My thoughts on Minecraft Dungeons: A thread no one asked for.

Pricing wise, it's not too bad. For $20 bucks, I think it's absolutely worth it. I personally pay for Gamepass for PC, which means I pay $15 every quarter for access to a bunch of games (including this one).

As someone who's never really played a dungeon crawler before, I had a ton of fun! I sunk a couple hours in just to get a taste, and I'll definitely be back for more. I'd say my biggest gripe is the difficulty, or lack thereof.

The first level was incredibly simple, with almost no challenge whatsoever. Once I had the option to select the difficulty, I set it at max with pretty minimal consequences. I struggled a bit later, but with a little bit of strategy, it honestly still seems too easy.

I love the option to have detailed control over the level of difficulty, but I never felt very challenged. Maybe I'm just too used to games like Hollow Knight and Celeste, where every turn greets you with a challenge. I think, as a "kid's game" it hits the mark perfectly.

I don't know whether diehard fans of the genre would consider this a "true" dungeon crawler, but as my first introduction to it, I know I'll definitely be trying more games like it.

Difficulty aside, this game is crafted (hehe) excellently. It stays true to the Minecraft art style while taking the necessary steps to be absolutely stunning. The visuals are beautiful and the levels are massive and immersive. There is so much detail, it's really incredible.

The music is amazing too. Peter Hont, Johan Johnson, and Samuel Åberg made a wonderful soundtrack which, like the Minecraft soundtrack, I think I'll find myself listening too outside of gameplay!

Much of the music feels like slightly remixed versions of the original Minecraft Alpha soundtrack, one of my favorite game soundtracks ever. It holds true (in my opinion) to C418's original vision, while still being different enough to feel fresh, and fit the game!

The combat is great (although, again, rather easy), and I think it's pretty balanced for the most part. I got a reasonably powerful bow pretty early on, which allowed me to just kind of spam the arrow button, but it quickly balanced out after upping the difficulty.

The maps, as I mentioned earlier, are huge immersive experiences. The first couple levels felt small enough to fully explore, but large enough that I didn't feel trapped in a linear experience. The scale readily increased, however.

My first game-over came when I greedily tried to explore all of Creepy Crypt. I could've finished within the first 10 or so minutes of entering, but I instead attempted to explore further, which led to nearly an hour exploring a map that nearly tripled in size.

With my underpowered gear, and poor strategy skills (and the fact that I set it on the highest available difficulty), I finally died after a very good run into the depths of the level.

I don't know really how dungeon crawlers work, but I'm used to exploring every nook and cranny when playing a game, so leaving without mapping the entire area was an idea I really couldn't entertain. I might have to readjust my standards if I want to succeed.

Overall, I love the game, and I'm enjoying my exploration of the dungeon crawler genre. I'm looking forward to jumping back in and seeing what the game has to offer!