The Denpa Men: They Came By Wave is exactly what I expected it to be, but like, I’m not happy about that. I have a lot of nostalgia for the second and third games, but I didn’t play the first one back then, the lack of overworld being a major turn-off at the time, and as such, I only ended up buying the first game a couple years ago, wanting to make sure I had all three games downloaded before the 3DS eShop’s inevitable closure (although, wow, did that come sooner than I expected it to). I may come back to this game at some point in the future, but having gotten around a little more than halfway through the game, I think I’ve had my fill for the time being.
For what it's worth, the game is undeniably charming. This is true for all of the Denpa Men games, but it’s especially worth noting when considering the aforementioned lack of an overworld to provide an added layer of engagement between dungeons. Unfortunately, unless you’re Shigesato Itoi, your game cannot be carried on charm alone, and this game shares all the same gameplay issues that plagued the series’ later entries without having the same breadth of side content to fall back on.
To get the most obvious out of the way, yes, the game is poorly balanced. I was hoping that, being a game centered entirely around gameplay, this entry would have somewhat better balancing than the other games, but that is sadly not the case. First of all, the game straight-up lies to you about its level curve, as the game’s recommended levels for each dungeon are at best a bare minimum, and at worst not nearly high enough for you to beat the boss at the end. Second of all, the difficulty isn’t even fun; the bosses don’t present the player with clever challenges, they’re just large HP walls with grossly overpowered AOE attacks that can be easily cheesed with one very specific strategy, but don’t promote any alternative playstyles. Well, I say “easily cheesed,” but like I said, if they whip out one of those AOE attacks, which they do often, you’re pretty much screwed and have to start over. I mean, look, I have no shame, I probably would’ve beaten this game if I could’ve cheesed every boss fight, but the fact that I’m expected to level grind and still employ a cheese strat on top of that is just frustrating.
I’m also not a fan of how it costs money to revive your Denpa Men, because this game is incredibly stingy with its money. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say this was implemented to encourage people to just go out and catch new Denpa Men, rather than revive your old ones, but it’s 2023. The AR stuff was cool when the game first came out, but nowadays I feel kinda weird just waving my 3DS around in public. (Maybe that one’s just on me though.) That, and like with Pokémon, I can’t help but get attached to these randomly generated little guys. There’s something inherently funny about the idea of a blue guy named Nathan with a crescent-shaped head, or a green guy named Demetrius with a large nose who can summon icicles to attack enemies at will. The game would probably be easier if I had access to a wider variety of Denpa Men, but I digress.
Perhaps it’s a bit unfair of me to levy this last point against this game as a flaw, but it also feels like a pretty major talking point, so I’d like to address it anyway. The AI in this game is too good. I’m not talking about the enemy AI though, no, I’m talking about the party AI when you hit the auto-battle button. Usually, I don’t bother with auto-battle features in JRPGs, but because the combat in this game is so simple (there isn’t even a guard option here like there is in later entries, much to my dismay, as it would’ve helped against some of those AOE attacks) the AI will often do exactly what I was going to do anyway. Sure, once and a while they’ll attack the wrong enemy, or use a physical attack instead of their antenna power, but it didn’t happen often enough to stop me from going on autopilot for most fights (and especially when grinding) once I realized how competent the AI actually was. Thus, what the bulk of your playtime in this game ultimately comes down to is waiting for the game to finish grinding for you, occasionally popping back to the hub world to heal before going right back in to continue. This is especially frustrating considering how slow the animations are. If any game needed a speed-up toggle, it was this one.
Yet, in spite of all that, I can’t hate this game. The series was simply too integral to my childhood; it played a large part in influencing the kinds of games I enjoy today. And to the game’s credit, the dungeon crawling itself is actually pretty good. Once you get past the second dungeon, which bafflingly decides that putting all of its treasure chests behind hazard tiles while enemies can spawn anywhere on the map is a good design decision, most of the game’s dungeons feature lengthy branching paths full of treasure for those who want to see all of what every dungeon has to offer. It helps that you can also usually get an extra level or two from going through the dungeon a second time to see all of this.
