Nintendo Life – Minecraft Dungeons Nintendo Switch Review – Is It Worth It?

Hey everyone Xion over here from Nintendo life and today we’re here to share with you our review of Minecraft dungeons for the Nintendo switch now this review was originally written by Mitch Vogel for Nintendo life.com but was reworked into this video by me Minecraft has become an institution since its inception as a humble indie game having since become the best-selling video game ever while also solidifying a new genre that’s been iterated on countless times in the years since its release it would stand a reason that a brand with that kind of

Power would go on to generate all kinds of sequels and spin-offs but aside from a multi-season telltale game none exists bearing this in mind minecraft dungeons is a substantial milestone for the franchise as this is a notable break from the traditional gameplay of mining and crafting unfortunately it’s nowhere near as genre

Defying as its parent game offering up a perfectly enjoyable but woefully unremarkable take on the dungeon crawling genre the story picks up following a lonely illah jur who is rejected by his peers and wanders the overworld in search of a place to belong his innocent desire for love quickly

Curdles into a much darker lust for revenge as he’s laughed at and turned away by everyone he comes across and in this darkness of the soul he happens to stumble upon an ancient temple that houses an artifact called the orb of dominance the orb grants the elder a

Whole slew of frightening powers and he uses that to amass an army that can invade the overworld and subvert it to his will you play the role of a nameless hero who takes a stand against the now arch elders tyrannical reign and that’s about it

As far as storylines go this is about as bare-bones and simplistic as possible but it offers up just as much of a framework as is necessary dungeon crawlers are hardly known for their engaging and emotional stories as the core experience ultimately revolves around relatively mindless gameplay this

Genre is the kind in which you turn off your brain and get on the gear treadmill killing monsters and getting loot that lets you kill bigger monsters with better loot bearing this in mind the sideline story actually works in Minecraft dungeons favor as it keeps the gameplay front and center while still

Giving you a vague reason for pursuing that gameplay there’s no interconnection to overworld and minecraft dungeons either you instead select a series of isolated levels from a world map which then delivers you to a randomly generated level that tasks you with fighting back at the are chillage er in some fashion one stage

Sees you freeing a village from his grasps while another requires that you destroy a forge that’s churning some of his soldiers but all the levels remain the same on a fundamental level though new enemy types occasionally enter the fold there aren’t any new environmental puzzles or otherwise memorable changes beyond aesthetics again minecraft

Dungeons is par for the course with the genre here it’s mildly disappointing that more isn’t done to differentiate levels from one another beyond a purely service level but this criticism is more an issue with the genre than the game itself though levels are about 10 to 15 minutes long and follow an exceedingly

Simple gameplay loop in which you hack and slash your way through countless skeletons creepers and zombies until you reach the boss fight for that level combat is kept simple with most mobs being easily dispatched by holding down a and watching as your character hacks their foes to pieces you also have a bow

With limited ammo that can be found along the way and picking off foes from afar is made simple via the inclusion of a helpful auto targeting feature that almost guarantees your shot will find its mark to help spice things up a little more you can also equip up to

Three different artifacts which bolster your offense and defensive options these are each governed by a cool-down period and vary widely in terms of what they can do one artifact that we got a lot of use out of was a totem that would provide a passive health regen effect

For a limited time to anybody standing within the aura it casts another favorite is a fireworks arrow that causes a huge area of effect explosion on impact there are plenty of different setups you can go with for artifacts some of which can synergize quite well with each other and they help to add

Some much-needed depth to the often mindless nature of combat as you battle through each level there are plenty of opportunities for finding new gear either by enemy drops or treasure chests and you’re encouraged to pursue these drops when you can as they represent the main progression of your character

Leveling up effectively only gives you the chance of finding gear with bigger numbers and the only agency you’re given in building your character comes encampment points that you get upon each level up these can be invested in passive skills for your weapons and armor such as a chance to create a

Poison cloud on a hit or to progressively raise the fire rate of your bow with each shot enchantment points are locked into that item but if you salvage it for emeralds you can get those points back to reinvest in other gear this enchantment system provides some much-needed customization options

