Mistover

Mistover is an isometric dungeon-crawler role-playing video game set in a fictional world which had been devastated by monstrous creatures that emerged from an interdimensional vortex called "the Pillar of Despair". The invading creatures had vanished from the world prior to the events of the game, though the vortex is still open. A party of adventuring heroes managed and controlled by the player is tasked with traveling into the vortex to discover the origins of the monsters and prevent another invasion. The game's narrative features multiple endings.

Mistover consists of five different game regions. Each region consists of randomized dungeons with various paths, portals, and maze traps. The game is played out with a mix of real-time movement and turn-based combat. Prior to entering a dungeon, players can use facilities in the game's hub area to manage their roster of heroes and inventory of items.

Mistover was developed and published by South Korean company Krafton. In response to the stagnation of the domestic mobile game market in the country, Krafton developed it as part of a corporate strategy to diversify the company's game publishing platforms and better reach out to global users. Krafton employee Woo Seok Lee noted that the South Korean video game industry is dominated by PC-exclusive titles or online free-to-play games with microtransactions. He posited Mistover as one of the earliest attempts for a major Korean video game developer to specifically develop a single-player title to challenge the console gaming space.

Han Dong-hoon led the development of Mistover at Krafton. The creation of the world and lore of Mistover took precedence during its development, and the game's visual aesthetics were derived out of the premise afterwards. James Han, a producer for Mistover, described the game world as being "on the verge of extinction" and that "one wrong choice may prove fatal". The art style and gameplay mechanics of Mistover, which Lee described as a blend of elements from survival games and tactical role-playing games, emulate that of Darkest Dungeon and Etrian Mystery Dungeon due to their popular appeal with player audiences in many parts of the world.

Mistover received mixed or average reviews on the Nintendo Switch according to review aggregator Metacritic. Jordan Rudek from Nintendo World Report lauded Mistover as one of the most fun dungeon crawlers he has ever played the game's "tense dungeon exploration and positional RPG combat" as incredible. However, he felt that its heavy reliance on the applications of randomness for its mechanics, especially the random generation of characters, formed an overall inconsistent gameplay experience that undermines the game's appeal, which held the game back "from excellent to merely pretty good". Reviewing the PC version of Mistover, Mike Moehnke from RPGamer noted that his inability to find a roguelike video game that he would enjoy was likely what led to his "muted reaction" towards the game because it borrows several conventional mechanics from that genre, but found that some of its aspects were admirable enough for him to appreciate.

PJ O'Reilly from Nintendo Life gave Mistover a mediocre review and called the game a derivative product of the "expertly-crated" and "sublime" Darkest Dungeon, which in his opinion "overshadows it in every possible way". He liked the strong "anime/gothic art-style" of Mistover and its flawless performance on the Nintendo Switch, but highlighted multiple major issues in his criticism, including its repetitive and grindy combat, a lack of atmosphere for its dungeon-crawling, and a punitive and restrictive gameplay systems which never lets the player feel rewarded.