Super Dungeon Bros Ps4 Review

Super Dungeon Bros. Makes its way to PS4 with a punch!Loot-based games’ addictive quality can easily provide a mechanic for developers to exploit. The promise of incrementally increasing your character’s abilities provides baby steps to work towards, a short term goal to beating the game or beating a tough boss faster than you did the last time.

Diablo and Destiny and scores of MMOs reward players with different colors and tiers of loot that greatly or slightly buff a stat that may completely alter the way you play.Super Dungeon Bros markets itself as a dungeon crawler where deadly enemies haunt randomly generated environments and random loot and upgrades are the only path to success. A unique aesthetic and humorous take on the genre hint towards it being a good game but several flaws really strip out much of the long-term joy, even when playing in four player co-op.Developer React Games set out to make a rock and roll themed isometric dungeon crawler. With four characters named Axl, Lars, Ozzie, and Freddie, things seem promising for those expecting heavy metal tunes and some rocking-out gameplay. However, that humor and intent barely makes it past the opening cutscene. We start with the four “Bros” listening to a record backwards informing them of a dangerous but rewarding adventure that awaits. The bros are then sucked into a wormhole leading them to Cryptheim, an underground dungeon full of skeletons and knights and wizards.As far as the genre goes, Super Dungeon Bros does very little different. I’ve seen these kinds of environments in Diablo and Warcraft and nearly every other fantasy game around.

Super Dungeon Bros. Is clearly meant to be played with others, whether it’s local or online. If you die, you lose one life, and you can revive at that exact spot if you have remaining lives. Hey bro, fancy a quick go on this new co-op dungeon crawler. No broettes allowed apparently.

Ice level Chillheim and jungle level Bogheim are excuses to bring new colors into the environments and toss in a handful of new enemies to fight. While I understand that the Bros were bestowed brightly colored outfits to help them standout in the drab environments, seeing a bright blue warrior holding a sword didn’t do much for the “bro” sentiment or the rock and roll vibes.These surface level efforts prevent Super Dungeon Bros from making any impact on a visual level or providing an enticing universe to care about and become involved with. Where are the electric guitars with axe blades or bass guitar hammers? Generic sounding rock music, a random line from a Fall Out Boy song, and some other throwaway dialog were the only indications this game had inspiration from any genre of music. The game tries too hard and practically begs to be noticed with its meme-oriented humor.Gameplay is the sum of heavy and light attacks with four categories of weapons from swords, hammers, staffs, and crossbows. Players are only given two weapons at the start of the game and their damage output is pretty minimal, especially when going deeper into each dungeon.

One of my harshest criticisms of the game must be in its wild difficulty spikes that serve as a false challenge, especially for solo players.If the floaty jump mechanics don’t threaten to chip away at your health when missing jumps, it will be the sheer volume of enemies. On the first stage I was casually hacking away at skeletons with my sword only to have my screen suddenly flooded with dozens of archers and skeletons. I soon realized this was due to a threat meter over on the right side of my screen. Drawful 2 ps4 price. As you spend more time in a dungeon, this meter will rise and spit progressively harder enemies in your path out of nowhere. Once it reaches max level the game informs you enemies will no longer drop items.I understand that the threat meter is a way to funnel players to the end of a level rather than have them be cautious. But this mechanic is one of many signs that the game is at odds with itself.

In dungeon crawlers with random loot I want to bash every box for items and coins. In Super Dungeon Bros coins allow you to upgrade your character or purchase health and life refills at special kiosks. Yet the game also scores players on performance, where points are lost when damage is taken. While enemies flooding, the screen is a great way to get coins, it comes to a point where the enemies appearing from threat level peaks are too overpowered to handle.So, what’s left to do?

If you’re not being rewarded for taking your time it makes more sense for players to rush through levels not attacking enemies and just jumping through everything. In depth four of Cryptheim this is what happened to me. I was trying to get coins to eventually max out my health because it was dropping so fast. That proved to be a stupid decision because my threat level rose and rose and I spent more time trying to kill the floods of enemies, further making the threat level rise. Eventually I got to a point where my weapon was barely shaving the health off of knights who could hit me for a quarter of my health.

Also, four wizards with impenetrable shields were able to summon (infinitely it seemed) dozens of tiny soldiers with spiked hats so I couldn’t jump on them. As the frame rate slowed and I died multiple times I realized it was impossible to take on this many enemies and simply ran. I ran past spike traps that helped kill a few enemies chasing me. I bounced around the corners of walls, skipping past traps and other challenges.Situations like this are common in the fabric of Super Dungeon Bros.

These questionable decisions practically ask for players to game the game for a cheap way forward. It’s ironic because the bosses I encountered were laughably easy compared to the regular mobs of enemies. One wizard boss just stood there summoning soldiers I could kill in one hit.

So I stood in one place hacking away. Having levels be randomly generated makes no difference because the algorithm seems so obvious after a few dives into each area. The obvious path to make the game easier on players is to upgrade their weapons. But this can only be done by spending crystals given at end of level chests.

