CNN
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Minecraft is a highly respected name in the gaming community. It’s been around for nearly a decade, and it’s seen several iterations since its humble beginnings, with countless updates to its main title; the hilarious cartoon-style Minecraft: Story Mode; and the AR-centric Minecraft Earth. But he’s never seen anything like Minecraft Dungeons before.
Minecraft Dungeons is an intriguing new direction for the series, heading into previously uncharted territory. It could be described as “Diablo for kids”, as it introduces simplistic concepts we’ve seen in loot-centric dungeon-crawling RPGs before, but never takes them so deep that they might turn off an audience. varied.
The old adage “easy to learn but hard to master” is appropriate here. While the game is simplistic in many ways, it’s complicated in others, making it an exciting prospect for Minecraft fans new and old. Whether you’re returning to the franchise looking for something new or you’re new to Minecraft intrigued by all the new possibilities, there’s something for everyone.
The adventure is yours to customize
The plot is simple enough that anyone can follow it. In fact, it’s the only Minecraft adventure outside of Telltale Games’ Minecraft: Story Mode to feature a narrative. An evil villager known as “Illager” has summoned minions to fight their way into the lands of innocent townsfolk to wreak havoc. You and your merry band of adventurers must conquer all of the Illager’s minions until you finally reach him and knock off some ankles. It’s nothing fancy – your classic adventure story that anyone who’s ever dabbled in the fantasy genre will recognize, with a Minecraft twist.
Part of the fun is customizing your character. You can select a generic design for your hero at the start of the game, although there’s not much you can do about how it looks. You can equip your hero with armor and weapons, but there is no option to add new skins like you can in vanilla Minecraft. If you’re looking to create the aesthetically pleasing adventurer of your dreams, you’re going to be disappointed.
However, when it comes to equipping your character with viable weapons and armor and other trinkets, there are plenty of opportunities. You’re not locked into a chosen class at the start of the game – things are much smoother here. You can get a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, a piece of armor, and three artifacts. Artifacts grant you a variety of different abilities when you find them, and they’re always good to experiment with.
While you should definitely make sure to equip your character accordingly for the current adventure, growth throughout the game is just as important as preparation. For every level you gain, you’ll earn an enchantment point, which can upset just how great your chosen gear can be.
Enchantments can be used on weapons and armor. For example, you can imbue your sword with the power of lightning, or even increase your chances of receiving valuable gems when killing enemies. Enchantments can be powered through three tiers, which helps turn what initially appears to be a simple gear and gear system into something far more complex and malleable.
The best thing about all of this is that you can experiment by swapping out new enchantments and leveling them up to your liking with different weapons. It only takes new gear to do so – a fair trade for more powerful abilities. If there’s one thing Minecraft Dungeons absolutely excels at, it’s letting players stick with a fighter they feel comfortable using, changing it up whenever necessary.
Fantastic fighting and foraging
However, creating a character is only part of the equation. Minecraft Dungeons is all about the thrill of exploration and, well, dungeon raiding. Using melee attacks or your chosen weapons and armor, you’ll have to clear a variety of randomly generated areas that cover different terrains seen in the original Minecraft, from snowy hills to caves with lava accumulating each time. Street corner.
By starting at camp before each mission, you have the opportunity to review your items and gear to ensure you’re ready for the journey ahead. This is a good time to stock up, change enchantments, and respect your gear. This quickly becomes a great advantage.
Your objective is to reach the end of each level, while collecting all the loot that awaits you, alone or with your friends and family. If things get tense, you may find that you need to pop a healing potion. These are unlimited, but they can only be used once in a while. You have to wait for the cool down timer to count down before using it again, but it’s a good fallback in case things start to get hairy.
If you succumb to your injuries, you can easily revive your character. If your entire team goes down, however, you’ll use one of your shared lives. If they’re all gone, you’ll have to start over at your camp, which means you’ll have to go on a mission again.
You will be able to keep the gear and items you have earned, but any progress will be lost. It can be frustrating, but knowing it will ensure you don’t take the game any less seriously just because it’s populated with fun Minecraft mainstays. It can be easy to underestimate how difficult certain areas can be, simply because the game is fun and cartoonish – but it’ll find you at the start of every mission over and over again.
Family adventure at a great price
It’s Minecraft Dungeons in a nutshell: simple yet sophisticated, with lots to do and lots to discover. The campaign might be a bit short, only spanning around 10-12 hours, but the game’s rollout capability has a lot going for it. Once you’ve completed the game on the standard difficulty setting, you can go back and complete it on harder modes to really extend the playtime you can get.
More dungeons will be making their way to the game in the near future, as Mojang previously announced. There’s a fantastic amount of content here for the base price of $19.99 ($29.99 if you want to pay for the additional content up front). Mojang will likely continue to support the game even beyond its first two expansions, which is great news for anyone who can’t get enough of its unique blend of dungeon crawling and Minecraft attitude.
Minecraft Dungeons is a great choice for playing games with your hardcore gaming friends or even with little ones who enjoy watching you play the original Minecraft. It’s a light and playful adventure that anyone can jump into and enjoy – and absolutely perfect if you’re spending a lot more time indoors these days with your loved ones.
Note: Prices above reflect prices quoted by retailers at time of publication.