![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I understand that this was always going to be a relatively small game, especially given its modest asking price, but even when factoring that in, there is still virtually nothing to play. This isn’t to say that the campaign needs to span across 30–40 hours, but the fact that that game asks you to replay those nine missions but in a harder difficulty shows that the team knew that length and substance was an issue, and rather than adding a little more content (to buff the hours to something more akin to the six-to-eight hour mark) they’re asking you to simply retread old ground. Not many games leave me saying “wait…that’s it?” but Minecraft Dungeons is one such game. To say that I was fairly disappointed by the campaign’s length, which is shorter than my patience, is an understatement. There are secrets to be found and even a secret level, but even with all of that, I managed to complete the main game in one night. In contrast, Minecraft Dungeons feels entirely in sync with the core game, taking its imagery and ideas-its very nebulous "brand," if you want to go there-and stretches it to accommodate entirely new modes of play.Minecraft Dungeons comes with nine main missions…that’s all. They tried a narrative adventure game with Telltale, which was OK but felt too overdetermined and pandering to celebrity to really capture the spirit of Minecraft. But as time goes on, Mojang and Microsoft are going to want to find things to do with that brand. It's almost more Lego than Lego, rewarding creativity with simple building that scales pretty much infinitely, allowing solo or collaborative creation, alongside a vast host of player-made mods and enthusiast creations that are so vast and elaborate they feel both genius and quixotic. The original game isn't going anywhere any time soon it's about as pure a possibility space as exists in games, with the range of types of play and creation only getting larger with each passing update. In being so inviting, Minecraft Dungeons might suggest a possible future for Minecraft and its vast voxel worlds. It's a friendly sort of game, one that opens itself up invitingly to fans of Minecraft in a way that a lot of spin-offs fail to properly capture. The power of this game isn't in the sheer excellence of its mechanics but in its approachability. Like the Lego games before it, Minecraft Dungeons makes the dungeon crawler genre engaging in a way that could easily enthrall the young fan who loves Minecraft but doesn't know Diablo from the Pope. This is, from top to bottom, a game for children. Fans of the genre will complain about it being too straightforward and, perhaps, a little shallow, but fans of the genre are not the point. It's not too hard, not too simple, easy to jump into and out of for quick sessions. The combat is spry and straightforward, a mess of quick sword slashes, spells, and arrows. It's got the bright colors and vague spookiness of the standard pastoral Minecraft setting with zombies, giant spiders, and occasional yawning pits into a mysterious hell world breaking up the farmlands and forests. Dungeon crawlers like this are pieces of gristle you constantly chew on, gnawing them into formlessness and then coming back months or years later when the craving hits again.Īs a dungeon crawler, Minecraft Dungeons is eminently competent. Ideally, you play for a long time, replaying randomly generated mission maps on escalating difficulty levels, until your hunger for addictive fantasy combat is sated or you're so kitted out with good loot that no more challenge remains. You can do this alone or with friends, either via the internet or local multiplayer. As an anonymous blocky adventurer, you fight monsters, gather loot, trade in that loot for better loot, and fight more monsters. Like the Diablo games, it is a swift hack-and-slash game played from an overhead perspective. Out on PC and consoles, it is, essentially, a Diablo game in Minecraft clothing. Minecraft Dungeons, the first Minecraft spinoff developed directly by Mojang Studios, the studio that helms the core game, feels distinctly of a piece with those old Lego titles. ![]()
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