Dungeon Defenders II

Written by Nathan Carter on 2/17/2015 for PC  

Tower defense games are a dime a dozen these days, but Dungeon Defenders 2 manages to create a tower defense game that feels both new and fresh. The game is currently in early access, but there are already enough features to keep you playing for a while, with tons more being added in the future. 

Now, I didn't play the first game, but from what I understand, Dungeon Defenders 2 takes place several years after the first, and some of the characters from the first game have grown older and wiser. As of this writing, the early access game only has four characters to choose from: The Monk, The Huntress, The Apprentice and The Squire. There are extra slots at the bottom that were empty, so I assume that more characters will be added over time.

When you start the game you have to select one of the four characters to be your main character. Each one has their own unique basic attacks, abilities and towers which can be used in battle. I spent most of my time with The Huntress. She uses a bow and arrow for her attacks and has some cool abilities, including the ability to launch exploding arrows down a lane to deal damage and stun enemies, and an oil bomb which drastically slows enemies in the lane. Each game lasts five rounds, and like most tower defense games, the main objective is to defend your base. Throughout rounds, you and your team can place traps around the arena to help defend the never-ending hoards of enemies coming to destroy your base. One thing to keep in mind is that you can only place so many traps in between rounds, as they all cost gems to use. Gems can be earned in battle by defeating foes and these gems can be used to upgrade your traps or place new ones. Gems are important because they also are used for your abilities. Each ability does have a cooldown after each use, but they also take gems to use, so spamming abilities constantly is not a great idea since you could screw yourself over as the round goes on. I like this mechanic, as it forces you to think before you act. I didn't realize this at first and of course would spam my abilities right as the round started—and then realize why they wouldn't work later on and, of course, this does nothing to help the team. Some of the maps also have interactable traps, such as machines that will launch fire and freeze bombs towards a lane. Of course these need to be used strategically as they have a one-minute cooldown on them. Fire it off at nothing and you could screw your team over later on. 

Throughout the battle you will also pick up tons of items that drop. These can range from new weapons, armor, boosts or items that can be sold for gold to use in the shop. It's great that the game does have a plethora of items, but I honestly found this to be a little overwhelming, especially as a new player. There were so many items; I had no idea what to do with many of them. You can go to the character shop in between rounds to swap out weapons and armor but most of the time I would just sit there, scrolling through piles and piles of items, and before I knew it, the next round was starting. This, again, isn't necessarily a bad thing, but It will take some time to learn about all of the items in the game and what would be best to bring into the battle. All of your hard work isn't for nothing, however, as your character will level up the more battles you complete. The more you level up, the more abilities and traps you can unlock to use in battle; and you can unlock other queues when you level up as well. I found this was the most fun part, as I feel that leveling up had purpose and made me want to continue playing. Your character gets stronger as they level up and, of course, this means that you and your teammates can fight harder hoards. One cool feature is that, if you choose to, you can create secondary characters as well, and you can switch between them in between rounds. So if you enter a match and see that there are four Monks, you can go switch to The Huntress or The Squire if you have a second character profile. 

When you finish a game, you can play another round with your same group, provided they stay, or you can go back to the social lounge. The social lounge is where tons of players all come together to chat before heading out into battle. The social lounge isn't just a chat room, however: it's fully interactable, with shops that you can use to update your character with items you have picked up on the battlefield, or where you can buy, sell and upgrade some of the items you have accumulated over time. I really like this idea as it's cool to socialize with other players, all of which, so far, seem very friendly and will help out players who might not know what they are doing. Of course from here you can also jump right into the game.

Dungeon Defenders 2 shows a lot of promise. I have always loved tower defense games, but I love how they added an RPG element to it as well, as it makes the game pretty addicting. If you level up a character enough and get bored, you can always start another character, learn all their abilities and start to level them up as well. There is already plenty of content in the game as it is, so it will be interesting to see what they are going to add in the future. The PC version was a lot of fun and I'm interested in seeing how the PlayStation 4 version turns out when it releases later this year.