Hello readers, KupaRizu here with my first ever review for
Feral Entertainment, so please, sit back and enjoy!
Dungeon Defenders is the first ever game developed by
Florida based game studio Trendy Entertainment, and boy what a brilliant
entrance into the world of Videogames have they made, which is not surprising
considering the company was created by veterans of the video game industry made
up of some of the best Unreal Engine Developers in the world with over 40 years
of collective experience between them.
Now, what makes Dungeon Defenders so unique and simply
downright clever is the combination of two unlikely genres; Tower Defence and
Action RPG, into a brilliant blend of action-filled excitement.
Dungeon Defenders takes place in a fantasy realm where a
great evil has been sealed away for many generations in Eternia Crystals,
however recently an evil army was released by accident with the sole purpose of
destroying the Eternia Crystals and reawakening the great evil that has been
sealed from the world. Due to this event, Heroes must be chosen to defend the
Eternia Crystals, and you just happen to be one of the chosen ones.
Dungeon Defenders begins simple, like many RPGs, with a
class selection screen, each class is unique and you are given four to start
off with, with more classes being available to unlock at a later stage in the
game. The classes each have a difficulty rating and are progressively more
challenging to learn and use effectively.
The first class most players should start off with is the Apprentice
class, due to his mix of barricades and different kinds of towers that can deal
ranged damage from behind fortifications, giving him the most balanced toys of
all the classes. The second hardest class, and the one I started with, is the
Squire class, a Tank class through-and-through, his defences are based around funnelling
or blocking off groups of baddies so he can rush in a take them down with his
sword for a massively satisfying blood bath massacre.
The next class is different yet again, for one she is the
only female class, and two she is a mixture of ranged support and trapping; The
Huntress. Playing the Huntress means firing off crossbow bolts and shredding
enemies apart with gatling cannons, all while laying traps designed to wear
down, slow or stun incoming enemies. While she may sound overpowered, without a
good Squire or Apprentice, she can quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer
amounts of enemies that pour out of the dark portals. The final class is also a
support style class: the Monk. The Monk class lays down area of effect auras to
slow, damage or even turn enemies against their own former friends. Monks can
also summon healing auras to aid the other players, however, just like the
Huntress; Monks are not very good as a solo hero and is more of a support class
for co-op.
After choosing your Heroes class you are able to choose
his/hers colour scheme and name and then you go on to customise the look and
colours of your Eternia Crystal, however at the beginning only one Eternia
Crystal will be available, for the rest are unlocked via achievements. Then the
game really begins!
Thrown into the tutorial with my Squire on medium difficulty
I perform all the tasks set forth, from learning the movement system, how to
build towers and how to use the rather sloppy camera controls, to learning all
about levelling up and attacking. Then, and only then, am I given my first
level, a simple invasion consisting of five waves of enemies, each wave getting
progressively harder, standard Tower Defence stuff really. I build two spiky
barriers, the only type of defence my Hero knows at level 1, and begin the
combat stage. The camera zooms down into the action and I jump into the fray as
little imp like demons start to pour out of the demon portals, I slash away
until I kill something then move onto my next target, and again, slash, kill,
move on, slash, kill, move on. The excitement of running into the action and
clicking wildly quickly wore off, unfortunately, while fun, the action was
primarily hack-and-slash, click to victory sort of gameplay. Despite this it
was enjoyable to kill the imps and I had managed to complete the wave before
they reached my defences, sweet. So, I run back to the Eternia Crystal and
start the next wave, again killing away before they reached my defences. Ran
back to the crystal, started the next wave, killed them all, same again next
wave, and then I started the final wave.
This is where I learned my mistake, and learned that Dungeon
Defenders is insanely hard, even when attempting to play on medium difficulty,
and unless you have friends to play with, even on easy it is going to be a
challenge to complete all 13 missions in the campaign. And of course, being the
idiot I am, that was exactly what I planned to do. The final wave spawned two
huge Orcs, these just smashed straight through my defences and ripped by
crystal a new one, and there I was, sat in my chair, shocked as to how in the
world I had managed to lose on the first level.
This game was designed for 2-4 player co-op, and it does not
go easy on the lone wolves of gaming. However, as a loner, I had to continue
regardless.
Upon failing the level I found myself in the games
“level-select” area, a place where all great adventures begin: the Tavern. In
the tavern was my crystal, which allows me to travel between the missions in
Dungeon Defenders, a Defenders Forge, which allowed me to switch between
multiple Heroes, and the barkeep, who sells armour, weapons and pets for you
character.
What the barkeep sells is shuffled between each delve into a
mission, so every time you come back to the Tavern a different set of items
will be waiting for you to buy. Luckily for me there was a lightning powered
wakizashi within my price range that increased my damage by quite a lot, so I
bought it, levelled up my characters stats with the XP I had earned, and headed
back into the first level and tried again, this time succeeding to defeat the
Orcs and complete the level! (Cue fanfare)
I then continued onto the next level, which had five waves
again but this time had a more complex route to defend, and tougher enemies. I
set up my defences, started the round and am immediately defeated by three Orcs
and a hell of a lot of imps.
This game is hard, so very very hard, with a hugely steep
difficulty curve, however it provides a well-balanced death. Every failure is a
chance to try again with a slightly stronger and richer character, and with
four classes and four difficulties spread over 13 missions, this game provides
countless hours of entertainment and challenges. On top of all that the
missions can each be played in Survival Mode, in which you do not get any
defences and must survive using only you hero and his abilities, or Strategy
Mode, where you must protect the crystal using only defences
and towers.
Still not satisfied with the amount of content available in
the game, Trendy Entertainment made it so that for every campaign level
completed, a challenge level is unlocked, these challenges are variations of
the standard gameplay where you’ll be attacking instead of defending,
protecting a teleporting crystal as it zooms around the map or even crazier
stuff such as one player being the chicken and is unable to jump and dies
easily. Finally to top it all off there is a PvP mode where you and your friends
can battle each other in an arena.
All of this content, combined with unique gameplay, easily
outweighs the minor grievance of the sloppy camera controls and barren
tutorial, and will keep you coming back for more and more of this
masochistically difficult, yet insanely fun Tower Defence/Action-RPG
genre-bending masterpiece. Bravo Trendy Entertainment and I certainly can’t
wait to see games as brilliant as this in the future from you.
KupaRizu
No comments:
Post a Comment