Dinotica Review – The Inescapable Base Grind

Fighting against the most powerful beasts takes lots of effort; you must rally several dinosaurs, strengthen them, and battle increasingly powerful bosses. Developed by XA Studio and published by Celestial Studio, sandbox roguelite Dinotica takes you to the prehistoric era to build a base and raise dinosaurs, using their abilities to support you. There are many familiar elements you may have seen before, but Dinotica also takes risks, though not all of them pay off.

The story is simple without complicating the gameplay. You are a caveperson in the prehistoric era with some tamed dinosaurs. During one of your outings, you are overwhelmed by a powerful enemy. To get your revenge, you must train your dinosaurs from scratch. As you are in unknown territory, you must first construct a base to get your bearings. Once your base grows, you can create more powerful dinosaurs to win.

It’s not a complicated plot and you will likely forget about it quickly. I didn’t pay too much attention to the story because it wasn’t important. Even if you are thinking about your revenge against the beast that defeated you, it takes a long time to get there, meaning you won’t remember much of the story by the time you do. Most of your time is spent on developing your base and training your dinosaurs. Proceeding through the various areas doesn’t give you much of a narrative to work with in the meantime.

The gameplay in Dinotica is also simple. You get a party of three dinosaurs and take them into an area. Travel as far as you can, hopefully to the boss at the end. Whether you win or lose, you get to keep the loot you earned. You can then use the loot you earned to build structures in your base, grow crops, and keep your dinosaurs comfortable. As you progress through the regions, you get new materials to work with, expanding your possibilities.

Dinotica takes some risks to make gameplay more engaging. Every dinosaur has unique abilities that let them play different roles on the battlefield. Bringing three of them into a party lets you experiment with different strategies. You only control one dinosaur at a time, but the others aren’t hurt by enemy attacks and simply auto-attack. A dinosaur’s unique ability or Dino Skill is easy to use and unique button prompts prevent you from making a mistake.

I liked experimenting with the party structure as it allowed me to plan for more scenarios. Some roguelikes force you to stick with one playstyle per run. With three different playstyles in action, I could see what worked well and what needed refining. If any strategy worked as intended, I would devastate the battlefield. Should it fail, I would go back to the drawing board. There’s also a Training Ground where you can test your party if you aren’t sure what certain abilities can do.

It’s also easy to raise dinosaurs and have them contribute to base building. Every dinosaur can take on a role in constructing your base, preventing you from over-specializing by accident. If you want dinosaurs to work on their speciality, you can prioritize their work order individually. Once a dinosaur is done with their specialized task, they move onto something else. This helps keep them focused, but also prevents them from sitting around doing nothing.

Not having to worry about my base every time I went to fight was a relief; dinosaurs harvested resources, performed research, and managed other tasks while I was away. Even if I felt they could be doing a better job, it was nice not having to micro-manage every detail. There isn’t any unrest to manage or dinosaurs that become picky, making it easier to manage the base. I was able to focus more on combat strategies and planning my future activities as a result.

Unfortunately, Dinotica’s risks don’t always pay off. In exchange for the party structure, your dinosaurs don’t get “stronger” with every battle. You must upgrade their stats with crystals, then use duplicates to raise a dinosaur’s star rating. This is manageable at first but it quickly becomes a grind. Getting more dinosaurs requires finding eggs in the regions you explore. This is always random in a roguelike and they are a rare commodity. More powerful dinosaurs are even harder to find, forcing you to develop weaker dinosaurs first.

You eventually reach roadblocks where you must grind your way through past regions. Without the grind, I would struggle to overcome more powerful regions and bosses. Developing your base also requires more resources that take time to create. It feels like fake longevity has been added to extend gameplay, otherwise you could breeze through it. While there should be some element of challenge, I also feel like the grind became exhausting after some time.

Dinotica adds more strategy to the roguelite formula that pays off in some aspects. It’s fun to develop your dinosaurs and slowly advance through the regions, and a party of three dinosaurs lets you experiment with different strategies. However, it’s a long grind and it feels like fake longevity has been added to the game. But if you are looking for a base-building game that requires a steep time investment, Dinotica fits the bill.

Victor reviewed Dinotica on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.