Dungeons 3 Complete Collection Review on Xbox

Dungeons 3 Complete Collection is a dungeon manager sim combined with a RTS overworld.

The premise is the Dungeon lord from the previous games is a bit bored with ruling the land and has decided to conquer new lands. With the help of Thalya, a dark elf priestess, you set about bringing evil to this new realm with the help of a vast array of monsters to control.

The collection boasts an extensive single player story, over 50 combat missions due to the added dlc, randomly generated levels, and a co-op mode.

Gameplay

I am a huge fan of Dungeon Keeper and so when I was offered to review the game, that touts to be something similar, I jumped at the chance. Now I have never played the previous games, and thankfully due to the story, which I wont spoilt too much, I didn’t need to be.

It’s a standard tale of you as the Ultimate Evil, building up armies of monstrous creatures to conquer the forces of good whilst creating unique dungeons brimming with intricate traps. What makes Dungeon 3 unique is that its not only dungeon building, but also real-time strategy. Two very different styles which takes place simultaneously, and must be switched between both on a regular basis to ensure your victory.

Underground is where you will spend most of your time creating rooms, researching and building your army, before moving above ground to slay the foes around you. This usually starts out with a few basic ‘rooms’ cut out of the bedrocks, a dungeon heart, and an exit to the ground above. Very quickly you will need a bedroom zone, a gobbler farm and one or two other initial starter rooms depending on the level. 

If you are at all familiar with Dungeon Keeper, you will know exactly what to do. If not, you don’t have to worry as there is 4 tutorial guides that give you the basics at how to be evil and run a dungeon.

A good chunk of the gameplay revolves around the needs and desires of your creatures such as enough sleeping space, food supplies and being paid, whilst at the same time ensuring you have the required resources to run the other rooms. For example the Tinker, who makes your traps, needs to have crates, which can only be acquired by a workshop room that is employed by a certain creature. 

For example, the orc will run the Tinker station but an Imp will run the Mana well. So understanding what each room needs is essential to ensure your dungeon runs smoothly. For new gamers of this genre, this could very well be daunting, but thankfully the game slowly introduces you to new creatures and rooms, over the course of the story so you aren’t overwhelmed at any point, and you always know who and what you need.

To run your dungeon and gain new creatures you will need gold, and to get gold you need to dig it out of the surrounding bedrock. To do that you need minions, called Little Snots here, and they will be your main source for doing the grunt work of the dungeon. They dig out gold, maintain some rooms and keep things running smoothly, however they are incredibly weak and cannot defend your dungeon should it get attacked.

And it will get attacked on a regular basis, so ensuring that your dungeon heart is well protected, is a priority as if it falls, its game over. To fill your dungeon with defenses and build up your evil army, you will need to progress by doing research. This comes in the form of a research web, with each node being unlocked by spending the required amount of gold, mana and evilness. Each of these node also has a variety of upgrades which also can purchased, like more health/damage for creatures or increasing the army size.

The research web also allows you to unlock spells, with some providing damage to enemy units and other used to buff your creatures. Here is also where you unlock the variety of different traps, which vary from automated to user controlled. Basic spike pits are automatic and will injure any enemies that walk over them, whilst boulders need to be tapped, for them to be released. In order to get maximum damage, I would recommend different combinations of traps and rooms to use against those who dare enter your dungeon.

I personally found the variety of rooms in Dungeons 3 base game a little on the small side, but as each room has around two-three upgrades that mostly increase their effectiveness, there is still plenty of stuff to use your resources on. However, this gets increased nicely with the complete collection as it adds numerous more rooms and creatures to the mix.

Now once you acquired a suitable size army, its time to conquer the fixed isometric viewed overworld, and gain that valuable resource. You do this by picking up a selection of creatures including your main hero and place them at the dungeon entrance, which then they'll automatically go to the overworld, where the game takes on real-time strategy aspect. Unit selection and movement is pretty basic, and attacking is mostly automatic with you effectively clicking on a enemy if you wish them to target it.

Control wise, I found that units are easy to manage, but as you progress and the unit variety expands, placing particular unit types can be abit hectic. I found that its actually easier to just control your army as a whole as you will be fine against any foe as long as you have a diverse collection of units. In terms of what it is you do above, its mostly about pushing forward, attacking your enemy and taking over resource locations.

Now at first, once you have gained a resource location you get to keep forever, but as you progress the story, the enemy will constantly try and take back said resource location. With these locations being spread out, around the map and also having constant attacks on your dungeon, keeping a small wandering army in and out of your dungeon, is essential.

Every mission was superb fun, with each of them having its own gimmicks and newly introduced mechanics that shake up the gameplay, as well as your strategy in a very satisfying way. This over ground and underworld style of playing works really well, and gives the game its own unique flavour that once you get used to it, makes you wonder why more games aren’t doing this.

The complete collection gets all the expansion packs, a new skirmish map pack, as well as several free content updates. This take the base games 20 odd missions to over 50 for the very reasonable price of £8 or 10 dollars extra.

Graphics

Environments are crisp, bright and colorful, and each place you go to is dynamically different from the one before. The bright colorfulness of the over world and the equally visually stunning dark underworld work perfectly with each other. Particle effects, general creature design and animation movement all shine here, and this all ties in well with the equally sparse HUD, ensuring that what you see is crisp and clear. One thing that I would have liked is to have is a full 360 degree view of my dungeon, instead of the 240 degree viewing angle we have. I felt It would have helped me in my placing of equipment easier and also allow me to view my creatures better.

Sound

Whilst the visuals show off the fantastic gameplay well, its the sounds take things to another level. Every creature has been made to be easily identifiable by its look and vocal reaction, which is perfect when in the heat of battle. But the true stars of the game, are those doing the voicework. Thalya - who constant battles between her ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ alter-egos - actress shines!. Equally the narrator, who seems to be only there to collect his paycheck, and to encourage Thalya to destroy as much of her world as possible, kept me in constant fits of laughter. The hilarious dialogue and references alone, are something you need to hear for yourselves and I can see why this game has its fans.

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-

Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Dungeons 3 Complete Collection is "Must Own".

I was truly surprised, how fun and enjoyable this was, as im always hesitant to see how new developers take on established genres. As a new person to the Dungeons brand, this collection is perfect for those to see what they have accomplished.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £34.99 or approx $40, and depending on skill and patience would give you about 50+ hours worth of gameplay to potentially clear the story and extra dlc. Combine this with a co-op mode, online skirmish, and randomly generated levels, it’s a steal at the price.

If you are a Dungeon Keeper fan and want something similar, that’s fun and unique, with tons of addictive gameplay, put this in your collection.