Minecraft Dungeons II

A (somewhat) comprehensive review of the game so far. After playing for a little while and getting through some of the game, I feel like I can properly comment on my experience with it. Setting aside the initial trouble I had with account linking and Error 0064, theres a fair few things to talk about in regards to the actual game. ADDENDUM! PLEASE READ! About an hour after writing this review, I "finished" the game. The game is barely 6 hours long, if you don't screw around and do the core quests, you could probably get it done in about 4. This is criminal, this is a 30 dollar game, 50 if you got the deluxe edition. The final boss fight is pathetic, I didn't even realise it was the final boss fight until the endgame cutscene began to play, and the whole time I was PRAYING it was setting up the next part of the story. You do not need to upgrade your gear to beat the game, you do not need to plan out anything, you can just waltz right through and beat it with no issues; On hard mode mind you. I'm guessing the DLCs will add more content but this is outright theft, DLCs are meant to be expansions, not time/money gated parts of the main story. What I said about difficulty no longer applies, this game is easy. Really, really easy. They took everything good about the first game and killed it, made it 4x shorter, and held our hands the entire way through. Do not buy this game, I can't even be optimistic that it will EVER be worth it. I think I'm going to go back to the first game. More Bad News If you were hoping the endgame would be fun, you are ♥♥♥♥ out of luck. The "endgame" consists solely of doing the side quests, or the following, mind numbing loop: 1. Wait for a soul storm 2. Find and destroy the storm generators (challenge consists primarily of enemy spam, hope you specced into AoE or you're going to die real quick). 3. Collect the loot from each one 4. Wait for a soul storm That's the WHOLE ENDGAME. There is nothing like the ancient hunt system (which I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ loved and was perfect), there are no special mobs beyond what you've already fought, you just fight increasingly spongey enemies spawning on top of you and wait around for storms. The Good - Getting equipment is much less grindy than the first game, enchantments are no longer inherent, and can be rerolled. Unique equipment can also be rerolled, and gear can be infinitely levelled up to match progression if you are attached to it (though this gets expensive fast, more on that later.) - Visually the game is quite stunning, a massive improvement over the first game, and the soundscape is very very pleasing; The Sift is so far very impressive. - Performance wise the game runs fine, I can't comment on linux users who seem to be having immense issues even launching it, and my rig is probably overbuilt for this, but it runs smoothly even when lots of effects are happening in large hordes. - The weapons I've used feel punchy and weighty, and each weapon has its own unique attack which is far more distinct than the first game. - Difficulty is a step up for sure, its not impossible but they definitely aren't pulling any punches now. Manually choosing the difficulty is less granular than the first game; The slider from the first game is replaced with Easy, Normal, and Hard mode. Instead, reaching certain milestones (levels or bosses) will upgrade the "world state", which increases enemy health, loot quality, etc. READ ADDENDUM! - The open world is quite nice, the linear missions were a little tiresome after a while, though I know plenty of people liked that. Dungeons are integrated into the world itself, which means you need to explore to find them, which I find enjoyable (sometimes). The Bad Some of this stuff is definitely going to be changed, but for now, these are my biggest complaints. - Movement is buggy, especially around ledges you tend to rubberband and glitch around a fair bit. This has got me killed several times. -Movement feels clunkier than the first game, ESPECIALLY in combat, I find myself trying to retreat during combat, but the game doesn't register that I have clicked away, and I continue attacking and end up dying. - ONE ENCHANTMENT PER ITEM. This really threw me off. While armor is now split into 4 pieces, and you can enchant each one, weapons are substantially less powerful, and the builds you can make are much more restrictive; This was very disappointing. - Enchantments themselves are watered down. Compared to the first game, many enchantments have been neutered and been made significantly less powerful. Radiance has been replaced with "Healing Smite," which only spawns a regeneratie aura on kill. Shockwave is much weaker, and Critical Hit is outright gone. Theres also significantly less enchantments overall, like, less than a quarter of what was in the first game. Really disappointing. - Currency is hard capped very low. While a cap of 100 Echo Shards and 9.9k Emeralds might sound like a lot at first, within hours you quickly hit this cap and stop being able to hold more. Echo Shards are required for enchanting and are not refunded on disenchanting , and emeralds are used for upgrading and purchasing gear. You will find yourself constantly hitting the cap and either wasting time spent farming or having to constantly upgrade your gear to compensate. Not sure how this is going to work endgame. - Weapon selection is pretty bad, so is armor. The amount of both is abysmal compared to the first game, you see the same few weapons constantly. A lot of them are new, but that doesn't help. - My favourite artifact (Gong of Weakening) is gone. - Some missions (cough towers cough) are tedious and are a lot of walking long distances from point A to point B. - Enemy respawn is aggressive. Leaving an area for more than a few seconds immediately repopulates it as if you were never there, sometimes packs of enemies spawn on your screen as you approach. Any missions involving backtracking will involve lots of fighting through the same area over and over. There's probably more I've forgotten to mention, but these were my main issues with the game. Is it worth it? RIght now, in my opinion, no. Unless you really REALLY enjoyed the first game (I did,) in its current state it is not worth the price. Performance and login issues aside, the game feels very watered down compared to the first. I assume once I hit endgame things will open up more, but right now while I am having fun, there are things I can't ignore about the game.