Dungeon Robotics was the first series I read that made me think “Eh, I could have written this better.”
Like many novels in the dungeon core genre, this series has many of the hallmarks of amateur writing: flat characters, reliance on tropes, and protagonists who steamroll over every problem. That isn’t to say that it has no redeeming qualities. Where the series shines is in its exploration of the interplay between magic and technology. However, this endeavor is hobbled by the fact that the main character’s own mind essentially serves as an infinite McGuffin. As a former brilliant roboticist and AI programmer, he is uniquely suited to adapting scientific principles into a world governed by magic. In practical terms however, this ends up merely being an excuse for him to be overpowered, and not really in an interesting way.
Despite all this, the sections from the point of view of Regan, the dungeon core, end up being by far the more interesting parts of the books in contrast to the other primary protagonist, Louella. The duchess-become-queen is such a nothing character that I honestly have no idea why half of each novel takes time out to focus on her. While I don’t have a lot to complain about other than the fact that she is essentially a woman with out-of-place modern sensibilities in an ostensibly medieval setting, and I don’t mind her being part of the story, the chapters from her point of view add nothing to the narrative and basically only serve as filler, with the possible exception of a few specific instances where armies are marching on the walls of the city. By the time I reached book eight I had finally had enough and started skipping her parts altogether, and I don’t feel like I missed anything important because of it. They really do feel like they are written by two different people with different ideas about what they consider to be an interesting story.
The writing does get better as the series goes on, although that really only applies to Regan’s chapters. That said, there is only the barest hint of character development from anyone in the series. Antagonists are cartoonishly villainous, and anyone who isn’t outright hostile is immediately converted into an ally simply by exchanging a few words. For the most part, enemies are either destroyed by a frontal assault or forcibly converted into an asset via the use of binding magic which essentially boils down to consensual or not-so-consensual slavery; ironic considering that a major plot point for at least one of the books is the freeing of slaves. The book reconciles this apparent contradiction by basically explaining that Regan is a sociopath - but he’s an easygoing sociopath, so it’s alright. Hooray.
Regan’s exploits would probably be more entertaining as an animated series, which is no surprise since the anime influence isn’t just apparent, it’s literally referenced at one point in one of the books. There is more focus on spectacle than the actual discovery and understanding of magic, the premise that the book is supposedly founded on, and that’s a real shame because the concept of using advanced science to do crazy things with magic - and vice versa - is a very compelling idea. It’s too bad that most of this is hand-waved so that the protagonist can Do The Cool Thing that the author envisioned in their head.
The fundamental aspect of the magic system that the book focuses on is based on a sort of runic magic script that, for Regan, essentially serves as a programming language that he can use to craft advanced spells and magical machinery. However, rather than progressing in skill as he painstakingly learns a new language with different rules to the computers he is accustomed to, his comprehension both of magic (thanks to his dungeon core senses) and the language of magic is basically instant, as his programming skills are essentially ported over whole cloth, allowing him to do things that he probably shouldn’t be able to do, and access advanced magic that hasn’t been seen on the planet, at least on the surface, in centuries if not millennia.
You see, the excuse for Regan to have such an impressive grasp of magic that far outstrips what the people around him can do, is that “things have been stagnant for a long time.” Certainly technology can be lost when an empire falls, and there are several cases in real history where the ability to read and write was lost for many years after civilization crumbled in the face of unrelenting war, but that isn’t the case for this world. Things seem on the surface to be fairly stable. There is no state-enforced ban on magic; people are free to practice magic as they please. There is no backlash or corruption as a consequence of using magic; the only limit to a person’s progression seems to be their own complacency. There are only the vaguest hints in the earlier books to the idea of an artificially-induced stagnancy that causes people to simply not want to be inventive or creative, but this idea isn’t fleshed out and it becomes clear that it is merely a pretext to allow Regan’s accomplishments to be needlessly impressive.
In fact, the longer the series goes on, the clearer it becomes that Regan is little more than your basic isekai harem protagonist. Despite this, he manages to be witty and charming at times, and occasionally I forgot to be annoyed at how overpowered he is because some of his solutions to the situations he faces are genuinely creative and interesting. Oftentimes once I got past the artifice of half-assed reasoning for a scene to exist, the scene itself was enjoyable to watch play out. There are some legitimate strategic hurdles to overcome, and characters occasionally make interesting choices that justify their existence in the narrative. However, these moments are too few and far between for me to seriously recommend this series to anyone. It’s hard for me to say how much of my enjoyment of Regan’s chapters was due more to them being a reprieve from Louella’s chapters than any real skill in storytelling.
Dungeon Robotics is the definition of a wealth of interesting concepts done poorly. As my first foray into the dungeon core genre, it wasn’t half bad. Okay, it was literally half bad; but I found it to be a valuable learning experience and managed to enjoy the ride. Have I read fanfiction better than this? You bet. However, I do see a lot of potential in the author’s writing to become much better if they learned to write better characters and character relationships, and stayed away from self-insert characters who are enamored with their own intelligence.