Was It Worth It is a series here on Aggregator Reviews where we look at a given product and let you know whether you’re going to get your money’s worth from it. It can be hard to decide which items are worth your time, and most importantly, your hard earned cash. In Was It Worth It, we provide an overview, some tips and tricks (if applicable), and our personal brand of irreverent commentary. We finish off with an overall determination on whether the subject is actually worth it. With that said, let’s look at whether Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl Gold was worth it.
Disclaimer: Aggregator Reviews is open to sponsorships and strives for transparency, and our policy is full disclosure when we receive a product at a discount. We bought Snack World for full price on release date.
Table of Contents
Take a Bite
Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl Gold is a dungeon crawling RPG. Fair warning, it’s an upscaled version of a 3DS game, so the graphics aren’t going to wow anyone. This franchise appears to be more popular in Japan, as evidenced by the toy line and anime. Apparently, you could use the NFC chips in the toys to get weapons and characters in the 3DS version, and the anime is said to be very popular, if Wikipedia is to be believed.
Gameplay largely consists of taking quests that involve schlepping through 1-3 levels. Some of the quests will have boss fights, some are collection missions, etc. In the very late postgame, you can go into “Deeper Dungeons”, which are longer, but that’s literally like a hundred hours in.
After you defeat an enemy a certain amount of times (determined by the enemy species) you can obtain an ally version of that enemy. Eventually, you can field a party of four players (or snacks). Obviously not all these snacks are created equal, and some are better than others, while some are very naturally suited for specific quests or challenges. A good example is the Squirrel Squire snack – these critters will absolutely decimate the final boss, Smorg, due to their innate damage bonus against dragon enemies.
What the heck is a Jara?
“Jaras” are the weapons and battle items that you’ll use in game. I’m not sure what the exact meaning is, it seems to be a pun based on the original name.
The game doesn’t even bother to explain the important details of the Jara system, and simply tells you to use the auto equip feature before going on quests. This will work early on, but to be able to stand a chance against later bosses, you need to understand the equipment.
Tell me about banes
Every Jara has multiple banes: these banes correspond to enemy colors, elements, and families. The colors are self explanatory, though sometimes the colors don’t quite seem to match up. There are 11 colors total.
Elements are also relatively straightforward: fire, water, earth, wind, ice, lightning, light, and darkness.
Families will remind you of Pokemon egg groups or Dragon Quest Monster families: beastide (beasts), scaloids (reptiles), dragonites (dragons), demonade (demons), etc.
The trick is to use weapons with relevant banes against the corresponding enemy.
For example, you’ll probably be playing the quest “Friendly Falgon Fixture“, which is simply a fight against the millennial, Falgon. He’s a Light/White/Acquainta, so using any of those banes is effective.
Sounds simple? Well, not necessarily. Each Jara has the equivalent of a stamina bar that is exhausted by use. Once that Jara goes on cooldown, you have to use a different weapon, so you are incentivized to have multiple effective Jaras. Additionally, upgrading your Jara only minimally affects its damage, as most of the damage comes from the banes. Banes come in levels 1-5, with 5 being the highest. These are locked to certain weapons, so you’ll be stuck with relatively low level banes until you can get miracle drops.
There is a slight exception: weapons can rarely drop with an overlord/overdrive effect, which deals incredible damage at the cost of your health. Overlord/Overdrive weapons are worth holding onto, even if they are low tier. If you aren’t going to use a weapon for an extended period of time, then you don’t need to worry about upgrading it.
You should also pay attention to the passive powers on Jaras. Eventually you’ll get 12 Jara slots, and you’ll want to equip as many drop rate and strength boost passives as possible.
Fashion Forward
Every day, the fashion trends change. You have two sets of equipment. Your utility gear provides combat stats, and your style gear increases your drop rate. The drop rate boost can be pretty massive, and I encourage you to diversify your wardrobe to take advantage of it.
Making Miracles
You’ll notice that certain quests have a miracle reward. These weapons have very useful level 5 banes on them. The odds of a miracle reward are quite low. The game gives you a guaranteed drop when you reach 100 miracle points (you receive 1-2 points after each quest). If you can snag a Bewitching weapon early on, you can use this Jara for the rest of the game. The Bewitching Bolo, Wand, and Bayonet are especially useful. Don’t waste your pity drop on a lesser miracle reward.
Playing the lotto
Relatively early in the story, you’ll learn about the lotto at the general store. You’re going to want to play this – a lot. This can be a good way to get certain weapons that are offered as grand prizes. It’s also the only way to get Karma Balm, which is used to permanently increase your luck stat. Given the game’s reliance on boosting drop rate, you can see why increasing luck is a priority.
The game never really floods you with gravies, even in postgame. Consequently, you’re going to want to save scum for Karma Balm. I stopped grinding when I had enough Karma Balm to get to Luck level 3. There definitely should have been another way to get Karma Balm.
In any case, here’s the strategy for grinding Karma Balms:
- Save your game, go do a quick quest. I recommend the 1v1 boss fights or some of the really quick recon quests. There’s at least one quest that can be completed in about 20 seconds.
- Do not save after the quest
- Check the lotto. If the number of prizes has gone down and the good prizes are still available, then go ahead and save.
- If not, then rinse and repeat.
You can do this until you get down to a manageable number of remaining prizes. I’m sure you can see how this can get very annoying and time consuming.
Pop Sickle isn’t that great
You’ll notice that if you stay on a floor for too long, Pop Sickle will show up. Sometimes, he’ll even show up early! He’s like the Reaper in Persona – a tough enemy to keep you from lollygagging too long in an area. You can eventually defeat and recruit him. Be advised, he’s not going to be nearly as effective or scary once he’s in your party.
If you’re really set on snagging him, defeat him on a early level, and then use undeadid lollipops to raise his familiarity. You’ll be able to recruit him after defeating him again. Be advised, if you go into a dungeon with a Copybat enemy, it can copy Pop Sickle. If it does, then it will become the enemy-only boss form, not the recruitable snack.
Overall Considerations
I paid the full price of 49.99 for a physical copy of Snack World. I obviously got a lot of playtime out of it. I’d argue that I got over a hundred hours out of it (I tend to let my switch idle).
PROS
- The overall gameplay loop is fun, and short dungeons don’t feel tedious
- Quirky characters and tongue-in-cheek humor keep the story flowing
CONS
- Game mechanics aren’t well explained
- Progression is stilted by RNG drops for both weapons and armor crafting pieces
- Postgame is just grinding the same missions
Was Snack World Worth It?
The long and short of it is that Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl Gold is a surface-level dungeon crawling action RPG. It’s light on strategy but heavy on grind. There’s plenty of content and no hidden costs in the way of DLC or anything, but much of the experience is gated behind save scumming or repetition. While I do feel that I got my money’s worth out of the game, my experience is colored by my fondness for dungeon crawlers. The game is also obviously tailored for children, so the juvenile tone might grate on the nerves of older gamers.
If you aren’t invested in the franchise or a huge fan of Level-5’s other games, then I would recommend waiting for this title to go down. I’m not sure that Snack World is worth $50. I think that $40 is a fair price, and $35 or less is a good deal. Just bear in mind that this is ultimately a kid’s game.
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