Maybe one day, I’ll finally get my Denpa Men 5 in the sky.
For what it's worth, the game is undeniably charming. This is true for all of the Denpa Men games, but it’s especially worth noting when considering the aforementioned lack of an overworld to provide an added layer of engagement between dungeons. Unfortunately, unless you’re Shigesato Itoi, your game cannot be carried on charm alone, and this game shares all the same gameplay issues that plagued the series’ later entries without having the same breadth of side content to fall back on.
To get the most obvious out of the way, yes, the game is poorly balanced. I was hoping that, being a game centered entirely around gameplay, this entry would have somewhat better balancing than the other games, but that is sadly not the case. First of all, the game straight-up lies to you about its level curve, as the game’s recommended levels for each dungeon are at best a bare minimum, and at worst not nearly high enough for you to beat the boss at the end. Second of all, the difficulty isn’t even fun; the bosses don’t present the player with clever challenges, they’re just large HP walls with grossly overpowered AOE attacks that can be easily cheesed with one very specific strategy, but don’t promote any alternative playstyles. Well, I say “easily cheesed,” but like I said, if they whip out one of those AOE attacks, which they do often, you’re pretty much screwed and have to start over. I mean, look, I have no shame, I probably would’ve beaten this game if I could’ve cheesed every boss fight, but the fact that I’m expected to level grind and still employ a cheese strat on top of that is just frustrating.
I’m also not a fan of how it costs money to revive your Denpa Men, because this game is incredibly stingy with its money. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say this was implemented to encourage people to just go out and catch new Denpa Men, rather than revive your old ones, but it’s 2023. The AR stuff was cool when the game first came out, but nowadays I feel kinda weird just waving my 3DS around in public. (Maybe that one’s just on me though.) That, and like with Pokémon, I can’t help but get attached to these randomly generated little guys. There’s something inherently funny about the idea of a blue guy named Nathan with a crescent-shaped head, or a green guy named Demetrius with a large nose who can summon icicles to attack enemies at will. The game would probably be easier if I had access to a wider variety of Denpa Men, but I digress.
Perhaps it’s a bit unfair of me to levy this last point against this game as a flaw, but it also feels like a pretty major talking point, so I’d like to address it anyway. The AI in this game is too good. I’m not talking about the enemy AI though, no, I’m talking about the party AI when you hit the auto-battle button. Usually, I don’t bother with auto-battle features in JRPGs, but because the combat in this game is so simple (there isn’t even a guard option here like there is in later entries, much to my dismay, as it would’ve helped against some of those AOE attacks) the AI will often do exactly what I was going to do anyway. Sure, once and a while they’ll attack the wrong enemy, or use a physical attack instead of their antenna power, but it didn’t happen often enough to stop me from going on autopilot for most fights (and especially when grinding) once I realized how competent the AI actually was. Thus, what the bulk of your playtime in this game ultimately comes down to is waiting for the game to finish grinding for you, occasionally popping back to the hub world to heal before going right back in to continue. This is especially frustrating considering how slow the animations are. If any game needed a speed-up toggle, it was this one.
Yet, in spite of all that, I can’t hate this game. The series was simply too integral to my childhood; it played a large part in influencing the kinds of games I enjoy today. And to the game’s credit, the dungeon crawling itself is actually pretty good. Once you get past the second dungeon, which bafflingly decides that putting all of its treasure chests behind hazard tiles while enemies can spawn anywhere on the map is a good design decision, most of the game’s dungeons feature lengthy branching paths full of treasure for those who want to see all of what every dungeon has to offer. It helps that you can also usually get an extra level or two from going through the dungeon a second time to see all of this.
Maybe one day, I’ll finally get my Denpa Men 5 in the sky.