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Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Infinite Combate Review

 

*Editor's note, The Geek Getaway received a review copy of the game from PQube.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Infinite Combate was developed by Mages and published by PQube. The game is based on the anime/manga Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? but follows the anime more closely than the manga from my understanding. The game is available on the PC, PS Vita, Nintendo Switch and PS4(which is what I played it on).It' retailing for $40 at the time of writing this review.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Infinite Combate tells the stories of rookie adventurer Bell Crane and master swordswoman Ais Wallenstein. Bell is part of the Hestia Familia and as such has Hestia's blessing. Joining Bell on his adventures are his friends Lili and Welf. Ais is a member of the Loki Familia and has her large Fmilia supporting her on her travels.

Without spoiling too much, the plot of the game is pretty much your standard shonen manga fair. A weak male protagonist and a strong female that saves him several times in their journey until the male lead becomes strong enough to take care of both of them. If you are into shonen then this game's story will be right up your alley.


The gameplay in Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Infinite Combate is broken up into 2 parts. The first part is a typical Visual Novel with lots of dialogue to move the story along. Post game you can use "date points" to buy dates with various characters as either Bell of Ais and unlock some CG artwork. I should note that Bell and Ais have separate bags so the date points, as well as the items and money, don't carry over from one to the other. 


The other part of gameplay is a dungeon crawler action RPG. Some will classify the game as a JRPG but in my opinion it lacks the exploration typically associated with JRPGs. Every chapter of the game has about 2 mandatory dungeon quest you have to finish. There are several side missions you can do before completing a main quest and moving on from the chapter if you feel like grinding. You should note that grinding was almost never needed unless you are bad at the game. These quests range in length and can be as simple as collect X mount of Y or reach Floor X. Some Quests even have a time limit, so you need to be quick. Once you complete the quest objective you will be transported out of the dungeon, so it's at least not a tedious slog every time you quest.


The RPG aspects of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Infinite Combate are pretty light. You don't have traditional leveling up but you can improve your weapons and armor through the use of materials. You do "level" up Bell by simply going through the story as his stats grow automatically when you reach a new chapter. Once you are aware of this automatic growth you no longer have any reason to grind for the most part. 

Final Verdict: Not Recommended
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Infinite Combate is a decent game but it is not a $40 game in my humble opinion. If you are a fan of the manga or anime then you will love this game but those of us without that connection will just find a shallow, easy, generic dungeon crawler/visual novel hybrid. If you find the game on sale for $20 or under then I would say pick it up for a good pick up and play action RPG but otherwise save your money for something with more meat on its bones.

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