Verdict
Minecraft Dungeons is a strong dungeon crawler that can work wonders with youthful audiences taking their first step into the style, though will depart skilled gamers wanting one thing extra vital.
Pros
A light-weight and accessible tackle the dungeon crawler style
Combat is tight, responsive and satisfying
Randomly generated ranges add loads of replay worth
Excellent enjoyable with a number of pals by your aspect
Cons
The principal marketing campaign is extremely quick
Hub world is bland and underutilised
Not fairly sufficient depth to fight and exploration
Key Specifications
Review Price: £24.99
Release Date: May 26, 2020
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch
Developer: Mojang Studios
Genre: Dungeon Crawler
Ever since Microsoft bought Minecraft for an absurdly excessive asking value, we’ve been ready to see how the franchise would burst outdoors of its conventional mould of constructing and exploration. The billion-dollar concept continues to be rising and increasing in some fascinating methods, however the franchise has a lot untapped potential outdoors this template. Now, after years of ready, Mojang has lastly unleashed Minecraft Dungeons.
The sport is actually a extra approachable model of Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo with a Minecraft twist, throwing you and a gaggle of three pals into a mix of randomly generated monster-filled dungeons, loot and different alluring secrets and techniques to uncover. While it presents a bunch of fascinating twists on the style, Minecraft Dungeons is much too quick and light-weight to have real lasting attraction.
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Minecraft Dungeons begins by calmly establishing its narrative. A younger villager stumbles into some historic ruins and discovers a strong artefact. Upon touching it, he beneficial properties magical powers and inevitably transforms into an evil tyrant intent on enslaving the populace. As a courageous adventurer, you aren’t having any of this nonsense and promptly volunteer to cease him.
Beyond a number of playful items of introductory narration earlier than and after every mission, the story takes a backseat, merely performing as a contextual dressing to your journey greater than the rest. Minecraft has by no means been about its story; it expects gamers to craft their very own journeys as an alternative of relying on an increasing library of lore. Dungeons may be very a lot the identical, even when it does reach including a bit of additional flavour to issues.
The simplicity of Minecraft Dungeons is clear from the opening mission. Played from a third-person perspective, you’ll discover a sequence of randomly generated dungeons searching for to earn loot and full a choice of totally different targets. You have a single devoted assault button, used to slash away foes by the a whole lot as they rush in direction of you.
Obviously, this isn’t your solely technique of offence, with every adventurer outfitted with a ranged weapon and a trio of artefacts. The latter is actually your particular talents, usually consisting of momentary buffs or explosive magic that may harm a number of adversaries directly. All of those mix to present fight a rhythmic stream, with encounters forcing you to make frequent use of every ingredient to keep away from sure demise.
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Even with all of those elements, with out some further refinement, they might really feel tremendously gentle. Dungeons cures this with the addition of enchantments. With the exception of artefacts, each piece of kit in Minecraft has myriad secondary talents you’ll be able to earn by investing enchantment factors, which themselves are earned by levelling up.
It’s a neat development system and solely grows extra refined as you sort out more durable difficulties after the primary three to 4 hours of playthrough. Here you’ll additionally obtain rarer loot and enchanted enemies not discovered on the default setting. It’s a disgrace you don’t unlock these further modes till after ending the primary one, so these instantly after a tougher expertise may be underwhelmed at first.
Between ranges, you’ll return to a hub world the place a few retailers can help you alternate emeralds for random loot drops. Unfortunately, these are largely ineffective and of a standard rarity, which I not often discovered myself utilizing since they’re both not a lot enjoyable to make use of or missing within the attributes required to sort out more durable ranges.
Beyond a home crammed with bland memorabilia, the hub world seems like a glorified menu display screen, and other than partying up with pals earlier than every stage, it actually doesn’t serve a lot of a objective. With content material updates deliberate for after launch, I hope this grows into one thing extra worthwhile, because the potential is totally wasted. Minecraft Dungeons is awash with character elsewhere, however virtually none of it surfaces right here.
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Levels vary from enchanted forests, boggy swamps and historic temples – all of that are constructed with items and equipment you’d discover in Minecraft. Like Dreams or LittleBigPlanet, it seems like gifted creators outdoors of Mojang might construct these arenas themselves with sufficient time and expertise. Given that many levels are randomly generated, it is a commendable feat.
Replaying ranges is pleasing, however doesn’t provide fairly sufficient selection to match the likes of Diablo and different juggernauts within the style. Swapping out tools frequently and making use of enchantments is a satisfying affair, and is evidently gears in direction of youthful gamers with how trivial it’s to grasp and make the most of its mechanics. This isn’t any dangerous factor – and I’m excited to see if this invitations a complete new viewers of gamers to an underappreciated style.
Verdict
Minecraft Dungeons is a strong dungeon crawler that can work wonders with youthful audiences taking their first step into the style, though will depart skilled gamers wanting one thing extra vital. A short marketing campaign and underdeveloped hub world stop it from attaining greatness, but I can’t assist however be impressed by the muse Mojang Studios has constructed right here.
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Games Writer
Jade is the devoted video games author at TechSwitch. She handles all issues gaming whether or not it’s information, critiques, occasions or foolish options. Seen at retailers comparable to MTV UK, Kotaku and TechSwitch (…
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