechanic and region, controls can be inverted on both axis and stick sensitivities adjust on a scale. You can also tone down or turn off the hatching effect and any screenshaking, and there's even a motion sickness mode. Not sure if it's meant to give you more or less sickness, but it's there, so you try it first then report back to us. Cheers!