This formula worked for Dark and Darker, and it works reasonably well here, even if it is in dire need of polish and, for god’s sake, faster interaction animations. A lot of the fun is baked into the social dynamics and inherent tension. Rooting around your inventory is fun in a Resident Evil kind of way, and it’s exciting on a base level to plunder the map while keeping one eye on the ever-ticking timer and another on the lookout for approaching monsters or players.
That said, I find myself unusually ready to be kind to Dungeonborne for the simple fact that it’s padding my ego like my character pads his pauldrons. I’ve played a few lobbies and somehow haven’t died, not even after raising the obvious death flag of buying a fancy new sword. I can tell you right now that I am not the God King of Space when it comes to extraction RPGs, so I’d attribute this inexplicable success to a few lucky breaks.
First of all, I apparently chose the broken class: the tanky, melee-focused Fighter. See, a decade of writing about games, and therefore playing a lot of demos for games I’m unfamiliar with, has taught me a golden rule. When in doubt, pick the heavyweight class. When I’m in my element and actually feel confident with a game, I usually opt for glass cannons that are all about damage and dodging. But when cornered or confused, I pull out the greatsword and the heavy armor every time. If I’m going to be dumbfounded, I may as well be durable, if only to stay alive long enough to understand what killed me.
I’ve also crucially managed to avoid any duels with long-range fighters, who I suspect could turn me into ash or a pin cushion twice over in the time it would take my armored ass to turn around. Don’t get me started on the greatsword swings, which you need to queue up two to three business days in advance of your attack actually connecting. Spells feel a little slow to recharge but still hurt, and throwable items seem ludicrously overpowered, and that’s bad news for my knight. So I will continue to exclusively bully the people who don’t seem to understand how shields and charge attacks work. If you want to join in, you’ve got until February 12 to try Dungeonborne’s free demo.
More Steam Next Fest fun: I woke up and destroyed my heartstrings with the Psychonauts-esque Steam Next Fest demo for this surreal puzzle platformer about family.
Source: gamesradar.com
