Written by: Jim777 on October 23, 2011.

Ok look I’m gonna go ahead and gush about this game, but first let me just get this out of the way.

BUY THIS GAME RIGHT FRIGGEN NOW

Ok on to the review proper:

Yes the knight has no pants....

If you had asked me what the must have Co-op PSN game recently released was, I would point you to Payday, but then I watched a video about a little game I hadn’t heard much about called Dungeon Defenders. It was a 3rd person action | RPG | Tower Defense | Co-op game. What an odd mix I thought, but then I saw the game and action and knew I was going to get it.

The game starts out with you picking your Hero’s class. There are a total of 4, the wizard who is great at making powerful offensive  towers, the Knight is great at making fortifications and hacking limbs off, the Huntress who lays traps and attacks with her powerful ranged crossbow, and the Monk who creates complimentary auras around towers and acts as a support role for the other heros. The first two are the best chocies for new players, with the later two being very co op centered roles.

So I chose the path of the mage and jumped in, after a nice intro cinematic I was whisked to my tavern, here I could buy things from the shop, plan my next mission, spend mana (The games currency for everything) and look at my awards. Then it was time to jump into my first dungen

GAMEPLAY

Two things you need to know about this game. Fist Co op wont make things easier, the game will just throw MORE enemies at you. Second this game will put A METRIC CRAP TON OF ENEMIES on screen at once. I mean we are talking in the hundreds, and waves even get as high as TWO THOUSAND ENEMIES. Got your attention do I?

Each dungeon is divided into waves, usually around 8 are needed to beat a level. Each wave has 2 phases, building and combat. During your build phase you set up | upgrade your towers and spend your mana, sell loot, and prepare. From there you hit ready and the combat phase begins. During this phase enemies march to your Crystal(s) and its your job to turn them into sticky green paste.

Enemies are greatly varied, from your easy to kill goblins to your massive defense crippling orcs, and even boss fights. While you can attack yourself your defenses are what will be needed to keep your Crystal alive. As you kill enemies they drop mana and its vital that you keep that mana flowing back into your defenses, healing barriers and towers, making new ones, unleashing special attacks, and upgrading your gear everything relies on precious mana.

You cant just maze enemies like other tower deffense games, you place a wall or tower in an enemies way and hes gonna smash it to bits. You need to be strategic and build your defenses smartly. Each level also has a defense unit cap, with more powerful towers taking more of these defense unit points. Once you use up all your points you have to upgrade what you have, you cant summon more.

Once you down the last bad guy you get a nice little xp boost, you have a chance to collect the fallen loot and mana of enemies, and now it’s time to prepare for the next wave. You might also pour your mana into buying new gear or upgrading what you have. Make no mistake this game is a heavy RPG Loot based game, and you will find yourself squeeling with glee when you pick up a new powerful weapon with new kinds of abilities.

Dungeon Defenders is great alone, but it shines in Co-op

COOPERATION IS THE NAME OF THE GAME

Most games make enemies harder if you play co op, not Dungeon Defenders. Got 2 people? Ok your next wave is double the size it would normally be. Full team of 4? Cool here is a thousand enemies. Not enough? TWO THOUSAND.

That is no exageration, the highest I have seen a wave is just over 2,500 enemies. And we are not talking little goblings, we are talking mages, orcs, assassins, suicide bombers, archers, flying dragons and more! To say things can get hectic is a massive understatement. But if your team knows what they are doing and hold their ground there is no better feeling then watching that last orc hit the ground and drop that loot!

You are also able to easily trade mana, items, and more with other players. You can upgrade their towers, or sell them and suggest a better one. The co op is great and the game shines when you have a full team.

CONTENT CONTENT AND MORE BLOODY CONTENT

Dungeon Defenders about 4 sections in the campaign, each made of several levels and each section ending with a huge boss fight. Each of these levels can be played on easy medium hard or insane, can be played in survival (no end to the waves) pure strategy(you cant attack you rely on defenses alone.) Whats more is for every level there is a challenge for higher level players to try their luck at. There is even a PVP mode that i am yet to try, but it looks like some crazy good fun.

The game’s level cap is 70, im almost done with the campaign and im around 35 so if you like grinding and endgame this game has it!

NOTES AND THOUGHTS

I can’t tell you how good this game is, but I can show you! Below this post you will find a link to a YouTube video with a very indepth look at the game (60 minutes) with the games devs playing alongside one of my favorite game industry folks TotalBisuit

Finally here are the final touches that make this game amazing.

• This game could easily be a full fleged $60 triple A game. But its not, its an indie made game that drips with handmade love and it will run you a measly $15. THATS IT!!! This game is easily one of the best values I have ever seen.
• It is on PSN, Xbox, PC (full moding supported) iOS and FREE on Android.
• The game has a full demo on PSN so you have NO excuse not to check this game out.
• It will also be on the PS Vita, and have cross play between the PS3 and Vita.
• The game has Move support

So I am gonig to go ahead and do something I have not done in a while, and something I had not planned to do for a while. For this games value, its content, its damn levels of fun, its deep gameplay, its awesome devs who plan to support it with DLC and more levels…

This game gets a perfect score, 10 out of 10. The only other game I have givin that to this year is Portal 2, so yea it’s that good. I cant recommend it enough!

Dungeon Defenders (PS3) 10/10
Everything

Overall
Average score from all categories.

Here is a link to watch over an hour of gameplay (PC) alongside the devs of the game.