14 DAY TRIAL // 
If you feel that role-playing games force you to become a goody two-shoes a little too often and would like to explore the less beaten path of becoming an evil mastermind, then Dungeons 2 might interest you.
The strategy title comes as a follow-up to 2011’s Dungeons, an attempt by Realmforge Studios to offer an experience more similar to the one the game was inspired by.
Talking about dungeon management games without bringing the cult classic Dungeon Keeper into the discussion would be heresy. The visionary title from Bullfrog became a legend and inspired several clones over the years, some more worthy of mention than others.
The first Dungeons tried to put a spin on the original formula, and it was panned for it and for its numerous issues, both technical and stemming from the game’s design, but now, the studio has attempted to deliver what the fans were asking for all along.
The setup
You play the role of a fallen evil lord, destitute and broken, seeking to regain your former power and have your revenge on the forces of good that banished you from existence.
Your only way to manifest your will into the world is through an armored hand that hovers and issues orders, marks walls to be dug down and creates new rooms in your dungeon.
You create a lair, harvest resources, recruit creatures, research spells and new technologies, and generally go about being an evil mastermind, this time including some incursions into the world above.
If the first entry in the series only afforded you control over the underworld and focused on managing your heroes, Dungeons 2 finally offers the experience everyone expects from a dungeon tycoon game.
After assembling an army, training your troops into different specializations and outfitting your den with various defenses, you can send your minions to the world above, where you can finally take the war to those pesky fairies, humans and unicorns.
The single-player campaign consists of a handful of missions where you fight your way through the world, gradually rescuing, researching, or extorting every new race and piece of technology available to you, until you get to live the life of an evil overlord again.
It also works pretty well as a sort of gradual introduction where you get used to all the game’s features before heading into multiplayer and schooling some other evil overlords at the dungeon keeping game.
Gameplay
You start out in your throne room, with a handful of imps - dubbed Snots - who can do all the dirty work for you, and you start laying down the plans of the future stronghold.
You need gold in order to build rooms and you also need to keep some stockpiles nearby when payday comes, and all the denizens of your dungeon will want their fair share of the spoils.
The good news is that gold can be found in abundance, scattered throughout the underworld, within walls, and you can also discover veins that you can harvest for quite some time, to fuel your dreams of world domination.
Naturally, the gold will be acquired organically, as you expand your dominion and dig out the space for your rooms, but digging too far can also get you into trouble.
Throughout the underworld, there are many perils, including spider caves, elementals and other such nasty creatures, that your imps can stumble upon while growing your coffers.
“The entire purpose of your existence is to get revenge on those pesky heroes above you, so your main goal is to assemble an army, install enough traps to take care of any adventuring party that might pay you a visit, and then head upstairs.”
This is where the other fairy tale villains come into play. You can first recruit Orcs, some sort of run-of-the-mill dungeon inhabitants that like to brew beer and slap the other creatures around in order to increase their productivity.
Orcs can also engage in battle with the other creepy crawlers your imps will discover in the underworld, and can also take on the adventurers that invade your realm seeking glory and treasures.
You can also recruit Goblins, who power the workshop machinery and are able to craft traps and doors, Nagas, serpent-like creatures that dabble in the arcane arts and can expand your population cap and teach you magical spells, and Trolls, burly characters who can assist with various upgrades in the forge.
Each of the base races can be trained into a more powerful and specialized role in the gym, where your creatures can also go when they feel like letting off some steam or when they’re bored.
Aside from the ability to pick up your creatures and drop them anywhere in your dungeon and slap them around, you don’t have direct control over what’s going on.
You assign jobs and then the rowdy rabble will find a way to get things done. Creatures will work until they feel the need to grab some beer, get paid, or until they get bored, when they will start wandering the dungeon looking for trouble, unless you have the necessary amenities to calm them down.
Going to war
Of course, the entire purpose of your existence is to get revenge on those pesky heroes above you, so your main goal is to assemble an army, install enough traps to take care of any adventuring party that might pay you a visit, and then head upstairs.
Once you make your way through the dungeon’s entrance, the game shifts to a second map, changing from a management game to a real-time strategy one, where you can directly control your units and send them into the fray.
Each of the units has some special abilities, and using them right can have a significant effect on the battlefield, especially when the more advanced creatures come into play.
