Super Dungeon Bros. from developer React Games is the latest Diablo clone to hit the market. Using the same overhead camera as the Diablo series, players choose from four different colored avatars to hack and slash through dungeons with friends. Super Dungeon Bros. is a concept that should be entertaining and fun. Unfortunately I was unable to find much that was anywhere near “Super.”
Super Dungeon Bros. (or SDB) lets players assume the role of well, I don’t know what they are really, human? Let’s just call them “Bros.” Each “Bro” has his own color and some stat differences. The goal is to get through the level as quickly as possible before the “threat meter” fills up and your bro is overwhelmed by the swarm of monsters that gradually increase in number. I picked the green fella with a sword. The first thing I noticed was the disappointing 20-plus-second load time. Hacking and slashing, I did not get very far before I had used up the four lives granted to me. I then picked the red “Bro” with the crossbow weapon. Unfortunately the crossbow was even less effective and constantly hampered by slow reloading speed. My four lives ended swiftly yet again. In my frustration, I picked the default blue “Bro” with the sword again. This was much more effective and I was able to make it much further into the first dungeon. Maybe there was yet still hope for Super Dungeon Bros.?
The design all around for Super Dungeon Bros. is generic at best. The intro has cheesy jokes and even worse voice work. After the long load time, players fight cartoony skeletons, wizards, and other repetitive monsters, as they avoid traps and pitfalls. The attempts at humorous, cute sounds and emotes from the “Bros” gets repetitive and irritating very fast. The music is this horrible attempt at 1980’s heavy metal and also gets annoying right out of the gate.
My instinct in all dungeon crawlers is to explore and kill everything. Super Dungeon Bros. doesn’t work like that. You must get through the five levels for each world (There are a whole three worlds) as quickly as possible to reap rewards and not be destroyed. This makes for a frantic pace that I found completely stressful and not at all enjoyable. Then after players do make it through the levels, they are rewarded with minimal resources to buy weapons and armor. Super Dungeon Bros. just becomes a grind right away if you hope to get new gear. The levels themselves are randomly generated but still managed to become repetitive.
Super Dungeon Bros. does offer multiplayer. I had hopes that it would shine and played with a buddy. Unfortunately, it was no more fun and left both of us disappointed. There was nothing gained and we didn’t help each other or see any change in gameplay.
Overall Super Dungeon Bros. feels rushed and plagued with bad design choices. The production level and graphics look like a game made 10 years ago. Repetitive sounds, music, enemies, and levels with very little content, made this one of the worst games I have played in some time. I would avoid this game and could not recommend it, even for a low price, so the MSRP of $19.99 seems to make it even harder to say anything good about Super Dungeon Bros.
Super Dungeon Bros is available for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC. This review is based on a copy provided for review purposes.
