• Game: Super Dungeon Explore
• Publisher: Soda Pop Miniatures
• Designer: John Cadice
• Genre: Gauntlet-style JRPG looter
• Players: 2-5
• Playtime: 30-120 minutes



• What's Hot: Awesome JRPG visual style and video game-derived gameplay concepts; fun, no-BS tactical play; innovative pacing and loot mechanics; great minis if that’s what you’re into



• What's Not: Not a great purchase for the modeling adverse; badly written/organized rules; lacks variety out of the box; will need costly expansions and additional models to reach its full potential

by: Michael Barnes

Let’s weed out the audience for this game right up front. Super Dungeon Explore, despite its board game packaging and presentation, is a miniatures game and all that entails. This means that the 50 or so figures come unassembled, unpainted, and require some degree of modeling. Yes, “some assembly required” should be printed on the box. If your idea of gaming fun doesn’t include messy paint pots and fingers stuck together with plastic cement, then this title may not be worth your money even though the design is good and the gameplay is a blast.

It’s also important to note that Super Dungeon Explore isn’t as “complete” a package as a similar game in its genre from a more board game-focused publisher is expected to be. It is very much a kind of “starter” set with enough to get you going, but it’s also going to make you want more. Particularly when the rulebook is telling you to select a Boss monster for the dungeon and you’ve only got one to choose from. In a board game, I’d find this unacceptable but given that this title is more appropriately classed as a miniatures game it’s par for course and you should go into it expecting that future expansions might be for single models as well as box sets of figures, cards, and other game materials.

Now, to continue the disclaimer portion of the review, I am not much of a miniatures gamer these days for the reasons above. Like many gamers that might have spent a lot of time modeling and painting Warhammer armies in the past, I no longer have the time, patience, or money to really get into that aspect of the hobby or to keep up with periodical and serialized releases. I was excited to get this game and see about putting the figures together but despite relatively good molding and a nice tab and slot construction, the lack of instructions in the box and the quantity of pieces put me off from the task.

My test games were played using half-assembled miniatures and proxy figures that I pulled out of my Dungeons and Dragons Adventure game sets. But I will say this- having seen a friend’s assembled and painted set, the models look freaking awesome, and the unique style influenced by the “chibi” style of Japanese role playing video games give this game a riotously colorful, fun look that makes it stand far apart from the usual grim and grimmer style of most miniatures and fantasy games.

The gameplay itself is likewise riotously colorful and fun. It’s essentially a cooperative dungeoncrawl with a live dungeon master (excuse me, Dark Consul) that all but eliminates any kind of fluff or folderol and focuses squarely on tactics, teamwork, and beating up monsters to steal their stuff. Despite a poorly organized, somewhat confusing rulebook, the game is easy to play and gets right down to business with simple grid-based movement and dice-based combat rules supplemented with a host of keyword abilities and statuses to flesh out the details. There is no grand, adventure narrative or fluff text masquerading as “theme”, and the action most closely resembles the classic arcade game Gauntlet—complete with monster-dispensing spawn points and treasure chests. The heroes’ goal is to bust up the spawn points and fight the Dark Consul’s selected Boss monsters.

The video game concept is sold exceptionally well beyond the visual style. It feels video gamey, and not just because the game’s timing mechanic is divided up into “platforms”. 8-bit monsters start the game, and later on the 16-bit and “Super” monsters can be used by the Dark Consul. There are even mid-stage mini-bosses, and boss fights have that kind of multi-staged sequencing that has always irritated me about JRPGs. The short view of this game is that it’s yet another Dudes in a Corridor game with some streamlining to keep it oriented on hack-and-slash combat. And that is true, but there are a couple of exciting, innovative mechanical concepts that keep it from feeling redundant with other games.