2020 has wrought havoc everywhere. And while certain, more important industries have been impacted more, I talk about entertainment here. Books, Games, Movies, Music, and TV have all been smacked around this year as the global pandemic has slowed production to a crawl or ceased it completely. And then even if it has been completed getting it to customers is a bit of an adventure, which many companies have felt wasn’t one worth experiencing.
Because of all this, physical items or events where you’d need to be physically present have been delayed. Some stuff was completed before this mess started and in some cases, companies are finding ways to release it out to the public. Digital delivery has helped keep things rolling and on the games front, Microsoft’s GamePass service has provided a nice, steady flow of new content.
One of the perks of GamePass is that games by Microsoft’s Game Studios are released at launch on the service and one of the most recent has been Minecraft Dungeons. Based in the ever expanding world of Minecraft, Minecraft Dungeons is a hack and slash dungeon crawler. Think Diablo but more simplistic.
Minecraft Dungeons has a narrative framework to get things moving but the story here isn’t deep and its barely reason enough to start killing creeps and its certainly not enough to keep you killing them. 30 seconds of voice over for each of the handful of levels the game presents just doesn’t cut it. So the hacking and slashing better be pretty good.
It’s not though. It’s just fine. Going through and killing mobs is fun for a short period of time but it’s fun for a short period of time in every hack and slash game. What makes these games fun over longer periods of time are the character classes and the customization you can play with to build different load outs and skill focuses. Minecraft Dungeons doesn’t have that.
Every player in Minecraft Dungeons plays the same generic combination. You can hack your way through with a melee weapon and shoot your way through with a bow. And you can use specialized totems that allow you special powers. Yes, the weapons are different but they nearly all feel exactly the same and while the totems do provide players with some different approaches, they aren’t that varied enough to really alter your playstyles.
And then there are the levels themselves. They look great, in fact the entire game looks outstanding, showcasing what only masters in Minecraft building can do. But they are generally short, taking about 20-30 minutes for a harder difficulty play through. As stated already though, there are only a handful of these so to level up, and you’ll have to level up as the difficulty exponentially ramps up as you progress, you will need to replay them over and over again. It’s not necessarily to gain the experience but rather to get the higher level drops to up your power level (think Destiny’s light level).
This feels like a first pass at something and hearing that they plan on releasing new levels in an ongoing fashion I understand what they are going for. But there needed to be more content and customization out of the box. I have no issue with it becoming a living game, in fact if they keep releasing content I can see myself jumping back in from time to time but as it stands right now, it’s a four to five hour experience that just doesn’t cut it against the big dogs of the genre.
It’s fine and if you have GamePass it’s included. So there is that but I can’t endorse anyone actually paying for this. It’s just not finished.
3*
