Dungeon Defenders Awakened Review (Xbox Series S)

Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is co-op Tower Defense combined with epic Action RPG combat. You’re able to join forces with up to four players to take on a never-ending army of orcs, demons, and dragons! Are your defenses strong enough to save the world of Etheria?

Pros:

• Colorful cartoon graphics.
• 4.9GB Download size.
• 1000 Gamerscore.
• Controller support.
• Graphics-fullscreen, resolution, v-sync, limit fps, graphic presets, resolution scale, anisotropy, edge effect, and bloom quality.
• Auto equips-all armor, equipment, quality, or upgrades only.
• Invert axis and sensitivity slider, gamepad rotation speed, gamepad range speed.
• Damage number size slider.
• Auto-detect for settings and graphics.
• Tutorial match along with ongoing pop-ups and handy icons.
• Game modes-campaign, survival, challenges, mix mode, and pure strategy.
• Server browser.
• Six difficulties-easy, medium, hard, insane, nightmare, and massacre.
• Hardcore mode.
• Campaign-3 acts with four levels each and an encore level.
• Game privacy–public or friends only.
• Tower defense gameplay.
• Four-player online Co-op.
• Rounds-you have a build phase then a combat phase and you trigger them manually. At the end of each wave, you get a chest of loot.
• Ragdoll max limit slider.
• Place weapons and traps, pay for them with gems that drop from enemies.
• A level is generally a series of enemy waves.
• Clear Hud-shows how many enemies in a wave both left and total, what wave you are on.
• Loot can be dropped from enemies.
• Damage numbers and enemy health are shown.
• Wide variety of enemy types.
• Earn EXP, level up, and add points to your stats.
• Four Heroes-Squire, apprentice, huntress, monk. Each has its own exp and level, weapon, and roles like medic, tank, etc.
• Tavern-main hub where you have a practice range, level select, upgrade weapons and look at earned trophies.
• Hero deck-add up to 4 characters of yours to the deck and they can earn EXP.
• Survival game mode-extended wave-based mode.
• Challenge mode-trials-based gameplay.
• Map-bring up in-game.
• Crystal-you have to defend this from the enemy.
• Satisfying gameplay.
• Frantic action.
• Impressive enemy numbers on the screen.
• Stats for each character.
• Rarity drops for loot.
• Boss battles.
• Can equip and level up pets.
• 100s of hours of gameplay.
• General settings-disable map flyovers, disable profanity filter, auto-reject hackers joining.

Cons:

• No new characters from the original.
• Hit detection issues with a lot of enemies being resistant to attacks but ability attacks.
• Icons for the controller don’t always work.
• Same gameplay as before with nothing new really.
• The slowdown happens at times.
• Hard to recognize and pick up loot.
• Reuses a lot of the same maps from the previous game.
• Auto detect button but for what?
• The tavern is a lot emptier than before.
• Slow starter as you build your characters to at least be capable of playing on normal difficulty.
• A lot of grinding is needed.
• Endgame is full of slow grinds and repetitive tasks.