Nippon Ichi Software released a new trailer and screenshots for Lapis x Labyrinth, revealing new details on the fast-paced action RPG.
As we previously detailed, the game follows a no risk no gain philosophy. As you explore dungeons floor by floor, you’ll get better rewards for exploring further but stronger enemies will appear as well.
Your party is made of a tower called “Dango” referencing the traditional Japanese snack. The characters in Lapis x Labyrinth can turn into SD sized “heads”, and a Dango is made of a character in normal size and 3 “heads” stacked together. There are 8 classes in total, and you must pick 4 to make your Dango. Each class has different “Job Action”, “Assist Order” and “Extra Order” attacks depending on their position on the tower. The game’s action is frenetical so you’d think rushing ahead and button mash would work, but it actually requires a lot of strategies and careful planning of your Dango.
When receiving attacks, sometimes a character can fall from the Dango. You must quickly pick them back up, as they can’t move or attack in this state and will start to lose HP. Plus, with one character less, your Dango will be missing an attack pattern. Furthermore, if you go to the next floor without picking them up, they’ll be unavailable for the rest of that run. You can also detach one of the heads on purpose, to use them as a stepping stone to access higher places.
The item system was also detailed. There are five types of items: Weapons, Armors, Artifacts, Magic Stones and Snacks. Equipping an item to a character will provide an effect to that character alone related to that particular character’s class, or to the whole Dango. Each item has a cost, and the total cost of all equipped items must be below a certain limit. Snacks are items with various effects which can only be used between each floor.
In order to clear a dungeon, you must be able to open the “Gate” at the end. To do so, you must destroy a certain amount of purple diamonds scattered in the floors through your run. There’s a gauge to tell you how much you’ve destroyed. It must reach the first threshold for the Gate to open. If you max the gauge by destroying all the purple diamonds, you’ll get bonus treasure when clearing the dungeon.
Lastly, the game has an encyclopedia, containing info on the items, monsters etc, you’ve encountered.
You can watch the trailer and check the screenshots below. You can read more about the game and check the previous trailer here. Lapis x Labyrinth will launch for PS4 and Switch in Japan on November 29. NIS already announced the game in the west, but it has no release date for now.
