Rating of
4.5/5
Many Hours of Addictive Action
dbarry_22 - wrote on 09/13/12
Dungeon Defenders blends a couple types of genres together making an addictive game you'll be sure to spend many hours playing.
This game is an Action RPG that incorporates tower defense along with Gauntlet-like hacking and slashing with several different characters to choose from. The basic set up involves being placed into a level where there are a couple crystals to defend. You can do this by setting up traps, walls, and weapons. By doing this, you can prevent enemies from reaching the crystal by blocking them or killing them. You can also take out enemies with your character. Depending on which character you choose, you might have a ranged or melee weapon at your disposal.
The best part of this game is its depth and strategy. There are almost an infinite amount of ways you can attack a level. You may want to try and kill the enemies the moment they appear, or you may want to block off you and the crystal in a war of attrition. What characters and defenses you want to use will also dramatically affect how the level will be played out. Trying out new things can be very challenging and fun. Going into the details of what characters can do what would take way too long so let's just say you'll have lots of options to choose from.
Probably 99% of the time I spent on this game I was playing with other people. You can play by yourself, but in my opinion the game gets much more fun playing with a couple friends. Building goes much faster, there are many more options to choose from, and for the most part success is easier to achieve.
You don't have to be a pro at tower defense games in order to play this game. There is a wide range when it comes to difficulty, ranging from easy to nightmare mode. What difficulty chosen affects what enemies appear, how hard they are, and what sort of time limits there will be.
There are a couple minor flaws with this game. First, to truly enjoy all what this game has to offer you'll need purchase several pieces of DLC. This, of course, will increase the amount of money you invest in the game. However, since I found the game on sale for $2.99 and was able to purchase all of the DLC on sale as well, I'm pretty sure I easily put less than $50 total into the game so it's not bad. There are a couple character classes that can make the game much easier as well. Whether that's a good or bad thing I'll leave that up to you.
The second problem occurs when you become and expert at the game, have played all the levels, and are trying to find elite gear so you can beat every part of the game. The random loot generator in this regard is awful to say the least. You can spend 3 hours on a survival run trying to get transcendent armor to drop and end up finding nothing worth while. While this adds to the addictive qualities of the game, it also increases the annoyance factor, too.
All of the minor issues aside, this game truly is great and is a must play. Playing with a few of your friends only adds to the fun and a couple hundred hours later you may actually be satisfied with everything you've beaten. Or, you'll cheat, mod your character so you can get ridiculous stats to make the game so easy it's not even fun anymore. Resist the urge my fellow gamers.
4.5/5
