Of course no game is without its flaws, and by its very definition Chocobo’s Dungeon is not a game that can be recommended to everyone. After all, the core mechanic of the game, namely exploring randomly generated dungeons for hours on end, is admittedly repetitive and slow. While certain items and classes can reveal the entire map and let you rush to the stairs, oftentimes you’ll still need to check for traps and progress one step at a time to do battle with countless enemies. That’s not a real fault of the game as it is a reality of the genre (like platforms would be to platformers), but it’s certainly not a game type that will appeal to all.

The game’s difficulty is another tricky thing to discuss. While the story-based dungeons are usually a piece of cake with updated equipment, many of the special “rule” dungeons can be downright cheap. These dungeons strip you of all your equipment and rudely thrust you into a dungeon with a level cap and handicaps such as “blind” (can only see two squares ahead of you) and “1 HP” (one-hit kills for all!). These restrictions help to challenge you and mix things up a little bit, but oftentimes force you to rely on blind luck to squeeze by. Thankfully, many of the extra-cruel dungeons are optional, but they’re still the number one source of pulled hair throughout the entire game.

With that said, Chocobo’s Dungeon deserves heaps of praise for its accessibility and ability to keep the player interested in its story. Thanks to its careful balance of dungeon crawling and town exploration, you’re never trapped in a dungeon for hours on end. Equally impressive are its list of bonus content that ranges from parlor minigames and fishing, to an impressively deep Wi-Fi card battle game (graciously borrowed from Chocobo Tales DS), Chocobo’s Dungeon stays fresher than almost any other dungeon crawler out there.

Even if you are getting beat to a pulp when getting used to the game’s mechanics, every trek in the story dungeons garners you more experience and job points to make the next trek a successful one, making this the perfect introduction to the mystery dungeon genre. Toss in the unique job system and an absolutely superb soundtrack of Final Fantasy remixes, and you’ve got a recipe for the best original Wii RPG to date.

As a gamer that has been burnt out by excessively cruel and repetitive dungeon crawlers in the past, the game never left me feeling overly drained and worn out. Chocobo’s Dungeon deserves at least a few hours of any adventurous Wii gamer’s time.

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