Today we are going to take a look at Minecraft Dungeons. This Diablo-like game set in the Minecraft universe promises to give you and your children the excitement of a typical ARPG while retaining its childlike charm. Whether it can deliver on its promise is the question we will try to answer today. Minecraft Dungeons is available on Steam 19 Euro and 99 cents or your regional equivalent.

With this review you have a choice of either reading it here in text form or listening to the video review. They both contain the same content.

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Video Review

Text Review

Strike the iron while it's hot! This proverb was obviously the inspiration behind the many spin-offs of successful IPs. Including Minecraft. And now Minecraft found another way to expand its game portfolio with a Diablo-like Minecraft game. Sadly, the fact that spin-off of otherwise great games tend to not be so great is well known. But let‘s start from the beginning and without any presuppositions.

Minecraft has long before grown out of being just a fun little game of a Swedish creative guy. The merchandise of this monstrously successful brand now spans into Legos, books, clothing, and you can even buy a blocky pickaxe in real life. And in the field of videogames, we had the chance to try out an adventure game. Yet, the CEOs who take care of the treasure obviously want more so they are rushing towards another genre taking the king of ARPGs – Diablo – as inspiration.

Sadly, the story behind the brand is more interesting than the story of the game. We get a lowly villager that was ousted from his village only to become a bitter warlock. With his magic, he terrorizes his surroundings with his hordes of undead. There are probably a few more ways to stop him, but since the story needs a hero you come to the scene and head to destroy the army of well-known monsters.

Already during character creation, I saw the first problem. I could live with the fact that you cannot customize your character. But the fact that this is the point where the game gives you your first chance to spend money is just abhorrent. I hate this corporate approach especially when the game clearly targets younger audiences.

If you are among the young ones or just simply a fan of Minecraft you will quickly recognize the familiar environment. Even the isometric view doesn‘t stop you from understanding what Universe you are in. There is a total of just nine levels which again are ever so familiar – swamps, deserts, dungeons. And again, I have to be angry – you can spend money on more DLC.

Each of the levels is very short – taking about fifteen minutes to get through with the length slightly depending on how thorough you are with clearing and finding everything. And with a bit of multiplication, we quickly get the final length of the game – about three hours. Such a short ARPG raises an obvious question – what about the loot?

The ARPG genre has one huge hook. The loot. There should be a lot of it and there should be a good variety of both crappy and awesome items so you can get excited whenever you see that long-awaited legendary item drop. Minecraft Dungeons fulfills this role only halfway. You can only find items in chests while the enemies drop short-term boosts. Once you pick up one of these boosts a little timer pops up to show you when it will expire. This leads to unfortunate situations when the last few mobs drop all the boosts but you have no more enemies to fight. It doesn‘t happen often but it does and it will frustrate you to no end.

And what about the chests? The fact that you need to explore every nook and cranny to find them – yeah that is okay and normal. Every single Diablo player knows that exploration is the key to the treasure. But the bad thing is that it makes little to no sense to do it. Because the game is SO short it just isn‘t worth it. Each of the items has three levels to it. So, you will strategically gather XP to get to enjoy the most powerful weapon only to have the game reach its end. This is just bad design.

And I can only continue to be more sad and angry and Minecraft Dungeons. The thing is, the equipment is not only boring but also quite useless. You might think better equipment would help you fight monsters – nah, they are too easy to kill. Well then, what about the bosses? Even those are just a bigger enemy with more health and pose close to no threat. No invention was put into them as they use only the very basic of mechanics such as throwing waves of minions at you. Just circle around, kiting the adds, and occasionally use the health potion if you fall asleep. Plus the golem boss I encountered bugged and got stuck so I just punched with till he died. Such a brand should not suffer from such trivial bugs.

The word boring was also present whenever I visited merchants with their random items for sale. And I don‘t mean random in the sense that each time you get to see different items. Random in the sense that you do not know what you are getting before you buy it! And one thing kept creeping into my mind…. Are these merchants loot-boxes are aren‘t they? In a game targeted at young children? The game just feels as if it was just created as a machine to pull as much money from your wallet. What is the point of buying items blindly in a genre where getting good gear is the primary focus? Leave the slot machines to casinos and certainly do not serve them to children.

The one good thing in Minecraft Dungeons is the multiplayer. Especially the local multiplayer can bring joy into your children's eyes. But just don‘t expect any sort of challenge and for the love of god, play on a controller and playing with a keyboard and mouse could have been used as a form of punishment by the Spanish Inquisition.

Conclusion

So… in conclusion. Is there anyone who should buy Minecraft Dungeons? Maybe parents with very young children who love Minecraft and want to play games together with their kids. But, even then…. Why buy this when Lego games are much better and give you many different Universes to choose from. So, only if your kids love Minecraft more than crack then you should buy this boringly subpar game. Otherwise, get something else.

So, that’s it for today guys. I hope you liked the review and if you did, please up-vote the review, follow my blog, and be sure to share it with your friends. And comment, if you have anything you would like to add. See you guys later with more gaming content.

Disclaimer: All the images have been taken directly from the Steam game page