But it still feels a little too simplistic for its own good there’s no way to create a build for your character in Minecraft dungeons in the same way you’d expect for this genre and that simplicity then has a knock-on effect for making battles far less

Engaging it’s not as fun to cut your way through hordes of enemies when you know there isn’t much meaningful reward for it as there aren’t very many things to invest into for example the emeralds that you get from salvaging gear killing enemies and finding treasures can only

Be spent on either a randomized poll of any potential weapon or armor piece appropriate for your level or on an equally random poll for any artifact most of the things you get from these random polls are often worse than the stuff you already have which can make engaging with this economy a frustrating

And pointless experience the more you play it the more it becomes evident that minecraft dungeons needs something more to make the grinding worth your time whether that be more useful loot drops deeper progression systems or greater means of utilizing the in-game economy the moment-to-moment hack and slash gameplay is mildly entertaining but

Hardly enough to justify the cost of admission meaning more weight is being placed on the resource and stat management to give minecraft dungeons that all-important fun factor the issue is that the management side is also underwhelming with player agency being limited to only a few potential variables to grow the

Character further this is likely a consequence of the game being designed as a more kid-friendly title which makes it difficult to criticize too harshly in this regard but those of you looking for the kind of experience that will offer potentially dozens of hours of enjoyment will be disappointed by the relatively

Shallow offerings here adding a couple friends under the mix helps to keep things more interesting and Mojang has done a great job in making co-op as seamless as possible split joy con play is supported and you can add or drop up to three friends locally or online via an easily accessed

Menu though the core gameplay loop doesn’t change with more people it still introduces a little more delightful chaos to the repetitive structure when you have a friend on hand to throw bombs into the fray and offer up support as needed part of the strength of Minecraft dungeons

Simplicity is that it’s easy for an outsider to pick up and we could easily see this release becoming an on-the-go favorite for short pick up and play games during lunch in terms of presentation minecraft dungeons borrows wholesale from its parent game presenting you with a delightfully blocky world that nonetheless can prove

To be quite beautiful in surprising ways there are some impressive lighting effects on display here leading to plenty of moments that’ll have you reaching for that capture button but the flip side of this is that minecraft dungeons runs at a rather poor framerate in handheld mode it seems to hold to

That target 30 FPS more tightly but frames are still dropped on a frequent basis in docked mode matters are worse with the frame rate sometimes dipping into the 15 FPS range considering the simple look of Minecraft dungeons it’s not immediately clear what causes the switch hardware to chug like it does but

Suffice to say this is not a very well optimized release it’s far from unplayable but we were rather disappointed by the performance and hope that some patches to fix the issue are being prioritized as far as replayability goes minecraft dungeons is a bit middling in the sense that the

Whole campaign can be beaten in roughly 5 hours or less after this there are two additional difficulties unlocked with new loot and tougher enemies to face but you’re still stuck running through the same content again your mileage then will vary entirely upon how much the gear grind hooks you Mojang has promised

Future DLC with more missions enemies and loot but this will be paid and hasn’t yet released at the time of recording compared to its genre peers minecraft dungeons comes up rather short but if you lured by the delightful blockiness the relatively low amount of content can be overlooked at its heart minecraft

Dungeons is the sort of release that feels like it rides on the coattails of greater games a little too much if this game didn’t have the Minecraft branding it’s not much of a leap to assume that it would scarcely garner any attention based purely on its own merits the gear

System combat level design and presentation is all fine and entertaining in its own right but there’s little here that we could point to that elevates this game alongside or above peers such as torchlight 2 Diablo 3 or path of Exile bearing this in mind we’d give minecraft dungeons a very

Light recommendation to those of you looking for a surface level introduction to the a RPG genre or for something to play in co-op with the kids if that doesn’t describe you then we’d suggest going with either torchlight 2 or Diablo 3 which both offer a more substantial and fulfilling experience of this genre We here at Nintendo Life give minecraft dungeons on the Nintendo switch a 6 out of 10 if you’d like to read our full written review you could find that along with more content themed around minecraft dungeons and its future DLC over a Nintendo life.com you