After about an hour of playing I was only able to afford the base level hammer. I can’t imagine how much time and patience it would take to get weapons that made any actual difference.Super Dungeon Bros is also a cooperative game. Up to four players can subject themselves to the game’s grueling challenges either online or locally. Multiple times I attempted to connect online and couldn’t find anyone. Even through the magic of couch co-op, the difficulty spike wasn’t really dulled. The floods of enemies still overwhelmed. Your team of Bros also shares one pool of lives and if you don’t revive a fallen Bro, there goes one of four precious lives.Had the game given players more flexibility in how to manage their time and been less stingy with upgrades, there would have been a lot more fun to be had.

In fact, I would have been able to look past the mediocre visuals and poor attempt at a potentially cool aesthetic. If you’re hankering for a budget dungeon crawler and have a few friends looking for a couple of nights of fun, Super Dungeon Bros has potential, but not much else.Score: 6 out of 10Reviewed for PS4.

The Xbox Games with Gold scheme has been a big hit since its arrival way back in the days of Xbox 360. Since its introduction, subscribers have been gifted some incredible titles to add to their library. This year alone has seen the likes of Sunset Overdrive and Lords of the Fallen as well as indie hits Styx: Master of Shadows and The Escapists, to name a few. Sometimes though, games can arrive that aren’t too well received by fans, leaving a sour taste in the mouth of paying customers.

So, with the latest batch of freebies now available, I sat down for some dungeon delving madness to see if Super Dungeon Bros can appease the masses with its daring release via Games With Gold.Given the large fan base for dungeon crawlers, the available titles in the genre are seemingly limited on consoles, with Diablo 3 the go-to-game for most fans. Super Dungeon Bros aims to change that though and with four player co-op and randomly generated dungeons on offer, you’d expect it to contain all the right things to do just that.Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.Let’s start off with the story, or lack of in this case.

Starting up, players are met with the intro video which depicts the four unusual protagonists, Axl, Lars, Freddie and Ozzie as they are dragged into an alternate dimension via a magical rock record, embarking on a quest from the gods to become heavy metal, dungeon delving heroes. Whilst that may sound quite exciting at first, any engagement is quickly lost as this is seemingly as far as the story goes. From this point on, everything else left to experience is purely gameplay related, with the story seemingly lost forever.As for the quest in question (and every other dungeon crawler in existence), the main interest comes down to the gameplay, but unfortunately Super Dungeon Bros doesn’t excel there either.After choosing between one of the four almost identical characters – eight should you download the free Broettes DLC – you will arrive at the weapon selection screen.

Selecting your weapon is a simple process in Super Dungeon Bros and these range from swords and hammers to crossbows and wands. However, from the start just four are available to players, with more unlocked with shards collected from treasure boxes at the end of each level.After selecting your weapon, all is done and the quest begins – at least after getting past the incredibly lengthy load times that is.There are two ways to play through Super Dungeon Bros with both local and online play on offer. Those looking to get in on some online co-op action be warned, play requires four players to start so those arriving in groups of two or three will quickly find a random or two added to the group which can add a few difficulties if you don’t all wish to follow the same path. This is mainly due to the need to stick together via a shared screen, as any player wandering off can quickly find themselves stuck down ledges and walking into traps with no way to get out.

Whilst it’s certainly nice to see online co-op included after so few of the year’s indies have had the option available, the need to be stuck to each other’s side takes away the exploration element dungeon crawlers usually tend to offer. This brings the first dampener to this potentially great title – that is if the constant random disconnecting doesn’t end all enjoyment for you straight away.Gameplay itself is rather simple, and after choosing from the four different gameplay difficulty modifiers that appear via cauldrons at the start of each level, players embark on the task at hand – reaching the end of the level.

This is done by avoiding the various traps, solving the puzzles, and of course slaying the various enemies that appear on screen along the way. However, all is not quite so simple. The idea of each level is to reach the end as fast as possible in order to progress with minimal threat, something which will give you at least half a chance to attempt a takedown on the tremendously difficult end of world bosses. If you should be the kind of player that likes to take in the scenery along the way (or just don’t possess the skill to get things done quickly), things can take a quick turn for the worst. You see, should players take too long in one area, the onscreen threat meter will quickly start to fill, spawning more and more enemies the higher it gets.The is where the problems start to shine through.

Whilst the enemies don’t particularly pose too much of a challenge, the onscreen lag from the games inability to keep up with what is happening certainly makes things difficult. On top of this the sheer number of enemies can make visibility an issue, as every part of the screen quickly fills with bonies, bunnies and wasps, to the point that finding your own hero can become impossible. Should you manage to make it through the various generated levels to the end of world boss, then you can pretty much kiss your progress goodbye.

Even the first boss, the great Duke Spookem, takes next to no damage from continuous attacks, despite dealing tons of damage with the slightest movement. Even with full health, boss battles seem to be no more than five minutes of jumping to dodge ground attacks before inevitably dying a painful death at the hands of pestering bonies you’d forgotten about.For those that don’t mind the constant grind required till you master how to best every situation, be warned, combat itself isn’t exactly enjoyable with attacks coming down to nothing more than light and heavy attacks and the occasional dodge roll.