Deep Dungeon 2 brings 1988 MSX dungeon crawling to the Switch

D4Enterprise has released the 1988 MSX role-playing game Deep Dungeon II: Yuushi no Monshou on the Nintendo Switch. The game is available today as part of the EGGCONSOLE lineup, a digital storefront dedicated to bringing Japanese microcomputer titles to modern hardware.

The sequel picks up hundreds of years after the first game's events. Players take on the role of a descendant of the hero Rull, tasked with defeating a resurrected demon king named Ruu.

Moving above ground

Developed by HummingBirdSoft, the Deep Dungeon series helped establish the first-person grid-based crawler in Japan alongside games like The Black Onyx. The original game trapped players entirely underground. The sequel changes that.

It introduces a 2D overworld where players explore a castle town from a top-down perspective. You can buy supplies, speak with non-player characters, and rest before descending back into the wireframe labyrinths. This dual-perspective approach became a staple of Japanese dungeon crawlers in the late 1980s.

Combat remains strictly turn-based and command-driven. The trailer shows encounters against green centipedes inside a red brick dungeon, followed by battles with blue gargoyles on deeper floors. Later footage reveals rival human adventurers acting as enemies, complete with their own knight armor sprites. The interface dedicates half the screen to text logs and character stats, reflecting its home computer origins.

HummingBirdSoft also added multiple endings to this installment. Reaching the true conclusion requires multiple playthroughs, a design choice that adds considerable playtime to a 1988 release.

Hardware translation

Project EGG wraps the original ROM in a proprietary emulation shell. It's a straightforward package that includes save states and display options, though it strips out the gallery features found in some other EGGCONSOLE releases.

The official Nintendo eShop listing includes a note about control methods. Players can use standard Switch controllers or plug in a USB keyboard. The developers note that only Japanese 106, 108, and 109 keyboard layouts are supported. They immediately follow this by stating they can't guarantee every key will actually register, leaving the technical documentation somewhere between incomplete and optimistic.

The game didn't just launch on the MSX; it also saw a Famicom Disk System release. This Switch port uses the MSX version, preserving the microcomputer's original audio and visual quirks. For anyone who read our coverage when the MSX dungeon crawler Deep Dungeon is out now on Switch, the interface and pacing will be immediately familiar.

D4Enterprise has spent the last two decades operating Project EGG on PC, archiving thousands of titles from the PC-88, MSX, and X68000. The EGGCONSOLE line is their console branch, slowly moving that massive PC catalog over to the Switch one game at a time. The original MSX hardware was a standardized home computer architecture spearheaded by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation in the 1980s. It didn't gain a foothold in the United States, but it was massively popular in Japan, Europe, and South America, eventually becoming the birthplace for franchises like Metal Gear and Puyo Puyo.