The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos Deluxe Edition

I went into Naheulbeuk expecting a lightweight joke-RPG and walked out roughly twenty hours later with genuine respect for its tactical layer. The game is built on an XCOM-style turn-based combat system: two action points per character, a cover system that reduces incoming hit chance, flanking and backstab mechanics, attacks of opportunity, and an overwatch mode. Where it diverges from the XCOM formula is scale. You field up to eight party members simultaneously, which means managing a cowardly Thief, a dim-witted Barbarian, a glutenous Ogre, a lusty Ranger, a naive Elf, a greedy Dwarf, and an inept Wizardess all in the same fight. That sounds chaotic because it is, and the game leans into that energy on purpose. The party composition is mostly fixed, but your eighth slot lets you pick between a Bard, a Paladin, or a Priestess, and that choice carries meaningful build implications. Each character has individual active and passive skill trees that read like D&D character sheets, and you can respec anyone at any time for the price of a cheap potion. That respec freedom is quietly generous. The Precision stat governs your chance to hit, and the RNG can feel brutal early on, so the ability to retool a build without penalty matters. Agility investment rewards you doubly via improved dodge and parry, and crowd-control abilities tend to outperform raw damage options at higher difficulty settings. The combat loop clicks once you stop playing it like XCOM and start playing it like a tabletop party manager. The humor is the big asterisk. The game adapts a French audio comedy series, and while the English localization preserves the spirit of the self-aware genre parody, the jokes are juvenile by design. Hit rate on the comedy is genuinely mixed. The Elf in particular has polarized players so thoroughly that the developers included an in-game option to mute her specifically. I did not use it. I probably should have. The writing is at its best when characters snipe at each other between fights, poking at fantasy clichés with some knowing wit. It is at its worst when it repeats the same gag twice in a row and then runs it back a third time to make sure you got it. If Deadpool humor makes you roll your eyes, recalibrate your expectations before buying. The narrative is thin by RPG standards, more of a clothesline to hang combat encounters on than a proper story arc. Your party stumbles onto the Amulet of Chaos, gets cursed, gets trapped in the dungeon, and resolves to fight upward floor by floor. That is essentially the whole spine. Players chasing branching dialogue trees, consequence-heavy choices, or layered worldbuilding will leave disappointed. What carries the experience is the combat variety, the charm of the individual character personalities, and the satisfying feeling of a well-executed flank in a difficult fight. The mid-to-late game encounters can feel repetitive if you have found your dominant strategy early, and that is a real design gap worth naming. The Deluxe Edition includes the Ruins of Limis and Back to the Futon DLCs, which add new environments, faction choices, boss fights, and some expanded mechanics, so the total runtime is comfortably meaty. For XCOM veterans looking for a lighter-toned tactical fix, or for anyone who finds pure strategy games too dry, Naheulbeuk threads that needle competently if not brilliantly. It is not a game that rewards re-reads or punishes you with moral complexity. What it does is put a large, noisy, dysfunctional party in front of you and dare you to keep them alive through a dungeon that has absolutely no respect for their dignity. Mostly, it works.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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