It's a novel system, one that allows for a degree of experimentation by taking out different weapons and trying out their different perks. Salvaging the old gear will retrieve all attached Enchantment Points. If a player finds a better, higher-level piece of gear later, Enchantment Points aren't wasted. Enchantment Points are earned by leveling up characters. Each melee weapon, ranged weapon, and armor has a secondary function that can be upgraded with the aid of Enchantment Points. This is Dungeons' coolest idea, but also leads to one of its biggest setbacks, which I'll get into in just a second. Instead, players are as strong as the gear they have equipped. With simplicity in mind, one area that stands out immediately is the total removal of 'base stats.' Characters can level up, but the traditional RPG concept of leveling up to improve their stats is thrown out the window. There's no real inventory to speak of, as everything is kept as simple as possible. Speaking of healing, players get a potion that's infinite in supply, but only held back by a cooldown timer. Players get a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and three artifact slots that can either be used for enhanced weapon attacks, magic attacks (powered by 'Souls'), or additional healing. The actual Dungeons gameplay fits in well with its contemporaries in the genre. It's an easy story to follow, coming across like general Saturday morning cartoon fare for the all-ages crowd. Remembering those who shunned him, the newly-dubbed Arch-Illager is using this power for vengeance and world domination. There once was an Illager who stumbled onto ultimate power. The Minecraft Dungeons story is an extremely simple one.

And that hurts coming from something with the name 'Minecraft' on it. By the end, I couldn't help but feel like it was overly simplistic and somewhat restrictive. However, there are a few sticking points that prevent it from standing out as anything special. Minecraft Dungeons does provide a level of ease and accessibility and proves to be a fun romp in small doses. So I confess to feeling excited about the idea of Minecraft branching out and diving into hack-and-slash dungeon crawling when Mojang first announced Minecraft Dungeons. It's proven to be a world of limitless possibilities, where imagination can lead to just about anything, even something outside of its original world-building sandbox genre. Few franchises have provided more consistent joy in the past decade than Minecraft.

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