This gem surfaces soon
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Opens on 2026-06-30 (JST)
You do not pick one class and lock in. Reassign your whole party across ten jobs, dungeon by dungeon.
A Super Famicom-styled 2D dungeon hack-and-slash RPG by Shiromofu Factory, the work of the Japanese solo creator frenchbread, with pixel art and sound cast in the SFC mold. You explore six dungeons through line of sight and visible symbol encounters, fight in side-view battles, and build your party across 10 jobs (including new ones, a priest and an archer) plus skill builds, in the freely-composed, reassignable job tradition that runs back to Final Fantasy V. Built with the Japanese Pyxel engine and running roughly 10 to 12 hours, it is Very Positive at 95 percent over 257 reviews. It already supports English, yet with about 38 percent of its reviews in English, the West has only begun to find it.
Published 2026-06-30
01First, the one feeling
- You are never locked into one class, so the core of the game is composition: across 10 jobs (including a new priest and an archer) plus skill builds, you read what a dungeon throws at you and reassign your party to answer it, the same Final Fantasy V job-system pull of what if I combine these, now turned over and rebuilt dungeon by dungeon.
- Encounters are not invisible random battles, they are symbols you can see, governed by line of sight, so exploring is a quiet act of choosing: you read the field, decide which fights to take and which to slip past, and that decision repeats across six hand-made dungeons rather than being rolled for you.
- It is built to be finished, not farmed: Super Famicom-style pixel art and sound, side-view battles with a fast hack-and-slash rhythm, six dungeons and roughly 10 to 12 hours, the whole arc of a 90s job RPG in a compact, fully-released shell a single creator could polish end to end.
02Who this is for (and who it is not)
For you
- You love the Final Fantasy V job system and the joy of freely composing a party, here 10 jobs including a new priest and archer, plus skill builds, rebuilt to answer each of six dungeons
- You want a compact, fully-released SFC-style 2D dungeon hack-and-slash with side-view battles and visible symbol encounters you can read and choose, all in roughly 10 to 12 hours
- You want a Japanese solo-made gem the West has only begun to find, Very Positive at 95 percent over 257 reviews, already supporting English and Simplified Chinese, from Shiromofu Factory's frenchbread, built with the Japanese Pyxel engine
Not for you
- You want a huge, modern, fully 3D RPG or a long open world; this is a deliberately retro, Super Famicom-style 2D dungeon RPG of about 10 to 12 hours, a paid title around 1,000 yen, made by one person
- You expect a big-studio blockbuster, or you are looking for the fighting-game studio French-Bread of Melty Blood and UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH; this is a completely unrelated namesake solo doujin developer, and the audience is still mostly Japanese (about 38 percent of reviews are English)
03The roots of this taste
95% positiveonly 257 reviews — yet almost no one has found it
Dungeon Antiqua 2 Buried gem
A Super Famicom-styled 2D dungeon hack-and-slash RPG by Shiromofu Factory, the work of the Japanese solo creator frenchbread, with pixel art and sound cast in the SFC mold. You explore six dungeons through line of sight and visible symbol encounters, fight in side-view battles, and build your party across 10 jobs (including new ones, a priest and an archer) plus skill builds, in the freely-composed, reassignable job tradition that runs back through Final Fantasy and Wizardry. It runs roughly 10 to 12 hours and is built with Pyxel, the Japanese retro game engine by Takashi Kitao. The sequel to Dungeon Antiqua (2024), which sits at 90 percent over 363 reviews from the same creator, it is Very Positive at 95 percent over 257 reviews (245 positive, 12 negative). It supports English, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese, and with 98 of its 257 reviews in English (about 38 percent) the West has begun to find it, further along than most of our digs, though its audience is still mainly Japanese. Released in January 2026, it is a paid title around 1,000 yen, not free, fully launched and not in Early Access, with no AI-generated assets and nothing sexual. One note to clear up: this Shiromofu Factory / frenchbread is a completely unrelated namesake to the fighting-game studio French-Bread (Melty Blood, UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH).
Give it your first passFinal Fantasy V The job-system origin
The origin of the build-your-party RPG: Final Fantasy V, the fifth entry in Square's role-playing series, released for the Super Famicom in 1992, is the game that crystallized the Job System. Your party freely switches among a wide roster of jobs, learns abilities from each, and carries those abilities across jobs to assemble custom characters, making the deliberate composition of a party the heart of play. That freely-reassignable job design is the root that Dungeon Antiqua 2 grows from, where 10 jobs and skill builds let you rebuild your party for each dungeon, but it strips the world down to a compact, sight-based dungeon crawl with visible symbol encounters and side-view battles rather than a sprawling world map. The 1992 original is anchored here to its Pixel Remaster Steam release.
Give it your first pass04Make this gem shine
If it speaks to you, check it on Steam and give it your first pass. Your push is what makes a buried gem shine.
You gave it your pass. The gem just caught the light.
05The bloodline of this taste
- Final Fantasy V Root
- Dungeon Antiqua 2 You are here
- Cloudsea Frontier same root
- Read-and-build games another taste