Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & the Monster Seal is a dungeon crawler RPG developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Aquaplus in 2013. It is a spiritual sequel to the fandisk-sort-of-game To Heart 2: Dungeon Travelers, which was a dungeon crawler featuring To Heart 2 characters.

The story is pretty simple. You play as a Libra named Fried Einhard, and you are asked by the Royal Library to join a suppression team together with members of the military. The objective is investigating the mysterious appearance of mutant monsters and destroying their source to restore peace in the Romulea Kingdom.

What is a Libra? It is a special class in this setting, the only one capable of permanently removing the monster threat by sealing them into special books called "Sealbooks." Fried is joined immediately by his childhood friends Alisia Heart and Melvy de Florencia, and they start exploring the dungeons near the city for clues.

In this world, there is also a special race called Therians. These are beast-like creatures (like bears, sheep, etc.) that live alongside humans and work normally. Their origins are shrouded in mystery, but nobody seems to mind their presence pretty much everywhere in the world.

The gameplay is your standard first-person dungeon crawler with turn-based combat. Fried (the player) gives commands to the various heroines in battle and guides them to victory against the monsters. Defeated monsters are collected, and back at the base, you can create Sealbooks that grant special powers to the team.

Each character is part of a specific class branch (Fighter, Magic User, Scout, Maid, Spieler), and each class has multiple sub-classes unlocked at certain levels (level 15 for intermediate and level 30 for advanced). In total, you have 32 classes (16 advanced classes, which are the ones you will most likely use in battle). This roughly connects with the number of playable heroines (17 in total) and each heroine has a special art for every different class they can turn into.

The main story usually concludes with your characters around level 50, but there is an extensive post-game dungeon system that will carry you up to the very max. You can even reset your character and level it from scratch in exchange for extra statistics depending on how many levels you reset.

An important feature is that whenever you defeat a special monster, you also get a small scene (with an ecchi CG) of Fried sealing the monster. It may sound stupid, but it actually promotes you to keep playing even after the story is done, just to see what kind of monsters are still there to be captured and what funny scenes you will get after winning.

The playable heroines are:

Alisia Heart

Cheerful, energetic, and hardworking. She is a Fighter-type character and apprentice knight who graduated as the only girl among the Royal Military Academy's knight course. She is close friends with Melvy.

Melvy de Florencia

Calm and collected. She is a Magic User-type character and apprentice magician who graduated from the Royal Military Academy's magic course with top grades. She comes from a rich family and has quite a protective dad. She is close friends with Alisia and is obviously in love with Fried (even though he doesn't realize it yet).

Lilian Craper

Discovered by Fried and the team during an exploration. She is an extremely pessimistic girl going through the so-called "chuunibyou" phase, thinking she has some special power and is cursed by some evil entity. Turns out she is a Spieler-type character that actually has some innate power.

Conette St. Honore

Former maid of the Royal Maid Squadron. She is a Maid-type character that usually doesn't want to do any kind of work. She is lazy and has a weakness for sweets, but with the right motivation, she is a great asset to the team.

Monica Macy

A shy and extremely clumsy girl. She is a Scout-type character sent by Melvy's dad to spy on Fried's actions. She is quite poor and is trying to do her best to feed her 15 siblings.

Grisherina Efleanor

A strong and confident Fighter-type character. She is a veteran explorer and a friend of Irena. She actually has a sweet spot for cute clothes, but she doesn't want to admit it.

Fiora Marsh

A deeply religious sister and Magic User-type character. She manages an orphanage and tries her best to keep everyone there living a good life.

Lizerietta Marsh

One of the orphans picked up by Fiora. She is deeply scarred by reality and wants to become an adult quickly so she can help Fiora with her duties. She awakens as a Spieler-type character and joins the suppression team.

Souffle Twinny

A treasure hunter Scout-type character who is DEEPLY in love with Therians. She is an easy-going person and is initially introduced as a merchant selling Therian goods, but later becomes part of the team.

Eltricia Vitoire de Ritzhevan

The first Royal Princess of Romulea and fourth successor to the throne. Naive and often selfish, she wants to become stronger and be a proud royal protecting her country. She is a Magic User-type character and is often accompanied by her maid, Ist.

Ist

A Maid-type character that serves the Princess and is almost always with her. She is a robot-maid, loyal and quite strict, but genuinely loves to be with the Princess.

Houzouji Yae

A female samurai from the Lachann Empire. She is a Fighter-type character who has traveled to Romulea to investigate the sudden appearance of monsters around the world. She travels together with Tsurara.

Tsurara

A small girl accompanying Yae. She is a kunoichi (Scout-type character), even though she lacks any kind of sex appeal to try and lure people due to her small stature, which is a complex for her.

Mefmera

A beautiful Spieler-type character who is half-human/half-monster. She is close friends with Yuni and is often the target of discrimination from other citizens because of her lineage, even though she is hardworking and an extremely sweet girl.

Yuni Korgtech

A singer (Maid-type character) who works at the pub. She is bright and innocent and loves to sing. Mefmera is her best friend and they are usually together all the time.

Irena Rosenmeier

She is an extremely successful woman who got promoted as the new Royal Library's Chief Librarian. She is the one assigning Fried and the team various tasks to investigate the mysterious events in the story. She is only playable in the post-game.

This is definitely my favorite dungeon crawler franchise and I ended up playing this game three times in total. The dungeons are smooth and nice to explore without too many annoying mechanics, the heroines are all fun, and there are LOTS of nice scenes among the cast.

Some are unlocked through the main story, while some of them have specific triggers in the dungeon (like character composition, debuffs, or item usage). It is quite fun to try new combinations of characters or skills and end up unlocking one of these scenes without realizing why

The characters are all charming and lovable, even if my favorite is definitely Alisia Heart. I love her looks (the red hair really stands out), but also her cheerful and energetic personality really manages to make you smile. Plus she has an amazing voice thanks to Ai Kayano, the voice artist voicing her.

I also want to point out that I REALLY liked the pair of Therians that appear from time to time in the dungeon to give some tutorial scenes or just some random funny ones (see the attached video). They and the Maid-Sensei are really a highlight, and even me, who usually skips tutorials, couldn't help but listen to every word they said.

I really want to suggest you give this game a shot. It is really addicting, and that feeling of "completing the map" and having a nice story to look forward to is a great bonus.