Minecraft Dungeons: Is it overhyped?

Minecraft reshaped gaming as we know it over the last decade. Those are some pretty big shoes for Minecraft Dungeons to fill.

Mojang's new dungeon crawler Minecraft Dungeons releases Tuesday 26 May, and while we've seen some exciting features, could the game be overhyped?

Let's go over the good and bad of Minecraft Dungeons.

The Weapons

CREATIVITY- The Pink Scoundrel is among the more creative weapon designs in Minecraft Dungeons

Every good dungeon crawler needs weapons that are fun to use and immersive. In most ways Minecraft Dungeons pulls this off.

Minecraft Dungeons features many different kinds of weapons, including 2-handed melee swords and hammers, dual-wielded blades and scythes, bows, crossbows, and more.

Across these weapons there are some powerful on-hit effects, a variety of stats, and some unique features (like extra emerald generation, or soul collection).

This creates a healthy diversity in the weaponry you bring with you on your journey.

So when it comes to weapons, Minecraft Dungeons gets our seal of approval.

READ MORE: Minecraft Dungeons: The best weapons

The Armors

EERIE- Grim Armor looks fantastic, but its stats are quite generic

Armors in dungeon crawlers are your identity. Whether you wear heavy armor like plate mail or light armor like leather, even robes, armor is a defining feature.

And while Minecraft Dungeons has some immersive armors and unique stats, there's plenty room to grow.

Some of the best examples of good armor designs in Minecraft Dungeons include Champion's Armor, Spelunker's Armor, Wither Armor.

Outside of these, though, armor is pretty bland and flavorless.

This is one of the biggest areas where Minecraft Dungeons needs some improvement.

READ MORE: Minecraft Dungeons: The best enchantments

The Spells

SHOCKING- The Lightning Rod is a great low level spell-slinging artifact

Minecraft Dungeons takes a unique approach to magic and spells, instead combining these features into artifacts.

Artifacts are items you bring along with active effects. While it isn't exactly immersive to bring items to do spellcasting for you, some of the artifact designs are good.

The best artifact designs include Corrupt Beacon, Fishing Rod, and Lightning Rod.

These artifacts change gameplay up in interesting ways while keeping a level of immersion.

While these artifacts are some examples of doing things right, magic in Minecraft Dungeons overall feels lackluster.

READ MORE: Minecraft Dungeons: How to beat mobs

The Difficulty

ALL BARK- The biggest foes might look tough in Minecraft Dungeons, but in practice they're all fairly easy to beat

Minecraft Dungeons is scaled to be someone's first dungeon crawler experience.

This can be a pretty big letdown to prospective players, because dungeon crawlers are tied to difficult decisions and mechanics. Taking away the difficulty takes away the point and rewarding feeling of progression.

After already stating this game has little replayability (outside of trying new things), such a low level of difficulty is a big negative for Minecraft Dungeons.

READ MORE: Minecraft Dungeons: Does it have an endgame?

Conclusions

SCENIC- Minecraft Dungeons looks the part, but offers little innovation in any direction

In the end Minecraft Dungeons offers a simple, unique take on the dungeon crawler experience. But to compare it in any way to the quality of its predecessor is misguided.

This game does little to captivate fans of Minecraft with no building and very little resource collection, and next to nothing new to captivate dungeon crawler fans.

In some ways the game feels more like a mobile app than a fully-fledged dungeon crawler for PC and consoles. Some players may prefer this, but it's off-putting to a lot of people that should be in the target market.

In the end Minecraft Dungeons seems like a step down for Minecraft overall.

This won't be the revolutionary dungeon crawler some were hoping for, and it won't be much of a successor to the Minecraft experience. But as a fun, casual adventure for newer gamers, it could be worth your time.

READ MORE: Minecraft Dungeons Mobile: Will it release on iOS and Android?