The bad thing is that the controls feel a bit wonky, especially if you’re used to highly polished action like the one in Starcraft 2, and battles tend to feel a tad anticlimactic.
The artificial intelligence isn’t great, and your melee units can just sit around and fumble without getting into a proper position to land a blow on your enemies. Furthermore, the enemy troop AI isn’t any better, and the single-player missions won’t pose any trouble, even without trying to use special abilities.
Overall, there’s a pretty good mix of units, enough to provide some variety without becoming too tedious to manage or intimidating to learn. There are plenty of upgrades for both your units and your rooms, which will please those looking for something a bit more complex.
However, things are pretty repetitive and after a while they start feeling pretty basic. The single-player campaign attempts to put some twists into the action, and the colorful narration certainly helps when it comes to getting you into the mood to push through it, but it overall feels somehow lacking.
Dungeons 2 is not the most complex or highly polished game in the world, but it’s enjoyable enough if you’re looking for something more relaxing that still has some strategy to it, and doubly so if you’re a fan of the original Dungeon Keeper.
The thing that I was disappointed with the most was the lack of actual base-building, and the general casual sense I got from the game. I like things to be a little more complex, and there are only a handful of creatures and rooms in the game.
The maps are also pretty small and there are some other forced limitations, such as not being able to fill areas back up with dirt or the very small population limit that severely hampers your initial efforts, until you can raise it to its still limited maximum.
However, there are also some neat and unexpected things to be found within the game. Each minion has a unique name, and you can find knowledge tomes hidden throughout the game, which can give them special suffixes and bonuses.
Although units can be difficult to control and take forever to travel the map, thankfully there are some utility spells that can rally all your troops to a certain location in the underworld, or summon them back to your throne room when the need arises.
One of the biggest surprises is the second playable race, the Demons. Granted, their design follows the layout of the Horde, but they have their own units and spells, and it really helps in adding a bit of variety to the experience.
However, the general feeling I got is that Dungeons 2 still lacks a certain sense of cohesion. It’s fun, but it’s nowhere near the level I wanted it to be, and all the different systems never really come together the way I would have liked them to.
Sound and visuals
One of the things I liked most about the game was the narration, delivered perfectly and providing some belittling comments regarding my overall progress, as well as other amusing references, and explaining what’s going on during the campaign.
Some of the writing is pretty corny, and the game does sometime go overboard with the pop culture references, but it’s not really overbearing, fortunately, especially once you’re done with the campaign.
The visuals are okay, somewhere in the middle of the road, not great but not bad either. Everything is pretty well made, it’s easy to tell units apart, even when they’re upgraded, and you have several different versions of each walking around your dungeon, and there are a ton of animations making the entire underworld come alive.
Speaking of making the world come alive, one of the neatest features from a visual point of view is seeing how the overworld is transformed after you destroy or capture various points of interest, how the cuddly bunnies run away, the trees replaced by gnarled roots, a physical manifestation of your evil presence.
Overall, there is enough detail to make the game pleasing aesthetically, and the color palettes used fit the theme of an underground lair, and look much happier in the world above, as they should.
This is also complimented by the ambient sounds and music, following your journey without ever being jarring, making the experience more immersive.
The Good
- Lots of humor
- Simple but still retains a sense of strategy
- Multiplayer is good to have
- Dungeon Keeper is back
The Bad
- Simple design
- Few rooms, few minion types
- Control feels wonky sometimes
- Staffing production facilities is sometimes iffy
Conclusion
Instead, the title is a low complexity strategy game with some real-time strategy mechanics, providing a fun experience if you’re looking for something that could be described as a modern day Dungeon Keeper.
Playing as evil incarnate is fun, especially when the game doesn’t take itself too seriously, and Dungeons 2 excels at that. It looks pretty good, with a ton of animations and flourishes that enhance the experience, such as seeing Snots drag passed out Nagas to the hospital after a battle.
It also helps that the game has some replayability potential due to its skirmish mode, where you can play on several maps against the AI, and you can also engage in some evil competition against your friends in multiplayer.
There are some issues with control of your minions and production facilities, as well as the overall simplicity of the entire design, that make Dungeons 2 something less than what it could have been, but it’s definitely worthy of its status as a spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper.
