I've been playing it today. Haven't put in enough time to tell how it stacks up next to the other Chunsoft dungeonhacks, but I can give ya some lame ass sub-IGN impressions.
Right now I've got the game paused, and I'm on the 7th floor of the first dungeon. Well, first one after the tutorial dungeon, anyway. Played through the first 5 or so floors a few times, and the layouts have not been random. Died once, lost all my equipment. Did not lose my levels or any stats as far as I can tell. Gil was born again with his gold armor, which has crappy stats, but looks a billion times better than all the loot I've found so far. Kinda weird. Had to start over from the first floor.
Doesn't seem to be any hunger/food in the game. Not sure what's to keep you from lollygagging. The game has a whole fog of war/light radius thing going on, and the darkness seems to vary from level to level. Maybe. Twice now I've been hacking things up and had the lights go out, so I was stumbling around like an idiot cuz I was unable to see anything other than the square I was standing on. Not sure if it was a result of an enemy spell, or if I was taking too long. Doesn't seem to be time related, cuz the second time it happened I'd only been on the floor for what felt like a short time. Oh yeah, you gotta find a key before you can go to the next floor, just like the old Druaga.
Killing a certain (seemingly random) enemy will make special chests appear on the floor. Some floors just silver chests, others I've found silver and gold. Some none at all. Dunno what triggers it. I can't read most of this stuff. The menus, stats, items, special attacks and equipment are all in English, though, which is great for me. NPC text and descriptions are in Japanese of course. Text flies by quickly and so far all the NPC menus have been easy to navigate.
I've yet to have any weapons break, and I don't see anything close to a durability stat. Weapons have slots, but so far I haven't found anything to put in them. Wait, I did find some gems, but I used them as spells - maybe you can put them in slots? Each weapon seems to come with its own special ability, and you can quickly choose which you want to use with the right stick. Left stick is for items. You move with the cross pad. R2 heals. Doesn't seem to be a button that lets you run like in Torneko or Shiren, though there is a Foot option greyed out in the menu. Makes me think you can find a speed up shoe like in the arcade game. There's a whole chart for elemental stuff but I haven't found anything that affects it yet.
Hmm, there's something called Oracle of Ishtar on the menu. I think it gives you hints for what requirements you have to meet in order to get the silver/gold chests. But they're in Japanese. So I'm screwed for these. Also a Valuables menu, which is currently empty, and there's History, which keeps track of a bunch of stuff that I'd probably dig if I could read any of it. Seems like you can earn titles, and there's a Treasure Box menu that shows all the floors you've found gold/silver chests on and what was in them.
Oh, yes, the load screens feature tiny sprites from Tower of Druaga running around. It's darling.
I've been digging it so far, despite not having much of a clue what I'm doing. Gil moves a bit slow, but I guess it wouldn't be Druaga if he were the Flash. Not sure if the game's worth the damn near $70 yet, but I am having fun, and the box art is one of the best this gen. Or at least I think so.
Oh, and Chunsoft developed, Arika published, Namco license. I think. Unless Chunsoft just slapped their name on the thing and didn't do anything more than lend the fushigi no dungeon (or whatever) name to it...
