Thread: Dungeon Defenders

Firstly, I will preface that this review will not have pictures. However, if you are interested in seeing what the game looks like, please visit Official Dungeon Defenders Homepage | Trendy Entertainment for screenshots and videos of the game. They have ones that are much better than any I can find.

Let me get the preliminary information out of the way first before I get into my long-winded discussion. My review will focus solely on their PC version available on Steam. However, Dungeon Defenders is also available on XBox Live and Playstation Network. Oddly enough, they also have a mobile app available through the Apple Store and the Android Market for each respective tablet/smartphone OS's. Dungeon Defenders is a single-player/multi-player tower defense game that I find is fairly unique and can be played both regularly and casually. Unlike traditional tower defense games, players assume the roles of four archetype classes and may actually avoid building and just go straight into combat with just the player character. Overall this game is fun and relatively addicting when you start playing; however, it does have some draw backs in terms of its multi-player component.

Gameplay
Classes
Dungeon Defenders features four base classes (accounting for gender as well) and four upcoming classes. The base classes include: Apprentice/Adept, Squire/Countess, Huntress/Ranger, and Monk/Initiate. While I won't go at length about the different classes, I can tell you with confidence that I started with an Apprentice since this archetype uses the most traditional tower defense for the purposes of defending since it features mostly long-range towers. While each class has its own unique tower defense weapons/barriers, the learning curve for the Apprentice is the easiest. I found Huntress to be harder since the class mainly dealt with traps. The classes that do have weaker tower defense weapons/barriers, also had much better character attack power. This is clearly a game balance and allows for strategy sessions to determine, based on varying factors such as level of difficulty, stage, and which wave is being faced. This also is somewhat of a weak spot for the game and I will discuss below.

The classes however and very versatile and a very skilled apprentice can easy out-class a noob with the combat classes. Here, I will let you experiment with the archetypes should you choose to purchase the game. I just happened to like Apprentice. The classes, I will note are one of Dungeon Defenders' best qualities. They are fun to play, and being bored with one class is as simple as making a new one.

Mana and the Eternia Crystals
Essentially your goal is to protect these large Eternia Crystals. They're obvious and stick out. Also customizable.

When a stage starts (and every beginning subsequent round during that stage), there are several treasure chests filled with mana and equipment. Mana is the basic currency of the game and allows you to build defenses and towers, upgrade your equipment and familiars, as well as buy certain items from the fat guy in your tavern or player stores.

Tower Building
Because each class comes with its own defenses, I will not go to far into describing what each class has. Tower building consists of several types of barricades and ranged defenses. For example, apprentices use the most basic barricade which does no damage, but has the most powerful ranged towers available. On the other hand, the squire is equipped with some ranged weapons (though powerful), but mostly do their damage via barricades. Tower building is enjoyable and each tower/barricade has its own strengths and weaknesses that you have to play to, which makes it fun. The game, as mentioned, is not just about tower building, but of course Dungeon Defenders is a non-traditional tower defense game, so you still need those towers.

The design of towers is varied enough and priced differently not only to make having a variety of towers used an advantage in some instances, but also a disadvantage in others. Cheaper towers and barricades have a cheaper cost and you can build more before you fill your defense quota. Yes, there is a limit to how many towers you may build per stage, dependent upon the stage. So sometimes you may have to forgo lots of towers or barricades and use a select few powerful ones, or even mix it up a bit. This game is, after all, all about strategic construction, play and positioning.

Stages
Like any typical tower defense game, Dungeon Defenders features spawn points where enemy forces come out to reach your target, the Eternia Crystals. If they reach them and destroy them, you lose the round. Depending on the stage you are playing, you may have to defend only one crystal, two crystals, or even three crystals. The base game comes with a set number of standard stages which range in the number of crystals you have to defend and the number of spawn points as well as scenery change and boss levels.

Every level in the base game has been crafted to be defendable with the right strategy and placement of towers and barriers. There are various choke points, but there are also locations where there will be a challenge defending. Some enemies are not so traditional that they follow the available ground path. There are flying enemies and you must account for them depending on the stage you are playing. Additionally, there are also bosses, but I will discuss the enemies below.

Aside from the game-play aspect of the stages, each stage is beautifully crafted and hold a sense of realism. For example, if you jump into a lava pit, you will suffer a penalty of dying and having to respawn near your crystal. There is technically no skybox, but you can't jump that high. Additionally, the stages follow the same fantasy theme and has been carefully crafted to appear colorful, yet not too complicated giving it a casual feel even when you are playing for a protracted period of time. While you won't get lost in its wonder and amazement like in Skyrim, you certainly won't be bored by the choice in color palate or the almost-cartoonish design.

On top of the base game, there are also available DLCs that provide non-traditional levels and challenges should you become bored with the base game. Depending on when you got the game, free DLCs have been released previously (so far they have had Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas ones). However, these levels provide additional challenges to players who have reached a high level and find the base game repetitive. Some of these challenges are not like traditional tower defense. For example, the Great Turkey Hunt requires that you run around and chase down as many turkeys as you can while avoiding Indians that are rather deadly to you. I have yet to break into these challenges completely, but they are rather amusing when you want to play the game in a different format.

Enemies
So the enemies are pretty much just goblins of varying shapes and sizes, trolls, demons, dragons, wyverns, skeletons, etc. Just typical baddy monsters. Most of the standard ground forces that you can pick off easily will be goblins of varying level based on your choice of difficulty (discussed below). As the waves and stages progress, you have to start dealing with a wider variety of enemy from ranged enemies, revivable enemies, choke-point dodgers, flyers, mini-bosses, and big boss monsters. There's too many! I mean, literally too many. Each spawn point will notify you how many of what will spawn from each spawn point and you have to make a strategy based on that. Because the enemies vary, strategies may have to shift around.

