The tower defence genre is pretty popular lately, unfortunately most of them do not do enough different to make the genre feel fresh. Trendy Entertainment has accomplished this challenge by putting you in control of one of four (4) character classes, placing your defences at key choke points, and then using your hero to personally defend your Eternia crystal from hordes of enemies in third person action. You will find that during these times you are leveling up your heroes and collecting vast amounts of loot. Other tower defence games are usually restricted to solo gameplay, this is where Dungeon Defenders changes it up again, by adding the option for up to four players locally or online to play. Dungeon Defenders really shines when playing and co-coordinating with friends, unfortunately the great experience playing with others leaves the single player feeling somewhat underwhelming.
In Dungeon Defenders you take control of one of four young heroes left to do castle chores while their masters are away, but a mishap unleashes hordes or goblins, dark elves, Orcs, and other evil beasts that are now trying to destroy Eternia crystals to unleash an immortal being known as the Old Ones. It is now up to the young heroes to defend the crystals and save the land of Etheria.
When you start in Dungeon Defenders you are prompted to create a hero. There are four (4) classes of heroes: the mage apprentice, knightly squire, elven huntress, and a bald headed monk. Each of these characters has their own special defences and abilities. Each character also has its own difficulty to play. Once choosing a hero you can customize the colour of hero’s appearance and give them a name. You get eight (8) slots to create heroes; this allows you to create one hero of each class so you have option to switch to during levels. After creating and customizing your heroes you can customize your Eternia crystal’s style and colour to make it your very own. Once that is done you are brought to your own personal tavern which works as your lobby where you can gather your party, show off your awards and accomplishments, purchase items from the barkeep, and equip items for your hero.  In the center or your tavern is your Eternia Crystal where you can set up level options and start the game. I should mention that the there is a lot of information presented on the UI and it tends to get a bit cluttered and overwhelming. It does take a little bit of time to learn how to find and access all these options, but after playing a while this won’t be much of an issue.
The main game mode of Dungeon Defenders tasks you defend one or more Eternia Crystals across 13 gorgeous levels. Each level has multiple entrances for enemies, moving down several paths to destroy your crystal. Luckily, before each wave, you get a chance to build up your defences during the build phase. On the default difficulty you have unlimited time to plan your choke points, set up your towers and traps, and fix or upgrade your defences before the enemies start bearing down on you. Â Each hero has their own special defences, which are unlocked as you levels up. The Apprentice and Squire have your more standard defences like walls and projectile throwing towers, where as the Huntress and Monk have more support defences like mines and auras that can damage and slow enemies. To set up the most effective defence it is ideal to mix up the different types of defences.
Building towers is easy to do. You can move your hero to where you want the tower, open a radial menu with the right bumper, select the defence you wish to build, and then place it in a radius field around your hero, you can even set which way it faces. Each tower costs mana to build.  You gain mana from treasure chests that spawn every build phase as well as from slain enemies during the combat phase. Each tower also has a defence unit value, with the more powerful towers costing more units. Each level has a cap on how many defence units you are allowed to build so you have to plan out what you build, but you can always sell towers if you need too. Pressing the left bumper brings up and overhead map that shows where the enemies will come from, including important information such as how many and what type. The overhead map also shows where your towers are, if they are damaged, and where items are left on the map.
Once your defences are set and all heroes have signaled that they are ready, the combat phase begins. In the combat phase enemies start streaming through the doors and the defence of the crystal commences. During this phase you can decide how much you want to get involved. You can sit back and let your towers do the work, fix the ones that get damaged, or build new ones with the mana that is dropped from killed enemies. If you wish to get more involved you can combat the horde yourself, engaging in melee combat with the squire and monk, or picking them off from afar with the huntress and apprentice. Some waves will even end with a big boss fight that will challenge your skills.
As you kill off the creatures and complete each wave you gain experience and loot drops which can be used to power up your hero. You can even earn bonuses for taking no damage or not letting the crystal get hit. After the wave is complete you go back to the build phase and get ready for the next wave. Once all the waves are finished you will presented with a results screen that has a crazy number of stats about the level, and shows your ranking on the leaderboard, before progressing to the next level.
The RPG mechanics are surprisingly deep. As you level up each hero you can spend points to boost your hero’s stats like health, damage, speed, or cast rate; or you can boost your towers stats such as health, damage, range, and attack rate. The loot system is also fantastic. Enemies will drop tons of weapons and armour, each having different stats and bonus. Most items can be leveled up by spending mana on them, allowing you increase their stats. A cool feature is that if you level up an item all the way you will get to name it, and also have the item permanently forged by you. So when you trade items people will know you are the one who made it. There are also unique pets that can be bought or found, that boost stats and can help you in battle. These pets can also be leveled up the same at items.
Dungeon Defenders has 13 campaign levels, with each level being unique and fun to play. But even after beating the campaign there is still lots to do. There are four (4) difficulty modifiers, with the harder difficulties offering more XP and better items. There are also other modes you can try like Survival mode, which has you battling against waves of thousands of enemies, or Pure Strategy mode where it is towers only. Beating each level also unlocks a special challenge scenario like defending a moving crystal, or goblins raining from the sky, and even one where the heroes take turns being a chicken trying the survive.
My only complaint about the game is that it is quite difficult and not very fun when playing solo. The challenge modes and survival modes are definitely designed for multiple players. Playing the campaign on medium skill difficulty solo is difficult to do as the levels are too big and heroes are too slow to cover all entrances effectively. Mixing each hero’s different defences are a key to success and it can be done solo. That being said, during the build phase you can swap out your hero at a forge node, but placing towers as one hero, then running back to swap your hero, then running back and place the second heroes towers is time consuming and boring. Playing with others as a variety of heroes works so well and seamlessly that I would say it is almost required. I would compare the feeling to games like Left for Dead and Borderlands, where they are ok playing solo, but they really shine when you have others along for the ride.
Dungeon Defender is a great game. Vibrant colourful graphics, addicting RPG gameplay, loot drops galore and frantic fun gameplay are things that come to mind. Trendy Entertainment’s action RPG/ tower defence hybrid is designed to be enjoyed with friends though. Unfortunately the difficulty and slow movement around the large levels make playing alone feel like a dull grind. If you have no intention of playing online I would suggest holding off on this one, but if you can get a few friends together, either online or locally, or don’t mind making new friends over the interwebz, Dungeon Defenders has a lot of depth, variety, fun and laughs that it is worth every penny.
