Away: Shuffle Dungeon takes place in a small coastal village. Every year, one settler of this village disappears mysteriously in a phenomenon the remaining villagers only refer to as "the AWAY". One day, the AWAY swoops in and collects the entire village, save for one plucky young lad. His name is Sword; it's safe to say his parents were weaponry enthusiasts. Now the duty has been thrust upon him to save the members of the village. A portal appears conveniently in front of him as a good starting point for Sword's inquisition. (A twist near the end makes the plot more interesting, but it's not enough to moisturize the already dry tale.) It's not exactly the greatest story on Earth, but as long as the gameplay is solid, I think we could overlook the wishy-washy tale of a young man forced to become a hero because nobody else can do the job.

Unfortunately, the gameplay also stumbles, though I tip my hat at the developers (Artoon and Mistwalker) for both attempting to tinker with standard dungeon crawler mechanics and for putting the Nintendo DS' hardware to good use. In order to save each villager from peril, Sword must enter dungeons to rescue them. They consist of several floors where Sword must navigate his way to a staircase and proceed to the next floor. The dungeon area extends between both screens; provided there is a clear path, Sword can travel freely between the two screens. After a given amount of time, one of the screens (indicated by a flashing border) will "shuffle" to a completely different layout. The screens will continue shuffling back and forth indefinitely until either Sword descends that staircase or he is defeated by obstacles. If Sword is standing within the boundaries of a screen as it is being shuffled, he will be kicked back to the beginning of that floor and will have lost some health. It's an interesting twist on dungeon crawling... but only for the first couple of times.

Eventually, you get the feeling that you're doing the same chore over and over again, as dungeons generally don't boast a significant amount of variety. There are things to do in the dungeons other than seek a stairway to keep you occupied, such as hunting for treasure chests, which may contain gold or other useful items. Enemies are always hanging around as well in need of a good stabbing, which helps you gain experience and improve your stats. But these aspects still don't help make your dungeon crawling more enjoyable. You're still basically re-visiting what feels like the same dungeon over and over. Granted, they may LOOK different, but looks can be deceiving: you're still wandering from the top screen to the bottom, then back to the top again, repeatedly. It gets tiresome after a while, especially with the many cheap hits you'll incur as a result of poor battle designs. Sword doesn't have any period of invincibility after being hurt, which means you can potentially die much faster than expected. The pause between swipes leaves you open for damage as well.

Shuffle on down! Ohhhhh, shuffle on down!

As you save each character from the briny deep of the dungeons, new shops will open on the surface run by the revived townsfolk. After you feng shui each building into existence (literally, a character named Giggles advises you on proper shop placement -- it's like SimCity, only much less complicated or important), you can shop for better weapons, armor, and more. By bringing specific items from the dungeons to the stores, you can help them upgrade their facilities, resulting in improved supplies. These special items are fairly scarce, requiring repeated visits to already-visited dungeons to gather them up. At the mayor's house, there's also a storage box, which is useful considering that you have a very limited amount of space in your inventory bag to carry things.

The mayor's house is particularly important for another reason, as it houses a miniature Fupong farm! What's a Fupong, you ask? It's a little ball-shaped creature that you find in dungeons! When you toss it, a spell is cast, depending on the colour of the Fupong. You can bring up to six with you when you head underground. Unfortunately, if they get caught in part of a dungeon when it's shuffling or in a trap, you'll lose them, either permanently or, under the best of circumstances, temporarily until you reach the next floor, at which point they would magically reappear. Back at the Fupong farm, you can feed your Fupongs to strengthen them or fuse two together to form more powerful Fupongs. If you love raising animals in video games, this part's for you.

I usually try to be a little easier on handhelds when it comes to presentation, mainly because they don't have the horsepower behind them, but the developers should have taken another look at this game before putting it upon store shelves. The 2D dungeon crawling elements look just fine -- neither exquisitely detailed nor ugly -- but the 3D areas above ground make me shake my head sometimes. The polygonal models look simple and childish, and there's relatively little to appreciate in your surroundings. The soundtrack doesn't exactly jump out at me, either; it's far too laidback to elicit much interest. The only notable audio point is that every character, at one point or another, has a tiny excerpt of voice acting when approached by Sword. My personal favourite lines, however, come from Sword himself at the game's beginning when he is visiting different houses. He gets to check out the beds of various town citizens, at which point you hear him remark, "Smells good!" Classic. Just classic.