Super Dungeon Bros Review

Super Dungeon Bros is not a very good game. Its tone doesn’t harmonise, its humour falls flat, and most importantly, its gameplay is not fun. It has a somewhat interesting art style, but besides that, all the facets of an enjoyable experience are unfortunately lacking.

The title brands itself as a rock themed dungeon brawler, but no attempt at world building in regards to that is ever done. The names of places are vaguely Nordic sounding and the main characters wear and wield high fantasy medieval gear, but we don’t get to see any aspect of the civilisation or the culture they live in. Nobody wields a guitar or throws amplifiers onto enemies, the rock theme appears to be meaningless and nothing but a selling point.

The plot is kickstarted when one of the four characters arrives home to his brothers with a vinyl disc in hands and puts it in a player, where the gramophone starts speaking and sends them on a quest to become rock stars. It is a somewhat well done little cutscene, although its premise is ridiculous and hollow and the sound mixing overlaps music, voices and sound effects to the point it becomes hard to understand what’s going on in some parts. That is the most significative tidbit of story present in the whole game, and the plot after that never really gets anywhere.

About as much happens in this picture as it happens in the plot.

The game itself contains only three levels: Cryptheim, an underground dungeon; Chillheim, a brewery; and Bogheim, a jungle. Those are all skins, with every “world” being a set of randomly generated dungeons that lead you to bosses. Throughout each mission, you kill minions and open chests in order to accrue coins which you can spend between levels and buy upgrades for your weapons. You can also change your weapons and armour, though it must be mentioned that 50% of the game is locked behind a DLC paywall -- including the option to play as one of four sisters instead of brothers.

The main problem is that the game is simply not fun. Within 15 minutes of starting it, I was absolutely horrified at how non-immersive it was -- the tone of the game never coalesces into a whole and completely fails at engaging you, becoming nothing more than a chore after the first level is completed. In fact, even the tutorial fails to sell the game or leave you curious to see what lies beyond -- indeed, after playing the game for hours, the tutorial had showed me everything the game had to offer.

The worst offender is the gameplay itself, which feels hollow with nary any player feedback. Attacks are weak and don’t have any weight behind them, while the movement feels intangible in the way your character glides and skids along the floor. That is especially noticeable when playing on a keyboard, where the sheer disconnect and tactile feedback from movements makes the game off-putting. I wound up using an Xbox controller to review it, as the keyboard controls felt horrendously wrong.

This screenshot is more exciting than 100% of the time I spent with the game.

Speaking of horrendously wrong, the sound design of this game is appalling. It is thoroughly inconsistent, with music tracks randomly changing volume and voice tracks drowning all other sounds with repeated one-liners. The sound effects are atrocious and completely lack proper sound mixing; footsteps sometimes are extremely loud, and sometimes sound distant and faint, only playing on one side of a stereo setup -- even though your character is always centred in the screen. The music -- when it can be heard -- is forgettable and uninspired, just using standard guitar riffs and beats to create what it considers “rock’n’roll”, and the voice acting is not exactly bad, but it isn’t good, either.

Finally, Super Dungeon Bros’ attempts at humour are abysmal. Jokes never land, punchlines are missed, and most attempts at making you laugh fail to prompt even a smirk. All the lines just feel awkward and out of place, with no setup or comedic content behind them, and as a result end up being flat-out unfunny. The tone of the game simply never synergizes with anything it attempts, and it ends up being a boring endeavour.

Super Dungeon Bros: Does not understand the concept of laughter.

Super Dungeon Bros is a thoroughly unenjoyable experience. The game feels like all effort was put into its initial cutscene graphical push, and then that drive dwindled to nothing as development progressed. The choice of setting feels tacked in, its “rock and roll music” is completely ordinary, and its Nordic-sounding names and colourful modern-looking medieval armoured “bros” do not make up for a complete lack of character on the game’s part. I can’t recommend this title to anyone on their sane mind, as there are much better co-op games out there that can keep you entertained.