The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians

 PC
Metascore
71

Mixed or average reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Ragequit.gr
    Nov 17, 2015
    84
    The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians offers an innovative hybrid battle system and dozens of hours of exploration in well designed and dark dungeons. A must-buy old school RPG.
  2. Brash Games
    Apr 5, 2016
    80
    The combat in this game is very well-balanced.
  3. Multiplayer.it
    Dec 21, 2015
    75
    The fall of the Dungeon Guardians is a nice indie retrogaming experience. The spirit of the old dungeon crawler genre is perfectly reproduced, but also the lack of visuals and some clunky mechanics.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
6.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 33 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 33
  3. Negative: 7 out of 33
  1. Engstrand
    Nov 15, 2015
    10
    Dungeon crawlers...
    The vast majority of people on this planet don’t know, and will never know, the beauty of it. Every time I play one, I    Dungeon crawlers...
    The vast majority of people on this planet don’t know, and will never know, the beauty of it. Every time I play one, I feel I belong to a small secret society. Is it all nostalgia? The countless days, nights and weeks playing FTL’s Dungeon Master back in the late 80’s on my Atari ST? Or is it simply a matter of taste, this genre rubbing me the right way?

    The game mechanic similarities with Dungeon Master are, on the surface, obvious; you control a party of 4 heroes, orientating (in First Person View) through a grid-based dungeon, solving puzzles, finding keys and secrets, swinging swords and axes, shooting and dodging fireballs, drinking health/mana potions, finding loot/armor for upgrades, avoiding trapdoors and being freaked out by horrific monsters along the way.

    The combat is based on the “tank/damage dealer/healer” mechanism, which invites the player to approach battles with a more strategic view compared to the “hit-strafe-hit-strafe”-tactic (a.k.a. “dancing around your enemy”) found in Dungeon Master and some other grid-based dungeon crawlers (Legend of Grimrock comes to mind).
    In this, you fight most of your battles positioning your party right in front of your enemy, standing your ground. There are a few exceptions, though, as when you choose to dodge the Evil Watchers’ fireballs, or if you choose to attempt a retreat. With this system, the player conducts each individual party member to perform certain abilities, such as various attacks, healing/damage spells, buffs and much more. You want your tank to generate enough threat to keep the enemies targeting him, leaving the remaining party (healer and damage dealers) alone to focus on healing the tank (and other members when necessary) and attacking the enemy with melee and spellcasting.

    Keeping the enemies from attacking certain party members plays a big part in your eventual success. This makes for very interesting battles along the way, as the heroes learn more abilities for every gained level, while your enemies are getting stronger. To sum it up, the combat system is more MMO-based compared to most grid-based dungeon crawlers. On medium/high difficulty settings, it’s more than often necessary to use the built-in Pause function, which allows the player to completely halt the game, analysing the situation, queue abilities, assign potions to drink, and then unpause to see the action play through, until you wish/need to pause again. This can sound like interrupting gameplay flow for some players, but because of the difficulty level in some fights, it’s necessary, and in the end it becomes a natural part of game, something to become better and better at.

    The feeling of “being there” means almost everything in a game like this, and it really succeeds in achieving that feel. Knowing your position and bearing, keeping your back safe, looking for hidden buttons on mossy walls and analysing the haunting environment ahead. All these things become an obsession. You will revisit many labyrinth corridors during your mission, looking for secrets and hidden treasure, and there’s a certain feel when becoming “homey” in safe areas you’ve already cleared from enemies and monsters. It becomes a “safe haven”, and knowing the way back from where you came from can many times save your life, when you need to retreat from a group of a Cave Monsters or a poisonous Spider Queen. That’s what “keeping your back safe” is all about. The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians is definitely not the type of game where you just storm forward recklessly, thinking you’re Rambo. Of course, you can set the difficulty level so extremely low that you actually can play like this (some might even enjoy it), but that’s not the main intention of this game.

    I had, and I’m having, a blast playing this game. It’s certainly a game that requires some time getting into. The combat system, including targeting enemies and timing your abilities, takes some getting used to. I can imagine players with a low experience of this kind of game struggling a bit in the beginning. That’s where the customizable difficulty settings come in – find your levels, play the game, get better, and when you’re ready for a challenge, raise the difficulty.
    The game is not perfect (it has some bugs), but with less than two weeks after official Steam release (at the time of this review), the developer has been very responsive to players’ bug reports, suggestions and feedback, releasing patches literally every day, not only fixing bugs but also enhancing the game in various aspects.

    I highly recommend this game. Not only for the obvious dungeon-freaks like myself out there, but I’m sure classic MMO/RPG players would enjoy this as well, as it has influences from more than one genre. If atmosphere, mystery, puzzles or intense combat is an important ingredient for you when playing games, this will be your thing.    … Full Review »
  2. blackbird1
    Nov 6, 2015
    10
    an extremly well made dungeon RPG Crawler
    fun fun fun for lots of hours
    also the amount of settings for video options is on the upper end    an extremly well made dungeon RPG Crawler
    fun fun fun for lots of hours

    also the amount of settings for video options is on the upper end here, other indi devs should look at this!

    and good news for my older friends, the game has a fully scaleable menue so no eye hurting which is often the case with such games.

    a must buy for RPG Dungeon cralwer Fans

    *sry for my english    … Full Review »
  3. night4
    Aug 8, 2016
    7
    This game is a mesh of single-player party-based WoW, and Legend of Grimrock. I wish there were more fresh ideas in the game, but what'sThis game is a mesh of single-player party-based WoW, and Legend of Grimrock. I wish there were more fresh ideas in the game, but what's there can be fun... for a while, anyway.… Full Review »
See all user reviews »