Minecraft Dungeons (Minecraft themed Diablo Lite)

[coopasonic]

As a GamePass holder, I get this for free and it actually doesn't totally suck.

I've only played it for about two hours. It is pretty simplified with only 3 equipment slots (ranged, melee, armor) and 3 artifact slots, which basically give you your cooldown abilities. Equipment can be enchanted. There are 1-3 enchantment slots where you will have up to three choices of enchantments and each enchantment has multiple ranks each costing successively more enchantment points. If you swap equipment in a slot you get any enchantment points back to spend on the new item (I guess, I had avoided spending points because I thought they were lost when used -- my son told me I was dumb).

There are multiple difficulty options that impact the loot you get and it is set up to be played through multiple times to unlock new progression/equipment/stuff.

Also includes couch and online co-op. No cross platform as of now, but they are looking into it. xbox and PC crossplay is in the plan, switch and PS4 is on the wishlist.

Also, $20 isn't bad.

[gameoverman]

I don't mind it being simplified, I loved the Dungeon Siege games and they weren't complex. What I need to enjoy a game like this is a feeling of regularly upgrading my character's gear. If you were to play for an hour or two, at the end of that session would you still be using all the same gear you started with or would you have found or bought at least one or two worthwhile upgrades by then? Thanks for any insight on this.

[coopasonic]

I have another couple of hours played and am at level 25 and yeah, you will get upgrades at a pretty steady pace. I don't know if it slows down later. The interesting thing is that each map has designated loot types, like each area his specific armor types that drop there, specific melee weapon types, specific ranged weapon types and specific artifact types. This means you can rerun an area to get the kind of upgrade you are looking for. The maps are randomly generated with set features so they are recognizable but different every time.

There are no classes in the game, but the different equipment you can find sort of work out to different classes. You can be ranged focused, melee focused, artifact focused, support focused and there are choices within those choices.

[YellowKing]

I played for about a half hour on PC and was kind of bored with how easy/light it was.

Then found out my son had been playing it on Xbox, and he was way farther in. After seeing more levels and getting a little better feel for how the progression works, I changed my tune. Still light, but looks fun and I plan on getting back to it soon.

[Kurth]

Been playing couch co-op and online with my kids and having a blast. It's simple, but it's charming and a pretty good time, especially when playing with others.

[Skinypupy]

I’ll grab it for the kids at some point. A little surprised they haven’t asked me for it already.

[Therockyfroggy]

It's a fun game. The kiddo and I have beaten the game on the first difficulty and now working on the 2nd....we like it...fun with the kids for sure.

[coopasonic]

I've played it about 21 hours and beat the boss on the highest difficulty (Apocalyptic VI). I think my character is level 92 and power level is 106 (max appears to be 107 but 107 drops aren't terribly common). I have all but 1 achievement. As soon as I find a llama artifact I'll be 1000/1000. It has been fun, particularly playing co-op with the kids. Every once in a while when I finished a mission I would get sent back to the main menu with a communication error and the mouse controls went haywire on occasion, but I would just switch to the xbox controller and keep playing. It plays just as well either way.

It's not great, but it's also not terrible.

[Skinypupy]

I finally broke down and picked this up for the kids a couple weeks ago. Plus, I was in the mood for a hack-n-slash that I hadn't already played to death and figured this might be a bit interesting.

I was actually kind of amazed at just how incredibly boring this was. The loot is dull, the mobs are dull, the zones are dull, the mission structure is dull...everything's just yawn-inducing. I get that it's mostly made for kids, but even my three (12 and 8) - who are completely obsessed with anything Minecraft - only played it for a couple days before giving it a general 'meh' and moving on.

[disarm]

I've played up to the final level against the Arch-illager with my son (7yo) doing couch co-op, and we've had a good time. It's definitely a simple game, but it's been a fun way to get some father/son time where I can share my hobby with him. The only other thing thing we play together the same way is Lego Star Wars.

Would I enjoy the game if I were playing alone? Probably not...minimal gameplay depth, no meaningful story, and the levels aren't interesting enough to draw me into playing them repeatedly just to level up and loot hunt. I think there is some underlying potential, but they wound up with a pretty soul-less game in the end.

[Skinypupy]

I've played up to the final level against the Arch-illager with my son (7yo) doing couch co-op, and we've had a good time.

That was actually my intent in picking it up, to have something I could play co-op with the Wonder Twins 8.0. Figured it might be a good intermediate step, since the last time I tried playing actual Minecraft with them was a disaster. Unfortunately, they both got bored with it almost immediately. 12 year old did too.

“Soul-less” is a good way to put it. There was just nothing interesting about it at all, which was surprising. They’ve played both regular Minecraft and Minecraft Story Mode, both of which seemed to have quite a bit of character. Absolutely none of that transferred over to Dungeons, unfortunately.

[Baroquen]

I think I'm in the boring camp. I tried this when I briefly had the Game Pass trial thing (which I used to test run CK3). I didn't play it for very long, nor did anything stick out in my memory. I could see how it could fit the parent/kid co-op play model but we didn't try it. Haven't missed it.