Minecraft Dungeons is a hack and slash dungeon crawler. It’s got a pretty basic story with a normal guy being corrupted by a powerful magical item and the heroes have to save the day. Spoilers throughout post.
There are no classes, your hero can equip anything you find. Loot is random on each level though they tell you what type of loot can be found on a level so you can go hunting for an item by replaying a level hoping to find a powerful piece of that gear.
Heroes can have armor, a melee weapon, and a range weapon equipped at one time plus three artifacts. These can be switched in and out at any time on a menu screen however the game doesn’t stop so make sure you clear out an area first.
There is a long list of possible artifacts you can get from boots of swiftness to a lightning rod to Wonderful Wheat (summons a llama to help in battle). Some artifacts have a cool down period before they can be used again while the others use souls. So when you are defeating bad guys, you collect souls to power those ability and they can be used as long as you have souls to power them. Souls do start at 0 entering any level so you don’t carry in from past levels so these items do need time before they are useful.
Armor and weapons each can be enchanted. Each will have at least one slot but can have up to three. Most of the slots have two or three options for what enchantment you can pick from. These are random to the item so the same type of sword could have very different enchantment options. If an item has three possible enchantments in a single slot and you use runes to pay for one of those to be applied, it does close off the other options and I did not see a way to change it. Since the game gives gear on levels, they do allow you to get back the runes by breaking the items down however if you liked a piece and just want to switch the runes to something else without destroying it, I did not see anoption for that.
Weapons and armors themselves can be also vastly different from damage levels to speed of use. One piece of armor comes with a pet bat that will attack in battle. Some benefits to certain armor was more souls collected, damage reduction, attack speed, better cool down times for artifacts.
Besides in levels, another way to get gear is to spend emeralds you collect at the shops at camp. I believe they appear after level two for armor and weapons and after level three for artifacts. Everything is random and the higher level the character is the more it takes to get an item. Pretty hit or miss especially artifacts since you could just get an item you have but lower level and while you can sell any items you don’t want, obviously not going to get a good return on the sale. Armor and weapons are a bit better because at least they will likely have different enchantments that maybe will improve something you already have but artifacts just have their power level and getting a new one at that level or below is pretty simply just an exact or lesser artifact.
One of my early favorite weapons was a pick axe that I enchanted with a lightning option so it kind of felt like Thor.
There are 10 main levels. After the first which is a tutorial level to learn everything, you usually have two open options to go to next and order doesn’t matter. You can also always go back to past levels to hunt for certain gear. Levels usually have a few options for difficulties which will reward higher level items if you chose the harder options. Also it shows recommended level which is basically average of your items that are equipped.
The game is considered procedurally generated though that seems generous. Yes things like chests are random in how many and where but the levels themselves are mostly set so when I heard about this I thought it was like Rogue Legacy where every time you enter the castle the layout is different but that isn’t the case here.
Pet peeve is there are four bonus levels however being able to find the access points inside the main levels they are hidden to is randomly available on the level. I didn’t even know about these until very late in the game and I just happened to want to look for a piece of gear on an early level and I found the map to the bonus stage. Since that piqued my interest in if I missed more and how, I found that they have a low hit rate of showing and it seems to find say C, you have to have found B first so if the first doesn’t pop, you might be able to find the others. I tried using a tip I saw to see if a level possibly loaded the secret in by using the map screen and it showing possible secrets found on the level for the second hidden stage but after 20 times going in and out of a level and checking, either I got really unlucky with it popping or the tip was wrong. Either way I found this to be a bad design choice and I’m not sure why you’d even make it where people can play the whole game and not even realize they didn’t see levels and it’s not because they missed looking everywhere, it’s that those secrets just didn’t spawn ever.
The levels themselves do feel pretty unique from each other. The enemies are pretty cool and watching them ‘evolve’ as you see their powered up versions in later levels is interesting.
There are five boss battles so not every level has them.
Corrupted Cauldron: Located in Soggy Swamp is a huge Cauldron that doesn’t move. It spawns purple slimes that spit fireballs. These can be avoided until they disappear or can be just fodder to get more souls if have those artifacts. Also the Cauldron can surround itself in flames for a short time. There is room around the enclosed battle area that it nor its slimes reach so this is a patient hit and run attack boss for me. Go in, do damage, fall back and heal.
Redstone Monstrocity: Located in Fiery Forge. Area has lava pits to avoid along with being a hulking monster with slime friends and fireball attacks. Huge golem that can pack a punch if you try to melee away at it so it was a lot of running. There were also pillars that could launch fire blasts to damage anything in the way. I used those a lot as I ran around the perimeter shooting arrows and trying to dodge attacks.
Nameless One: Found in the Desert Temple. Boss I fought a lot because I liked the armor found in this level. He summons pretty tough skeleton warriors with shields. He fires green magic. He can disappear and then reappear with a few clones that will disappear after a little bit but all shot green magic at you. He does stay near the center of the room for the most part so it is another hit and run type of fight where get shots in when can and when he spawns his buddies you fall back away from him so you can concentrate on the skeletons.
Arch-Illager: Main bad guy who was corrupted and found in Obsidian pinnacle. This is form one of two. The stage has springs on it so very important to know how to use those to advantage in moving around the stage. He spawns Illager Crossbowmen who can do good bits of damage so another boss where movement and engaging is important. Death in this game can come quite quickly if you let a mob of enemies surround you.
Heart of Ender: Form two. It spits purple orbs that explode, runs spreading a trail of black flame. The will fire four lasers that spin in a clockwise direction for a quarter of a circle. Then the boss will slip into the ground and multiple heads will pop up to shoot lasers. While I felt like I could figure out strategies for other bosses, this one was what is happened and why is it so fast but here I think I have a second so fire an arrow. I don’t know if I ever hit this guy with a melee attack. Luckily I had a level full worth of souls to use my Corrupt Beacon (it’s the one that shoots a beam that does damage to anything in the beam, seen in the video where I was trapped in a corner with guys springing over from another part of the level) and plenty of arrows. Lots of running and waiting for my fire arrows to cool down (arrows with explosive power of TNT). Frankly the strategy is please don’t die.
So the cut scene happens and basically as expected since there are other clues in the game that it isn’t over yet because. The first two times you win just open up the next level of difficulty. On the last difficulty level I’d guess you’d get the final, final ending though I don’t know for sure and can’t seem to find a video of it. It seems nothing but harder enemies happens so you are replaying all the same levels. All I can find is there maybe a few new mini-bosses that show up.
Overall a fun game, biggest knock is the secret levels with low spawn rates. It’s not a deep role playing game but doesn’t act or try to be, lots of fun options to customize a fun dungeon crawler. I don’t feel the need to keep playing the same levels though but if this game was still available to me (I played on Game Pass) in a couple years I could see downloading it again and playing through the first difficulty again. I’d be interested in a new story of a full game but I probably wouldn’t jump in again for a new level or two of DLC. Very solid fun game though.
Super Romo Brothers 