Dungeons of Sundaria

Review

Once you start a new game you will have to create a hero for your adventure in the Dungeons of Sundaria. There are five different class types for you to choose from: Champion, Cleric, Ranger, Rogue and Wizard. The Champions are up close and personal combatants, Clerics are both melee ranged and long ranged combatants, Rangers are range combatants, Rogues are stealth melee power combatants, and Wizards are long ranged spell power combatants.

Next you choose your Race, and you have seven options: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Orc, Goblin and Drog’al. You have the choice of being either Male or Female and then there are some further customization options for your hero; you can change the height, skin colour, face, eye colour, hair, hair colour and traits (tattoos). If you want to be lazy and don’t fancy customising your hero, then there is a Randomise Appearance button. Your last step is to name your hero, then hit the Create Hero button! You’ll now find yourself at the village of Galdrin’s Crossing.

The village consists of seven buildings: Guard House, Blacksmith, Ivory Tower, Silver Dove Inn, Bank, Hovel and Guild House. You can buy, sell, craft and salvage items and upgrade equipment and skills by visiting the various buildings and the owners of the buildings. You can also store any items, weapons etcetera in the bank. The Hovel allows you to change your hero’s look and race, although this does require a coin.

Talking with the members of the buildings, you may find they have a quest for you to complete. So, it is best to have a chat with everyone before you head off into the dungeons, just in case there are multiple quests within a dungeon. Once you’ve accepted a quest you can head off to the required dungeon. You leave the village via one of the two bridges on the edge of the village. This will then take you to the world map where you will find eight dungeons along with the village.

Each dungeon will reveal some information about the dungeon, and you will have to choose the dungeon’s difficulty before entering. There are three options - Normal, Hard and Nightmare - with each difficulty coming with a recommended hero level for entering. The level required for Normal depends on the dungeon and if you follow the quests given by the villagers you will make your way through each dungeon in the order of the required level - The Crypt of Horrors is Level 1 recommended, and the next level dungeon is The Dark Hollow (Level 2) and so on. The recommended level to play on Hard is level 10 and Nightmare is recommended that your hero be level 15.

You are not limited to just playing the dungeons as they come about through the quests of the villagers. You can visit any of the dungeons at any time you fancy, just be prepared for unexpected fights.

You don’t even have to play on your own, the game allows you to play co-op either through a shared/split screen or online co-op. To play using a shared/split screen you only need to add a gamepad controller and then select the option to add a second user, with the other user using the keyboard and mouse. I’m not sure if you can share a screen and play the game with two controllers rather than using a keyboard as I am unable to test this. You can cancel the option to add a second user and still use the gamepad to play as a single user, which is how I played the game instead of using a keyboard.

The other option to play co-op allows you to either join a game that’s currently on the server list, although you may not be at a high enough level to compete in those games. You can set up your own game server and have three users join you in your dungeon of choice.

Once inside a dungeon you will make your way through with the intention of making it to the end. Along the way, you may complete a quest set by the villagers, and encounter creatures that will attack you. At various points in the dungeons, you will also come across enemies who are much stronger - mini bosses - before you reach the final boss at the end of the dungeon.

Defeating enemies will give you some experience points allowing your hero to level up. They may also earn some equipment or weapons (loot); these can also be found throughout the dungeons hidden in barrels, weapon racks and other places. Destroying the barrels etcetera will reveal a sack which, when collected, will reveal what you have found.

Your hero can deck themselves out with various weapons and equipment, which come with varying rarities. You can protect your hero with armour for their head, shoulders, chest, legs, boots, gloves, rings necklaces and trinkets. These all come with abilities and different bonuses and status increasing your hero’s power, stats and resistance.

There are plenty of weapons to collect as you progress through the dungeons. You can establish three different weapon setups, which you can then swap between on the fly at any time you fancy. Your weapons have the basic abilities, and you will gain new abilities as your hero grows in stature. You will have to choose which abilities you use for each of the three weapon setups, which is great for customising your setups as some abilities you may have unlocked will not work with certain weapons.

The dungeons are quite big; it could take a while to make your way through to the end. I haven’t played the co-op mode; I’ve only played the game in single player mode.

The graphics are good, and the game has run well for the most part. I did have one time in the second dungeon where I fell into some water and tried to reach a ladder, which took me back up to where I had fallen off. However, when I tried to swim towards the ladder, as I got near, I couldn’t swim any further; I was stuck in the one spot treading water until I had to hit ALT+F4 to close the game. Luckily when going back to the game it resumed at the last check point which was just a few steps back from the ladder, so I didn’t lose any progress.

I found the camera angles a bit annoying at times, especially when fighting a big enemy like a boss. It seemed like the camera was too close which made it hard to move or escape from the reach of the enemy. One other thing was that there seemed to be some input lag while in combat at times.

It is a bit repetitive but other than that it isn’t too bad. I found it challenging without being too hard on Normal; my hero is not good enough yet to take on the other difficulties.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com

Dungeons of Sundaria Steam Store Page