Dungeons 4, Kalypso Media’s latest instalment in the Dungeons franchise has finally arrived and with it comes its brand of humour and strategy. Now, if you haven’t seen nor played any of the titles from the franchise yet, Dungeons 4 is essentially an RTS game that mixes in the comical and goofy interactions within its campaign as it gets narrated.
Its design spawns a cartoony yet oddly satisfying look while its strategy and dungeon mechanics are both engaging and fun. But despite all that, Dungeons 4 is a game that’s a bit hard to express in a few words so let me give you a little tour of the dungeon, shall we?
An absurd yet hilarious campaign
Right off the bat, you can choose between three options such as starting a new skirmish, engaging in two-player co-op or playing Dungeons 4’s main campaign which is where Dungeons 4 takes what would normally be a snooze-fest of dungeon crawling and strategy into something a bit more fun and unique. Here you take control of the Dark Elf Thalya and her forces of evil as they reign their sort of evilness on the not-so-evil overworld dwellers or so that story goes.
It’s a lengthy campaign but made fun of by its hilarious and charming narration by Kevan Brighting that gets you started with progressively engaging encounters while teaching you the ins and outs of Dungeons 4’s main gameplay loop.
Dungeons and demons, what more could you ask for?
From here, you get to unleash your peons or in this case, little snots that would do your every bidding such as digging out the underworld to carve out the dungeon of your dreams or constructing rooms and structures that you’ll be able to use before your army can march into the overworld to defeat the heroes getting in your way of setting their encampments on a fiery blaze of hell.
It’s a pretty straightforward engagement where you start by digging out the underworld to make space for structures like treasure rooms for your snots to mine and store gold aside from other resources that also need their specific rooms for storage. The world is also filled with all sorts of hidden stuff from areas with enemies like monsters and dwarven encampments to unique areas that have a handful of resources to gather.
These resources are also what you’d need for most of your adventuring needs. Gold is the main resource needed for your basic needs like construction and hiring units for your army of evil while things like evilness shards are spent for other stuff like upgrading structures and research. Mapping out the area, creating pathways for your units and building traps along the way is what makes Dungeons 4 unique compared to its rivals.
You’re not just given a huge open area to explore, unlike most RTS games in the market. Here, you will carve out the underworld to make paths that would lead to all sorts of things from rooms filled with treasures and resources to a gathering of enemies just waiting to be slaughtered. This is especially interesting as the world is even larger than ever with up to 4x larger maps and twice as many creatures like overworld bosses and dungeon creeps.
It’s goofy yet addictive… just how I like it
Dungeons 4 progression is also fairly satisfying. While at times it feels slow, it’s just enough without being overwhelming. It still takes the time to spread humour while not detracting you from its story and your overall goal. You even gain access to three distinct factions here, namely; the Horde, the Demons and the Undead, each with their little intricacies. The Horde for example has their champion units that get unlocked by research after a certain level is reached.
Meanwhile, the Demons can be resurrected while the Undead are simply un-dead and will sleep off their injuries in the graveyard while also being able to summon their minions. Thalya also comes with her perk system now which provides a lot more fun and humour to the mix because who wouldn’t want their undead minions to explode upon death as a perk, right? You also have access to game-changing spells that will help with your goal of spreading chaos and evil upon the world.
There’s a handful of them like portals that will help you reach areas that would otherwise be unreachable or damaging spells to be rid of pesky catapults and other dangerous threats.
There’s a cartoony feel of goofy proportions when it comes to its overall design. It fits the kind of humour Dungeons 4 is trying to achieve without being too absurd that it would detract from what it’s trying to do. I even love how Thalya, a dark elf and the absolute evil general of your army can be outfitted with a sailor-themed getup. As I’ve said previously, the world is vast.
With 4x larger maps, there’s a lot more to look forward to when it comes to Dungeons 4 overall progression and at the same time, exploration and strategy scale off well as you find more heroes to slaughter, more villages to pillage and just more chaos to spread across the land. This is even more emphasized as the world transforms into a fiery pit of hell for each major point in the game’s world is captured.
Conclusion
Dungeons 4 is an absurd game but in a very good way. It’s goofy nature and humorous narration complete the package for me more than the actual progression and RTS gameplay though. But don’t get me wrong, those things are good and honestly, they are engaging enough that even without its silliness and fourth-wall-breaking antics, I would still have fun getting slogged down on each of its campaign scenarios.
There’s a lot of merits to be said here with how Dungeons 4 can be a pretty solid RTS that packs quite a bit of punch. It delves into a dungeon master sort of progression on one end while creating an army that synergizes well to topple even the strongest of heroes on the other. It’s that kind of mix where I find the most fun outside of its goofy narration and storytelling which makes the game a worthy hell I would love to visit.
Dungeons 4 Video Review
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