Dungeons of Hinterberg review: A picturesque, puzzling slaycation

Dungeons of Hinterberg is an intelligently-designed action puzzler with strong writing taking you on a relaxing ride

Dungeons of Hinterberg / Curve Games

When one pictures a nice holiday in a remote Austrian village, magic monster slaying isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, but that’s the central issue of Dungeons of Hinterberg’s story. In an attempt to get away from her soul-crushing job as a junior lawyer, Luisa comes to the town of Hinterberg, which three years prior had the entrances to magical dungeons appear, attracting slayers from all over the world to challenge them. With them, they bring prosperity and fortune to the town, but at the cost of its cozy village atmosphere.

It strangely parallels how Dungeons of Hinterberg feels with its mechanics. On the one hand, you have the less flashy but much more interesting aspect of puzzle-solving, which is the main drive of most dungeons. These puzzles are well-designed and fun to solve. On the other, you have the combat which, while not actively detrimental to the game, I could’ve done without and it wouldn’t have affected my enjoyment at all.

Dungeons of Hinterberg / Curve Games

I had teething issues with both the combat and the platforming at first, but eventually, I adjusted. They’re far from the worst I’ve ever experienced, but they're quite rough around the edges. Animations aren’t as quick as they should be, and it leads to a lot of mistakes when you aren’t used to it – attacks don’t have a satisfying snap, to the point where I often didn’t notice when I was taking damage, and the camera doesn’t work for the number of enemies that get thrown at you all at once. There were a few times when the game switched to an isometric view, and in those instances, the combat felt much better than in full 3D.

The same goes for the platforming, where the controls could do with a rework. Jumping is a pretty vital part of every level, yet there is no jump button. Instead, you just have to run at a ledge where the jump will happen automatically. I found this system fairly reliable, but there were a few frustrating moments where Luisa jumped in a completely different direction than I was expecting, or didn’t jump at all. Simply adding a dedicated “jump” button would’ve smoothed over a lot of these frustrations.

That said, after a couple of hours I got used to it, and I rarely had any trouble with it from then on – I instead got to enjoy the brilliant puzzle design that shows in almost every dungeon. Across 25 dedicated dungeons, I would’ve forgiven a few reused ideas, but every single one brings you a unique set of mechanics, each of which gets a dungeon dedicated to fully exploring all the ways you can play with it to create engaging puzzles.

Dungeons of Hinterberg / Curve Games

Not only is the puzzle design intelligent, but they have a nice difficulty curve. Each dungeon has a numbered rank to indicate how strong the monsters inside are, but with it comes more difficult puzzles. It created a smooth pace where I breezed through the early dungeons but slowly had to apply more and more thought as I went on. Sure, I didn’t necessarily enjoy all of them – I could go my whole life without ever having to do another ice-block sliding puzzle – but I still felt satisfied upon solving them.

This is tied together by the four areas in the game which you must explore to find the dungeons in the first place. Each area gives you two unique spells that can only be used in that area and its respective dungeons. That means that while each dungeon plays with unique mechanics, the application of these spells remains consistent, always giving you a starting point to leap off of. Plus, with each area having six or seven dungeons, many of them introduce new ways to use your spells, constantly keeping you thinking about creative solutions.

Despite their open appearance, these pre-dungeon areas have mostly linear paths, and aside from a few that are tied to quests, you won’t struggle to find any of the dungeons. However, you do still get rewarded for wandering off the beaten path in the few places it’s possible, either with some sellable items or hidden relaxation spots, which you can use to boost your social stats – because Dungeons of Hinterberg also has Persona-style life-sim elements.

Dungeons of Hinterberg / Curve Games

You must work on raising your Renown, Familiarity, Amusement, and Relaxation during your stay in Hinterberg, as they lock you out of certain areas and purchasable items, plus some people will only talk to you once you meet a certain threshold – or at least, that’s the idea. Playing the game naturally I never ran up against any of these barriers, or rather, by the time I did I’d long since cleared the threshold because there are simply so many ways to raise each stat.

However, it’s not the end of the world that these aren’t more of a challenge, as the game is filled with a lot of colorful characters that you can befriend in exchange for unique perks. The character writing is one of the game’s biggest strengths, and getting to know the various people around town is a memorable experience that gives tangible rewards. Plus you get told what the next friendship reward is for each character ahead of time, so you can choose whether to invest in them for their stories or their gameplay benefits. There’s no frustrating guesswork, which is needed, as the game isn’t long enough for you to make friends with everyone unless you put off completing the dungeons.

That’s the other thing I appreciate: unlike the Persona games, you’re not time-limited on any of this, and if you want to extend the game so that you can max out everyone’s relationships, you can. You’ll have to skip through the days a bit without completing dungeons, but nothing is stopping you, and it helps make Hinterberg a more relaxed experience, which is necessary when you’re looking at an average playtime of about 15 hours versus Persona’s 80+.

Dungeons of Hinteberg / Curve Games

Every character’s self-contained story informs the overarching narrative. Eventually, you face the prospect of being able to shut down these dangerous dungeons for good, and with each character, you get to understand what the dungeons being open has done for them. For some, it’s brought prosperity, friendship, and a reason to get out of bed in the morning, while for others it’s crushing the life out of everything they love in Hinterberg as the town caters more and more towards slayers and profiting off them.

Each story you explore adds another layer of nuance to this concept and gives you a little more to think about in your quest. It may sound like I’m building up to the idea of a branching narrative, and while that would be cool, I appreciate the game’s linear approach instead. In many ways, it shows a more clear narrative vision to provide two equally valid opinions, but then choose which one you want to present as correct rather than leaving it up to the player.

It left me thoroughly satisfied with my time playing Dungeons of Hinterberg. The narrative and character writing carried me along from dungeon to dungeon, where the clever puzzle design kept me entertained from start to finish. There’s room for improvement as far as the platforming controls and combat are concerned, but the more I played the less those complaints mattered to me as I became enamored with everything else it had to offer.

Score: 8/10

Version tested: PC (Steam)