Brandish: The Dark Revenent comes closer than any dungeoncrawler I've played before to convincing me about this classique style of sprawling cubic labyrinths. I've always had trouble feeling anything for the framework because of how impersonal they come across - usually hamstrung by hardware or budget to the point that they are messy spaghetti bowls of long winding corridors of repeating tilesets as seen through grid paper. Activates something in my brain where it quite literally feels like I'm at the office plugging away at a spreadsheet and doing data entry. Jingle landmarks and unique assets in front of me like keys, I have one foot in the emergency exit.

Part of what Brandish: tDR does to help me out is that the combat takes place in real-time on the map itself, rather than an estranged-feeling turn based random battle (like Mary Skelter or Labyrinth of Refrain). The level of exploration and puzzle-solving here is generally okay, but doesn't do enough with its mechanics to entice me to go beyond what a guide indicates is about the 80% point. These floors genuinely just got too tedious for me. You generally get by with wall-hugging and switch flicking, with only the rarest "ah-ha!" moment where you're expected to think outside of the box with your limited toolset. It's fairly satisfying to have a basic map drawing mechanic for the player to jot down landmarks or mechanics the auto-fill purposefully omits, but with the PSP's lack of touchscreen functionality, it can only dream of doing what Etrian Odyssey did.

Surprisingly late for a PSP release too by the way, landing in 2015 as a downloadable title for Western regions. Seems like a fairly polite remake of the original, with the option to switch the OG soundtrack, and a few extra modes n stuff.