Minecraft Dungeons Review

When I first saw a Minecraft dungeons gameplay I was like hey is that Diablo but with Minecraft now that I’ve played it I’m like yeah minecraft dungeons is basically Diablo with a minecraft skin sure it doesn’t mine the same mechanical depth this is Diablo and plays it safe

For the formula instead of blazing its own path with old minecraft inspired ideas but that’s all the fun combat and loot it needs and it’s accessible to just about anyone I don’t understand how minecraft intentionally low-res art-style can look so high quality but minecraft dungeons is the most beautiful minecraft world I think I’ve ever seen even in the dark recesses of caverns and dungeons everything looks great I was particularly struck by some of the more subtle lighting effects in one level a

Lightning storm rages outside as you storm a castle it flashes through the stained-glass windows to throw coloured light on the floors and walls below it’s just lovely music and sound are excellent to its soundtrack it’s different from the main game but it does a phenomenal job of keeping the lo-fi

Style of the originals music while tweaking the field just enough to make it the matically appropriate for its dungeon crawling adventure you could transplant the minecraft dungeon soundtrack into minecraft proper it would feel right at home the story is simple and exists solely to tie together the dungeon crawling levels the main

Villain the arch illage is still an orb of power from the other images and uses it virgin air evil you spend the next six to eight hours chasing him down and defeating his minions until finally you face him in his castle that’s pretty much it

When I first started a new game I was thrilled to see a massive selection of what I initially thought were player classes but it turns out you just choose from a list of pre-made skins there’s nothing different about them from a gameplay perspective which is a bummer

Especially since that’s all there is as far as character customization this isn’t a diablo game but fundamentally the gameplay is just as sweet by any other name you play through a level fighting enemies searching for treasures of various levels of rarity battling a boss and then collecting a chest tube on

Victory one distinctive tweak is rather than a traditional skill tree leveling up gains you an enchantment point you can use to add different powers to your items combat feels just right it’s not too complex but still gives you the abilities to confront enemies at range or face to face probably the single most

Important mechanic in a dungeon crawler is the lute and minecraft dungeons has plenty of it levels are designed to encourage exploration and if you venture off the beaten path you’re often rewarded with money chests or even maps unlocking seeger levels the loot system doesn’t try anything new it doesn’t have

To you could trade in your cash at your home camp to either a blacksmith for gear or a traveling merchant for skill granting artifacts and there’s still a thrill when you pull a unique level item items are completely randomized and if you don’t get the loot you want you can

Salvage it for gems one thing I liked about the salvage system is if you Salvage an enchanted item you’ll get those enchantment points back without penalty you can spend them on something else what surprised me about the loot system was that it lacks a crafting system I don’t usually demand that kind

Of thing except this is a spin-off of a game built entirely around that concept and even still has the word craft in the name it definitely minimizes the minecraft and maximizes the dungeons minecraft dungeons is a beautiful and fun dungeon crawler with a simple but tried-and-true set of systems in place

It plays it extremely safe though without bringing any mining or crafting spins to the genre to accompany Minecraft signature look and feel still it’s just so damn charming and so fun it’s hard to fault it for going the safe route for more check out gameplay footage or see some other dungeon

Crawlers in action with our reviews of wolfson and Darksiders genesis and for everything else stick with IGN