Launching Minecraft Dungeons for the first time throws you into the cinematic story of the ‘Illager’ and his reign of terror that only you can bring an end to. The animation and cut scenes are fantastic and even if you’re not familiar with the Minecraft universe, you get drawn in instantly. 

As you get to the menu screen, you’re asked to choose your appearance from the selection given (some of them even being DLC exclusives!). There is also the option to play online co-op and connect with your friends, though for non-PC players you will need a subscription to the online services of your respective console.

While the game is named Minecraft Dungeons, there is sadly no mining or crafting at all. The block style that is the charm of Minecraft is there and most of the characters and items are taken from the original game, but the world-building feature is completely absent. Another big difference with the original game is also the fixed top-down view. The lack of camera rotation can be a bit annoying while exploring, making the dungeons feel like a maze at times and blocking the view.

Now, Minecraft Dungeons has some content and gameplay issues that need to be addressed but it also really shines in some points. First of all, the graphics hold on really well. The environments are gorgeous with great details and depths, and the effects are vibrant and satisfying. Secondly, the music is fantastic and has range. The sound effects retain the quirky and fun Minecraft feel but the background music really is a delight! From the calm melodies of the neutral levels, passing through the epic quest ambiance, to the dungeons music building in intensity as you progress, and reaching serious tones for the boss fights—it complements the visuals and adds so much to the gameplay experience.

The world of Minecraft can be so open and so endless in possibilities that it often made me wonder: “what am I supposed to do now?”. As someone who enjoys story mode games, I was pretty excited about a narrative-driven game but it’s just really straightforward, like really straight-forward. There are no dramatic settings except that there’s a bad guy and they need to be stopped, no turn of events, barely any story development, nonexistent character interaction etc. The story is linear: clear all levels and then battle the final boss. Completing the game can take about just 3 to 4 hours and after that, you can change the difficulty level and clear it again.

The controls layout is a bit weird at first but it gets easier. The game starts slow, introducing the game mechanics, but can quickly pick up the pace, maybe even a bit too fast! It often happens for the map to suddenly be crawling with opponents and you could find yourself swarmed, so getting good weapons is a must. When playing co-op, the dungeons are much easier to clear and can be heaps of fun. The items you earn when completing the levels can also be different for every player and push you to keep on working together to get more goods.

The gearing system is simple: two weapons (one melee and one ranged), armour and three artifacts slots for special abilities. But it’s where the crafting mechanic from the original Minecraft is truly missed. The blacksmiths in the game can provide you with new gear and artifacts in exchange for emeralds, but it’s randomized so you never know what you will get. Being able to gather materials and bringing them back for the blacksmiths to craft new items would have been such a nice feature.

The weapons and artifacts are a nice new twist to the Minecraft universe. In the original game, your available choices would only be the shovel, bow, pick axe and sword but in Minecraft Dungeons you have some variety. What’s more is that ranged and melee weapons all have their own specificity, some being for heavy-hit others for DPS. The artifacts give you some really cool abilities to use when battling: buffing your attack speed, stun opponents, even using the souls of your defeated enemies to heal yourself or make explosions. As you level up you can make your gear stronger and give them neat features by enchanting them. However, until at least level 50, upgrading basically requires destroying your existing gear so you can get your enchantment points back—as these can’t be removed or swapped unless discarding the gear completely.

While the game has many issues, playing Minecraft Dungeons is really enjoyable. It’s a very good entry-level and family-friendly dungeon crawler game and would work really well for a younger audience whether they are familiar with the Minecraft universe or not. You can definitely spend hours just clearing dungeons as the game is genuinely fun and pleasing to play but you’ll really wish there was more to it.

Replayability falls a bit flat and some gameplay features could be better. To be fair, Minecraft is such a loved and popular game that this new release had a lot of expectations to fill but with more content to come (DLC maps) there’s hope for this game to become really good!

The post Minecraft Dungeons (Xbox One) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

With a very dedicated fan base since its Nintendo 64 days, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, was probably the most hyped Nintendo Switch game release this year.

Its extremely diverse mashup of characters makes it one of the most, if not the most, ambitious video game crossover so far. And so rich in content still!

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is huge!

The character pool consists of every playable characters from previous editions of the franchise, with an addition of new ones (with more on the way as the DLC rolls out!).

That’s a total of 74 characters so far!

Old time fan favorites, like Wolf and Snake, are back with new ones, like the Inklings from Splatoon, Simon from Castlevania, or Incineroar from Pokémon, joining the battle. A lot of the old characters got their kit reworked and can feel foreign to play as now but the whole roster is pretty balanced and diverse, giving new players the opportunity to do well on any character.

The new Smash edition also offers several mini-game modes, and with customisable match rules the possibilities are endless! Smash together with up to 8 players and mayhem is sure to ensue!

Gamecube exclusive players will rejoice to be able to use their controller of choice. A new Pro Switch controller, optimized for the game, was also released and holds pretty well. Handheld mode on my end feels a bit bulky, but if you were a fan of the Wii U pad, then you’ll be able to Smash easily. Surprisingly though, the joy-cons are really comfortable to play with and make the Switch’s portability even more extraordinary and appreciated as you can literally have a go at Smash with friends and family anywhere, even on your commute (like I do)!

The visual effects are vibrant and really emphasize on how decisive every move is, and the audio selection is great. I am personally in love with the final blow animation so much that it almost makes me emotional (the amount of satisfaction when you land it is equal to the amount of frustration when you’re on the receiving end). It just looks amazing and makes the game so entertaining!

The gameplay is fast, really fast and every character feels strong and at times overpowered.

Unlocking all 74 characters will require at least an hour of your time if you choose to follow the fast farm technique of resetting the game software after every new character encounter. If you’re a fan of RPG campaigns, you can also unlock them via the story mode, “World of Light”, or grind them through the Classic mode.

It’s pretty impressive to see that the game is able to appeal to different types of player, and stays fun even when playing solo.

The Classic mode feels quite rewarding, as the level of difficulty increase as your progress and making it to the end without failing really feels like an achievement. The “Bonus Level” however, a platform Level, is quite disappointing as it is the same for every character unlike previous iterations of the franchise. It gets boring really fast but to be fair, with a whooping roster of 74 playable characters (with more to be added), having a specific map for each character would be quite tedious (especially when the digital copy is already +10GB big).

The story mode, that was missing from the Wii U edition, is back. “World of Light” provides you with a new storyline and concept that will set you back on at least 15 hours of game time. The story follows Kirby fighting against spirits, corrupted avatars, in order to rescue his friends so they can save the world again. The spirit battles, with their rule twists are actually quite fun while a bit repetitive at times. But the visuals are gorgeous, especially the end, and make the journey worth it.

And yet, even after so many hours played, the game has its way to keep you going and grind, whether it be to complete every quest or to practice over and over to master your favorite character(s).

Playing online with friends gets a bit awkward as both you and your friends need to join the online arena in order to play together but you can’t send messages through the Nintendo friend system. The lack of in-game comms makes you have to rely on third party applications. What’s more is that the matchmaking system seems broken at the moment with lots of players reporting issues of match settings not working (items appearing when requested not to).

On paper, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate really feels like a game that keeps on giving but ends up being a victim of its own franchise popularity and Nintendo’s questionable online multiplayer platform.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is also quite skill demanding, as the AI can sometimes be very tough to beat, which can get a bit frustrating at times (I personally got stuck on Greninja). But then it wouldn’t be a good fighting game if it was too easy since, let’s be honest, the only way to get better is to get beaten up until you manage to fight back.

Smash or get smashed 😉

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