Dungeon Punks is a side-scrolling RPG Brawler which has a unique Tag-Team fighting system and Local Player vs. Player Brawl Mode. The game is set in a fantasy world of magic, mystery, and corporate greed. Recruit a crew of up to six mutant heroes who will battle with your enemies with their crazy magical spells and attack combos. Real-time party play allows you to take control of any of the heroes fighting alongside you at any time. This game reminds me of the popular indie title Charlie Murder, with all of the wacky and wonderful scenario’s that took place.
The creators of the game stated that, “Dungeon Punks combines some of our favorite ideas from brawlers, RPGs, and fighting games into one awesome hunk of greasy goodness.” For most of the game, I found myself having fun and enjoying the content which was provided to me. However, in some cases I found myself becoming bored at how repetitive some of the levels could be. When this happened, the feeling of boredom lasted barely even a few minutes as some crazy scenario would take place and completely change how I was feeling at the time.
The main focus of Dungeon Punks is the pirate group who gets tied up in many sticky situations, one after another. The game starts with your chosen team failing a delivery to a king and queen whose pet is then stolen. Naturally, you are chosen to rescue it before the situation slowly gets worse for our characters until craziness becomes all tied up like a set of Christmas lights just before the major holiday.
The dialogue in Dungeon Punks adds to the humour, while also telling a story. For example, it’s not often that a powerful group hides away in a mysterious forest while trying to hide from credit collectors. This helps make the game a lot more unique as this scenario is rarely seen in other games. Everything within the game has a sense of silliness and humor, but, this is definitely a good thing, especially when the plot twist takes place. scenario’s in this game will play out in ways you could never imagine.
There are six playable characters to choose from and you can control one at a time on the battlefield. Tempest Knight is the warrior with strength, but understandably weak magic and speed. Knight weirdly enough can cast storm abilities however. Drakken lacks strength, but has incredible speed and magical abilities as well as wielding lighting and poison as a part of his repertoire. The Dwarf is the opposite, however, having very high strength but low everywhere else as he controls chemicals and fire. Djinn is Weak in strength, but good with speed and magic. The most powerful one if his magic attacks are used effectively, is Were-Witch. He is a werewolf with moderate strength and can summon ghosts and demons. Lastly, Hierophant is a very Egyptian-like character and is the complete opposite of Knight when looking at stats as she uses spells of distortion and confusion.
The one letdown regarding the characters in this game is that you aren’t able to control the captain of the crew, she only really appears during cut-scenes as well as on the ship with the vendors. You never really get a chance to get to know the vendors, which gives them a kind of faceless shopkeeper sense. One vendor is responsible for the upgrading of the characters abilities. whereas, another allows you to equip different weapons to your character’s, buy new weapons and even sell your old gear. Alongside these two vendors is a random NPC and the captain, neither have a use except just being there after I die or when i need to do RPG related things such as selling gear or upgrading my team.
The gameplay of Dungeon Punks works well for its genre. Enemies appear, items are dropped, animals can be ridden and special attacks are earned. As well as this, physical attacks inflict damage against the enemies and helps build mana which can be used for magic attacks. The maximum amount of mana that you can attain at any one time on one character is 3 bars, which allows for 3 magic based attacks. due to the lack of spells on each character, you may find yourself using the same ones on different characters. There are also pickups which power your rage bar. The more that your rage bar is filled, the more powerful the rage outcome will be. There could be rays of light shining from the sky above, hitting every enemy on screen, or your character could jump high up, smash down, and damage whatever is around you (kinda like The Hulk).
There are twelve unique levels, which have their own unique enemies to match. Each map has between ten and twenty rooms to explore and each room requires you to clear it of enemies before you can move on. The paths don’t all lead directly to the boss of that level, there will be side routes to extra loot, side quests or just generic dead ends. The maps and enemies are designed with great detail. There are a lot of different enemy types in places such as a valley, desert, swamp, etc. The artistic design of the game is nice and stands out even in the 2D, still cutscenes.
With an overall play time of ten to fifteen hours (depending on the play style of the player, also not including the new game plus mode). A large chunk of this is replaying the levels. Each one is understandably harder than the one prior and will require you to attempt the level a handful of times before finally clearing it. The first attempts are usually you getting a feel and an understanding of the enemies that you are dealing with, exploring, accepting side missions and dying or alternatively, running away. When this is all done, you may still be a little too weak to attempt the boss of that level or even the rooms beforehand. With the repetitive action of dying and fighting through the same rooms becoming tedious. Dungeon Punks has role play elements. however, grinding EXP on a 2D arcade fighter can be annoying and hard to complete, especially with the controlling of your characters being the D-Pad.
The game has the ability to host local and co-op multiplayer. sadly, however, it does not have online capabilities and is quite a missed opportunity. My personal experience with this game would have been a lot better if I could play with the friends on my friends list or even a random player who I had never met. The AI teammates do their jobs apart from when they’re happily walking into fire, this is when you wish you had real players with you.
Overall, Dungeon Punks is a great game with a great story, it provided a few hours of entertainment with its witty humor or just its gameplay in general.