At first sight, Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl definitely looks like one of those colorful 3D games for little kids, but there's so much more than meets the eye. Despite Level-5's colorful style and all the cute characters you'll find throughout the story, most casual players will have a hard time trying to stay alive in the kingdom of Tutti-Frutti.

This is obviously not the hardest dungeon crawler ever, but we need to mention that you'll be dying a lot if you're not careful enough. To counter that, you need to make use of the complex customization system Snack World has to offer, crafting and upgrading your own gear and weapons, but you will also need to make a lot of friends along the way. More on that later, in the gameplay section!

The story of Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl is divided into 10 chapters, with an eleventh chapter working as the post-game portion. That means that you'll be doing a lot of different quests, but also a lot of farming and grinding before actually being able to finish some story missions.

You can take your time and explore everything, or maybe just run for your life if you feel like looting as fast as you can. The game doesn't penalize you for being lazy, so it's really up to you... and in fact, failing a quest allows you to keep some loot and try again as if nothing happened, so there's no reason to be scared about how awfully unfair things can get. Just don't bite off more than you can chew!

Most of the monster designs are cool since they are generally based on puns... because apparently, the names are not enough. That's why you'll find Mermaidols and Copybats, for example. The kingdom of Tutti-Frutti, although not as alive as it could (townspeople are just standing there, doing nothing), looks as pretty and colorful as you would expect from a Level-5 game, and that's always a plus.

One thing that we really liked is how well designed all the menus are, considering most of them have lots of info to show. That also applies to the HUD when doing some dungeon crawling, leaving enough room for all these direction arrows, AoE hints, and little numbers coming up every time you engage in a fight. All in all, Snack World's graphics look clean and extremely attractive, so it's definitely safe to label this game as a feast for the eyes.

There are more than 80 songs in Snack World's soundtrack, and some of these are catchy as hell, but to be honest, we'd be lying if we say this OST is somewhat memorable. If for some reason you end up liking the game's music, you need to loot some Pix-e Pennies before being able to buy these songs... which will make them forever available in the Pix-e Tunes app of your Pix-e Pod (an electronic device, similar to a smartphone, that works as one of the menus in the game).

Snack World's music does fulfill its purpose and that's all, and there's nothing wrong with that. The only real problem is how generic some of these songs sound, but maybe it's just us? On the other hand,there are some voice lines that help to emphasize some of the dialogues from the main characters, so that's a nice touch we want to mention too.

Well, here we are. Time to talk about the best part of Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl. First things first, let's address how punishing this game can get.

We know dungeon crawling games are famous for being difficult, especially those from the '90s, so it was a pleasant surprise to find a real challenge here. Unless you really like grinding over and over again the same missions, you'll find yourself trying every new quest way below the recommended level, or without being properly equipped. That's why paying attention to your life bar and learning to use all your weapons and abilities becomes so important even in your very first missions.

You see, the gameplay is based around a number of Jaras, which are the different weapons and accessories you can use in battle. You can have 6 Jaras in your Jara holder, plus 2 consumables for health and stat-boosts, but the best part is that you can switch weapons just by pressing ZR, which means you can go from swinging your battleaxe to firing arrows or hiding behind your shield in no time (well, not always anyway…). If you’re not careful enough, your weapons can be damaged and you could be forced to change your playstyle mid-battle too, so that's another reason to learn how to master every weapon and which of them are most effective against different enemies.

Since there are a lot of main and secondary quests, you'll be visiting the same dungeons over and over again, some times even killing the same bosses more than twice. Then again, it's not unusual to get quests with a recommended level well above your character's, so at least you can bring back some loot before dying, in the hope of being able to upgrade your gear or maybe even crafting something better.

If it's a story mission, Chup (the main character in the anime) and/or his friends may come to help you as special guests in your party, but you can also use Snack Cards! Whenever you kill a monster, there's a chance a minigame pops up so you can capture it using the camera in your Pix-e Pod, so it also works as a monster collecting game of some sort.

Snacks come in 4 different categories (Attacker, Supporter, Defender, and Secret) and there are 2 types of cards you can use: Party Snacks will join your party and fight alongside your character, while Pocket Snacks will help you for a few seconds, once per battle. The more you use the same Snacks, the more it will help your rapport building, which in time will make your allies stronger... or you know, you could also give them some Tie Curry Chips, because we all know the way to a monster's heart is through its stomach, right?

If you don't like playing solo and are willing to share your booty, you could also try the online/LAN multiplayer mode and do some dungeon crawling with some friends, which in turn will make everything easier. The only downside is that if you want all the fancy stamps and gestures to use in the chat, you'll need to spend a lot of Pix-e Pennies...

Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl is definitely fun and challenging to play, with a silly (and full of puns) story as an excuse. It definitely gets kind of repetitive at times—and we get that some of you may not like this aspect of the game—but that’s pretty much the nature of dungeon crawlers in general, so it wouldn't be fair to complain about it.

While the possibility to go online and play with other people is there, at least for us, not having a local co-op mode is one of the downsides, especially because of the companion system. Sure, Snack World is by no means Level-5's most popular franchise, but with more than 30 hours of gameplay (we're 57 hours in!) and a lot of customization options, however, the wait for the Western release has been worth it.

There are a lot of good indie dungeon crawlers for the Nintendo Switch, but now we also have another one, coming from one of Japan's powerhouses. Maybe this Western release will make the Snack World franchise more popular? Because sadly, the 2017 anime certainly didn't do a very good job...