Dungeon Defenders: Awakened

For the full breakdown and verdict on Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, check out our video review above. For more video reviews, subscribe to Shacknews on YouTube. Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is available on Steam as of May 28, 2020.

The console version of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is delivered as a careless port. Although it has an outdated visuals, horrible menus and the impression of an unfinished product, the traditional fun proposed by the game is present and should please veterans and nostalgics alike.

This game is quite enjoyable although I started getting a little bored after a while as I had found a way using certain characters to be able to set my defenses and then do nothing as they could not even mussel their way to my crystals. Getting to the very last missions added some greater challenges which snapped me out of my lucid state, which was nice, but I almost gave up on it because of the lack of challenge so I’m glad I didn’t.

I enjoyed playing the Nintendo Switch port for DDA. Outside the issues with scaling while playing handheld, the experience was virtually identical to my experience with the PC version last year. Even though I only played offline, I can certainly see DDA being a great party game for Discord communities and game nights, given its easy learning curve and fast-paced playstyle. The variety of hero combinations and playstyles, several game modes, and different game difficulties allow endless hours of replayability, a great moniker for a Nintendo Switch game. If you can get past the minor accessibility issues, you may find yourself fighting wave after wave and hour and hour in Dungeon Defenders: Awakened.

In order to liven up the classic tower defense-style strategy game, a number of developers have taken a crack at adding an active combat component to things...

Dungeon Defenders: Awakened lacks a final polish to make it a truly great experience. The menu system is cumbersome, the solo experience gets repetitive due to lack of variety, the story is thin and there isn’t a lot that makes this entry stand out from previous games in the series.

As someone who's enjoyed the previous couple of Dungeon Defenders games a lot, I must say that Awakened is quite a disappointing experience. Although it retains the familiar formula and includes cool modes, it's still an undeniably clunky iteration of the franchise.

Dungeon Defenders: Awakening makes for a fun title to play with friends or people online.

Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is a delightful remaster of the original Dungeon Defenders that shows great promise, but currently the features that would make it a complete game.

So overall, Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is a good return for the series. It’s fun to play both with friends and family though it will be interesting to see where things go from here. With the original success of the first, the troubles of the second, and then technically the original revamp of the first, Awakened has the opportunity to expand with the knowledge of the titles that came before it while also avoiding the issues that came along for the ride. I just hope that I get my Barbarian back...