I haven't had this much fun with a janky, bug-filled game since Goat Simulator. I'm only 15 hours in, but I'd like to share some initialI haven't had this much fun with a janky, bug-filled game since Goat Simulator. I'm only 15 hours in, but I'd like to share some initial impressions. My history with this franchise was many hours playing Dungeon Defenders 1 in local co-op with my wife. We would listen to podcasts while slaying ogres and wyverns together for hours. Unfortunately, there is NO local multiplayer at this time! At least, I assume there is no multiplayer because I haven't found it. But there are other mechanics I didn’t discover until the 10th hour, like how to sell gear, because nothing told me I could, and even when I thought I could, the process is so convoluted with menus and pressing vs holding buttons that it took a while to figure out. The word "unintuitive" describes most aspects of the interface of the entire game. Comparing items in your inventory is a chore since the tooltip floats next to your cursor, blocking visibility, instead of being on the left half of the screen that’s almost empty.
Hold R1 to build a tower and tap R1 to use a character ability. OR, hold circle to build a tower, or tap it again to use a character ability, cycling through them with R!. Why is a skill mapped to multiple buttons, and why isn’t there an option to customize the strange, unintuitive controls I’m still dying in the heat of battle trying to get used to this nonsense control scheme.
Although the PS4 store page said there were the four characters to choose from, it does actually include 7, which seem to be from the DLC that the other platforms received last year. Note my concern that this game is still rough even though it has been out for a while on other platforms, and that the store page isn’t even accurate!
The characters have excellent themes that play into their combat, gear, and tower philosophies. Awakened adds a Hero Deck, where you have 6 of your created characters at a time that can be swapped during the build phase. That allows you to use the towers of one character while fighting with another. The plus is that all characters in the deck earn experience, but the downside is if the character that put out the defenses isn’t currently the character you are controlling, the defenses aren’t as powerful. That seems like a fun system. I thought there was a way to swap between heroes in the deck during combat, but when I tried, it doesn’t work. I’m not sure if I need to progress further or make it past my current level of 15 to unlock that feature… And I don’t know because there is no information in the game to tell me one way or another. Apply that thought to just about everything else in this game.
Here’s a question: On my character portrait, there is a circle with the number for my level. That circle seems to fill up as an indication of my current experience pool and how much is needed to reach the next level. But, when I successfully complete a level and return to the tavern hub, the indicator actually goes DOWN from where it was before I clicked the button to end the level. Why is that? Am I hitting a wrong button and losing experience because of it? Is it a bug, or working as intended? I have no idea.
Another thing they don’t tell you is enemies are immune to certain elements. If you only have one weapon that does poison damage, and your enemy is immune to poison damage, that’s it. I was level 8 on my Monk before I realized that I couldn’t play him anymore because of this. My problem is I don’t play online, so there are no other players to cover my elemental weaknesses. It was worst in the early game where I only had one aura that did damage, so if my weapon matched that damage type, I failed automatically. My character’s sole weapon can’t damage the single, lowly trash mob; my one damage aura does the same damage type, so it can’t damage the enemy either, and I can’t do anything but watch it beat my crystal to death, one hit at a time.
Instead, I am forced to play the cyborg character, who has the special ability to swap between weapons, allowing me to have two different weapons that I can make sure has distinct elemental types. (I could also do this with the assassin, but he doesn’t have the towers needed to play solo.)
It might seem like this game should get a 3 even before I get into how average the graphics are, but the core concept of the gameplay is just SO GOOD. I enjoy grinding in games while listening to news podcasts, which is how I have over 1,000 hours on Diablo 3 for Switch. So far, Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is succeeding as well as the first one did in that regard. I enjoy the combat, strategy, loot drops, and transmogs so much that the day-one purchase was worth it to me. The game could be a 9 if there were no bugs and the interface was cleaned up via patches. I hope they choose to fix these issues instead of moving on to the dissimilar roguelite game they’ve already announced is up next. Fingers crossed
6/10… Expand
