So, I wanted to like Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns on the DS, I really did.  From the moment I started playing it, it was adorable.  There's just no other word.  The anime style, the way the game doesn't take itself seriously, and acts more like an interactive TV show than a video game.  At least, that's how it starts.

The game opens up and you're at a sushi restaurant.  But it turns out Izuna can really pack in the fish, and being a sushi fan myself, I understand how quickly it can bankrupt you, so wasn't shocked in the least that it put her in the poor house.  Of course the best way to fatten up your wallet in a J-RPG is to kill lots of monsters, so she heads off to the tutorial dungeon with her friend.  You get a few tips on how to play... then fight a bit... then get some more tips... and this cycle continues for a bit until you finish the level, OR... in my case... you die.  Yes, I managed to die, in the tutorial.  But the game makes it clear that dying is a natural part of your progression, and makes it well, (here's that word again) adorable.  At least the first time.  Bear in mind, you die a lot.

I got right back up and headed back into the tutorial (which while you start from the beginning again, it doesn't make you suffer through all the tips, only the ones you haven't gotten yet).  After the first dungeon, all the dungeons are randomly generated.  Which would do a great job of keeping me from being bored if, like some other games in that vein, there were more than two types of tiles, "ground" and "water".  No doors, keys, walls, trees, secret passages — basically, each level of a dungeon is a flat plane of arbitrary shape and size.

The item system equally lacks in artwork.  All items in the same class share the same icon, and some class icons are different only by colour.  Honestly though, I haven't played a game for the art for... well, forever.  What really becomes bothersome about the items is the limit.  You can only carry 20 items on you at a time, and there is space for you to store 60 more in town.  The idea is of course to combat the instinct many of us have to hoard items.  If you can only hold 20 items, you're less likely to wait for the perfect moment to heal, or the perfect item to enhance. 

Trouble is, the dungeons are full of items.  So much so that I often ended up spending more time looking at items, than I did fighting with monsters.  Because once your inventory is full, you've got to go stand on an item, enter the menu, scroll over to the description of the item, tap the R button to cycle to the information that useful, and then if the item is worth keeping, you've got to back up in the menu and pick an item to drop and replace.  Oh, and did I mention that when you die, you lose all the money and items you were holding?  Bear in mind, you die a lot.

There also aren't a lot of monsters, and higher level monsters are just low level monsters with a new skin texture.  A bit into the game you get a camera and then can use film to unlock profiles with pictures of the monsters.  The monsters each have strengths and weaknesses, but honestly, rather than taking the time to work through all the menus to change items in the middle of turn based combat, I just hit with whatever I had equipped until it broke.  The combat system itself is nice in that every action you take in a dungeon gives everything else on that level an action in a 'you move, they move' style.

Izuna 2 also has a 'tag-teaming' system, rather akin to pro-wrestling.  When you reach a dungeon, you pick two characters from your party to enter.  If one dies, the other takes their place; you also have a limited ability to switch back and forth by choice.  Also, like pro-wrestling, you charge up your tag-team super move and can occasionally unleash it on a screen full of enemies (sorry, no chair).  Unfortunately, only the active character gains XP, so you pretty much have to walk each one through each of the dungeons over and over again, otherwise when your level 30 primary is killed by the boss, your level 3 back up isn't even going to get to run away.  Bear in mind, you die a lot.

Now that you've got the basic idea for what it's like to be in the dungeons, we'll cover towns and plot.  I'd say I saved the plot for last, but that would rather imply there is one. I'd call it more of a thin excuse for the dungeons.  Townsfolk suffer from classic NPC one-line-itus. ("Welcome to Corneria! I like swords.")  Which can be mildly annoying normally, but is taken to new heights when you have to suffer through multiple screens of identical content to use some of the stores (and I'm not even going to start on dealing with buying and selling at a store with a 20 item hold limit).

The game is an 80s arcade Gauntlet with equipable weapons and an anime milieu.  If you want nothing better than wade through a hoard of monsters and emerge victorious, if you walk to the snack machine muttering "Wizard needs food badly", if you ever thought to yourself "that Valkarie is hot, I could really use some fan service", this game is for you.  Bear in mind, you die a lot.