Dungeon Rampage Review

Dungeon Rampage brings real time multiplayer RPG action to Facebook

Dungeon crawlers are certainly one of the older genres in gaming, but not a whole lot have found their way onto Facebook. However, a new curious entity by the name of Dungeon Rampage has come to the social network, and one thing’s for certain: it’s a nice change of pace from the deluge of casino and business simulation apps out there. Relatively mindless in its play design, it comes off as a bit shallow overall, but does offer a quality path for growth and can be decently enjoyable when played with friends.

Players take control of a single barbarian-style “Berserker” avatar, complete with throwing axes and an oversized hammer. With these tools in tow, the goal is simple: Reach the end of a dungeon without dying. The only catch is that the setup is littered with ill-tempered baddies with a distinct distaste for would-be heroes. Thankfully, they are fairly easy to dispatch with a click-and-move style of game play similar to the Diablo series.

Also like it’s inspiration, enemies might be weak by themselves, but they do have this innate tendency to swarm. Thus jovial jaunts through the game can quickly turn into a desperate run for one’s life. Along with the mix of creatures, each dungeon is also often peppered with booby traps ranging from arrows to spike triggers. They’re not all that difficult to avoid, feeling more like they’re present for the player’s benefit, allowing them to lure enemies atop them. Also among the monster ranks are the occasional bosses that join the fray. Significantly stronger than their minion counterparts, they’re not overly complex but typically come armed with highly telegraphed attacks that are… worth avoiding.

Thankfully, one of the shining parts about Dungeon Rampage is that none of this has to be done alone. Players are able to invite a number of their friends and play synchronously with them as they try to simply survive. What’s even better though is that the game doesn’t require inviting friends to enjoy the multiplayer. Simply starting a dungeon will place random users on one’s team, complete with live chat. Even more enticing is the fact that even with others, the game can be quite challenging.

The challenge comes in two ways. For starters, health and mana are not easy to come by. They both slowly regenerate passively, but most things (healing, experience, money, etc.) are earned from anything players smash and pick up during battle. Additionally, things can quickly turn sour when a team member accidently triggers a boss or horde of creatures. Usually, this results in their untimely demise and a scramble for the other players to try and revive them. To mitigate the issue, players can also collect orange stars that power up their character’s special ability. In the case of the noted barbarian, they become nigh invincible, with insanely increased speed and damage, for a short while.

Unfortunately, this is where a topic of negativity begins to come into play. There just isn’t that much variety in the game. Dungeon Rampage is trying to be an action RPG, but the number of classes available are low unless players wish to buy them with virtual currency. Currently, the only other character that can be unlocked by normal game means is the Ranger class. There are some more interesting ones like a “Vampire Hunter” and “Ghost Samurai,” but there is no easy way to acquire them, leaving most games consisting of only two class types.

Even with the Berserker and Ranger, the level of customization is lax too. Upon leveling, users can invest in basic stats like damage or attack speed, but other than buying some new weapons, there’s no real way to tailor the game style to one’s personal preference; a staple in the RPG genre. Also, no skill or talent tree (another key aspect to most RPGs) is available for the learning of new spells and abilities. Essentially, there is no carrot for the player to chase after and no real reward aside from an arbitrary increase in level. Because of this, the game’s lasting appeal will suffer.

Nevertheless, the core of Dungeon Rampage is still enjoyable and there is a lot of meat from which improvements can be built upon. The game is technically still in beta, and we've been told that many of our complaints will be addressed in future updates. Along with a strong visual presentation, its synchronous play and the fairly gratifying smashing of swarms of baddies carry it a long way. Sadly, with a weaker reward system, this new application doesn’t yet reach the potential it carries. In time though, hopefully it will.