Dungeon Defenders II (PC) Review

The developer of Dungeon Defenders II makes a mistake that many F2P or mobile/tablet-focused developers tend to make: they've included a plot. Really, why do indie creators keep wasting their precious, precious resources on something that no one will care about? Because, make no mistake, no one will care about the story here, not just because this is just a generic fantasy tale of what's-its-name and its protectors, but because the name of the game is all that tower-building and hack 'n' slashing.

The sequel continues with the same concept as before, by mixing two kinds of gameplay, and it still does it pretty well. For those new to the series, there's a hero that can be used to actively slaughter the rivers of enemies that this throws at you, but this fellow can also place all sorts of "towers" that make this entire monster killing a bit easier. Theoretically, this requires from players to be both fast on their fingers, as well as their thinking, as it combines strategy and action… Theoretically…

To be honest, this doesn't manage to escape the trap of almost all free-to-play titles of this type, which is the need to grind. It's not exactly the hardest of journeys, but skill alone will not exactly be the cornerstone of your victories. This won't become obvious very soon, because, as previously mentioned, this ain't so challenging, but it will happen, and then… time to grind - especially if willing to be an end-game player.

In some ways, that's part of the fun here. There are tons of things to loot, upgrade, and so on, and, in all honesty, this can be addictive on its own… but it's not enough. It's a shame, really, as this could be more about strategy and less about equipment, due to the quite varied cast of heroes that are available, each one with his/her own drastically different set of battle skills and towers. Moreover, this time around it's possible to create a party of four, and even swap between them on the fly, and thus mix-and-match turrets and traps.

Yes, when multiplayer… ing, it all gets improved by tenfold, but, unfortunately, the element of cooperation, as great as it is, makes it even more crystal clear that this is not a strategy game. More specifically, as this is mostly about levels and gear, a frequent occurrence here is to join a match, and watch one or two high levellers carrying the whole thing on their backs.

Moving on, after a few hours the interest will soon die, once the whole observe/build/loot pattern becomes a bit too repetitive; repetitive even for the genre(s) this belongs into. At least, does the action portion improve things at all? Sadly, not even a bit, as it's very simplistic. Once again, the hero variety is fantastic, as is their differences, but, gameplay-wise, it doesn't really matter, as it doesn't feel different.

In many ways, Dungeon Defenders II is like its graphics. Nothing is really wrong with its Unreal Engine-painted world, which is as vibrantly colourful and cartoony as the Warcraft and Dragon Quest ones, although it's also far less distinctive as those two …And that's the problem. There aren't many big flaws that one can point to here, but there's also nothing special. It's all… fine.

Now, while this humble, honest, and handsome reviewer didn't find this particularly entertaining, there are many others that have done so, and maybe, dear reader, so will you. One final piece of advice, though: wait a while till some of its problems get fixed, as this currently has many of them, like lots and lots of long loading times, servers that crash or lag, as well as a few in-game glitches. In other words, it's still an Early Access product.