The most annoying part about this, of course, is that you may have to let some of your towers or barricades be destroyed so that you can reconstruct for more optimal defending. Some players skip, until necessary, building towers or build thin defenses while they let the player character handle the dirty work so that they save energy.

Finally, there are several different types of bosses. There are your basic mini-bosses that are just big, lumbering trolls that do a lot of damage, but get easily distracted; and then there are your varying level-specific bosses. Without the appropriate strategy or knowledge of what they do, you may find it hard to defeat them. Some bosses require you to utilize the stage equipment or destroy it in one instance. In any case, I'll let you figure out how to beat bosses. Also, you'll know when it's a level-specific boss with a rather obvious countdown towards the end of the last wave. Also, it will announce that a boss is arriving.

Difficulty
The game has varying difficulty depending upon stage and choice of difficulty. In additional to stage and difficulty, you may also choose particular game modes with specific limits locked or turned on. I'll let you discover them like I did, but if you like a particular map and know your strategies, try the different game modes and you may not feel that way or you may find a great strategy that works over all. This game has almost endless difficulty and is only limited by your own skill and strategy and tactics. But this game can get hard. Not much to say about it other than that. I like it.

Equipment
Because you have to engage the game with a player character, you are afforded weapons, armors, and a familiar. All equipment is upgradable with mana and limits as to how many upgrades may be applied can be seen. Upgrading equipment can change the aspect of the weapon, armor or familiar. Each piece of equipment is fairly unique in terms of stats, capabilities, attack power, effect on tower, defense power, etc. You can actually start with an initially very bad piece of equipment that has many levels to upgrade that may turn out to be better upgraded than a weapon that is initially very powerful, but has small and limited number of upgrades available for it. Again, like tower and barricade construction, there too must be some planning. Otherwise you're just wasting mana.

Other Mechanics
Before you start a round, you begin in your tavern where you can wait out until people join a game you are hosting. There will be an eternia crystal in the room for you to begin making the stage choices as well as varying conditions and difficulty level. There is also a shopkeep in the room that lets you buy things. You may also sell excess gear that you don't use, can't use, or don't want. You can sell it to the bank for a set amount of mana which goes straight into your Hero's Bank, OR you may attempt to sell it to your store and online players can purchase them on the open market or directly from your tavern. I suggest locking items before you do anything. Once you sell it, it is no longer yours, no take backs.

Even before you start play, you are given the option to play offline or online. I did not know this when I started, but offline game is only for you and you cannot play with others. Online gaming, more specifically via TrendyNet, allows you to play with other players and get ranked online. Open online play is unranked, however. Though you can move a ranked character to open online play from what I have seen. The higher level you are, the more customization you have available for both your character model and eternia crystal.

Graphics
The game is rather low intensity in terms of graphical requirement. That being said, the better graphics card you get, the smoother even the cartoony stages and characters look. The towers are rather nice looking considering the cartoony nature of things. The enemies are well detailed, and the colors work well. This is a game where even the fireballs were given great attention to even for a game I consider casual.

Multiplayer
As promised, I will actually note some problems with the multiplayer that are not necessarily the problem with the actual game itself, but more so the players. It is very hard to get a skilled party who is willing to stick around and just discuss strategies. A lot of the host games tend to be hosted by AFKers or people who do you want to do anything and let other players do the work while they take the mana and hoard it as a game goes on. In addition to those, there are also players who will join and then leave. It gets rather frustrating to play online at times.

That being said, if you have a group of friends who play this game and maintain a relatively same level or even just one group that does have the one outlier either higher or lower level, this game can be very fun. High level players have access to better equipment and can max-upgrade towers' and barricades' health so that they last longer. Single player mode is deceptively easy since you have to build strategies of your own; but with multi-player you might end up working with some of the aforementioned annoyances. Though, and I can't stress this enough, finding a good team makes a WORLD's difference.

Sound
There is some music that I have set at low, but it helps with the ambiance of stages and also tell you when the enemies are coming. Each your characters have individual voices when they celebrate, get hit or perform certain moves. Pets are a bit annoying in terms of sound. You either have a dragon, a bird or a flying tiger, but they all sound the same regardless of power. I even hear footsteps while I am setting up. The sound is alright, but it's definitely not their selling point.

Controls
Standard WSAD and mouse or you may use a controller. I don't know about the mobile app versions of Dungeon Defenders unfortunately.

Price
I believe the base game is $15.00, which is a steal compared to some of the game produced by major developers that really aren't worth that much. However, when they have a sale for Dungeon Defenders on Steam it is rather amazing how low they can sell this game for. Steam also provides DLC of varying prices and even some free DLC (though seasonally only). Even at full price, Dungeon Defenders is fully worth it.

Steam Exclusive Draw
If you get this game on Steam, it utilizes the Steam Trade system. Not sure for what, but it does.

Overall
I really like this game a lot as you can tell. While I don't have many hours on it, you can eat up a whole day just playing like any other $40+ game if not even more than those games. I have some gripes about the multi-player, but that is just not within the control of TrendyNet, nor is it a fault of the game. The game is beautifully drawn and looks fantastic. Characters are unique, customizable and colorful. I really like this game, and only wish that I could find a good party at my level! 9/10!