During my Minecraft Dungeons II review, I lost thousands of emeralds, watched my controller lose a fight with a text box and suffered a crash that made me replay an entire level. Naturally, I still spent 24 hours chasing loot and wondering what ridiculous build I could make next.
That contradiction pretty much sums up this Minecraft Dungeons II review. There is plenty of jank hiding between the blocks, but the combat and buildcrafting kept giving me another reason to stick around. Every new weapon, artifact or enchantment had the potential to send me back to the drawing board.
I played the Steam version with a controller, finished the campaign, reached level 100 and earned 30 of 32 achievements. My entire run was solo and offline.
And after all that tinkering, one part of Minecraft Dungeons II stood comfortably above everything else.
Combat and Buildcrafting Carry the Adventure
Minecraft Dungeons II gives you plenty of ways to turn your hero into a tiny block-shaped disaster.
One of my favorite early setups used fast poison daggers with a jump attack that sent out a damaging wave. Roll bonuses strengthened my next attack and gave me extra escapes. I could jump into a crowd, poison everything nearby and get back out.
Later, bigger groups pushed me toward a jump and knockback build. Sometimes asking 20 enemies to please stand somewhere else is the correct tactical decision.
Changing Builds Became Part of the Fight
One of my biggest revelations came embarrassingly late: I could refund my enchantment points at full value.
Until then, I had spent a large chunk of the game improving the same poison setup. Once I realized respeccing did not come with a penalty, I started rebuilding around whatever was giving me trouble.
That mattered during the final battle. My knock-up setup had carried me that far, but it struggled against the huge golem at the end. I switched toward freeze effects and found a much better answer.
Difficulty could still be inconsistent. I would cruise through one area and suddenly get flattened in the next. Still, many enemies became easier once I learned their behavior. An Enderman kept getting in my face until I tried firing arrows at it. That forced it to teleport away long enough for me to create some space.
Learning what enemies could do and adjusting my build kept combat interesting. The same could not always be said for the places where those fights happened.
The World is Better Than Many of its Dungeons
Minecraft Dungeons II’s connected world was one of my favorite parts of the adventure. It also became one of the bigger surprises of this Minecraft Dungeons II review, especially once side quests and the Sift started opening up.
Moving between biomes, finding side quests and solving puzzles made exploration worthwhile. Unfortunately, many dungeons started blending together. Layouts and objectives repeated enough that one underground murder hallway started looking like the next.
Some secrets were also easier to break than solve. One recurring puzzle asked me to extinguish fires so a floor panel would open and reveal a chest. I discovered I could simply open the chest through the closed floor.
Naturally, I kept doing that.
I respect puzzles. I also respect efficiency.
Singer’s Meadow and the Sift Arrive at the Right Time
Singer’s Meadow was the change of scenery I needed. It was also where my questing in the Sift really started to open up.
The strange landscape, dimensional rifts and unfamiliar creatures immediately felt different from the Overworld. I particularly liked a bizarre rocket-like caterpillar roaming around. That is exactly the sort of weirdness I wanted from another dimension.
The Monstrous Opus and Prime Enchanter were memorable too, although both were easier for me than several elite golems and Endermen. The difficulty stayed uneven, but the Sift gave the adventure a welcome burst of variety.
Unfortunately, changing dimensions did not leave all of the rough edges behind.
Small Problems Start to Stack Up
The most painful lesson involved emeralds. I salvaged gear that should have given me roughly 24,000 emeralds before noticing my balance had stopped at 9,999. The game still let me keep salvaging after hitting the cap, so anything above it simply disappeared.
That stung more near the end, when upgrades were getting expensive.
Bows could also be unreliable. Arrows regularly hit floors or walls instead of the enemy I was aiming at. Piercing and ricochet effects could behave strangely around level geometry as well.
Verticality created another problem. Elite enemies sometimes activated above or below me, forcing me to find a route to their level. Occasionally, the encounter disappeared before I arrived, taking the experience and loot with it.
The guidance trail was useful when I got turned around, but it was not always trustworthy. Sometimes it pointed me toward a drop that was too far to survive, causing the game to respawn me and cost me a life. Other times, it tried to route me through a locked gate I could not use yet.
It still helped me navigate the larger environments, but I learned pretty quickly not to follow it blindly.
Controller and Performance Issues Need Work
The strangest controller issue involved rolling.
The right stick can trigger a roll, but it also scrolls notification text. If a message appeared in the lower-right corner after a level-up, trying to roll could move that text instead of my character.
At first, I thought rolling was broken. The problem led to a few frustrating deaths before I noticed it only happened when notification text was on-screen. I checked the controller mapping and realized the left bumper also triggered a roll, so I switched to that instead.
Combat controls should not lose an argument with a text box, but at least there was a workaround.
Long sessions also brought stutters and crashes, especially when dungeons filled with enemies. One crash during the Prime Enchanter section forced me to replay the level. When I returned, the fight was bugged until I died again. Thankfully, it worked normally after that.
Minecraft Dungeons II never became broken enough to make me stop. Its personality usually showed up before the frustration had much time to settle.
Minecraft Dungeons II Knows How to Have Fun
I was not playing Minecraft Dungeons II for a sprawling dramatic epic, and the story seems comfortable with that.
The presentation worked for me. The hero gets fun action scenes, including plenty of ridiculous flips. The narrator has personality, while music and note blocks give parts of the adventure their own identity.
One of my favorite jokes had an enemy struggling to activate the Monstrous Opus. I defeated the enemy and walked away, only for the thing to finally activate behind me.
Perfect timing. Terrible news.
Reaching Level 100
I reached level 100 near the end of my playthrough, even with a 10% experience boost equipped for part of the game. I had already completed the main story by then.
Based on my run, someone focused on the campaign could probably finish in around 15 to 20 hours. I spent more time exploring and chasing achievements.
Even after finishing the story, I was still changing equipment and messing with different setups. The loot loop clearly had its hooks in me.
Minecraft Dungeons II needs more dungeon variety and another pass at its technical roughness. Still, every interesting drop gave me another excuse to mess with my build.
That makes the final question pretty easy.
Is Minecraft Dungeons II Worth Playing?
After 24 hours, one thing stands out in this Minecraft Dungeons II review: buildcrafting is still the reason I would recommend it. Weapons, armor, artifacts and enchantments kept me tinkering, while tougher enemies pushed me to change tactics instead of leaning on one setup forever.
The connected world and colorful Sift give that combat somewhere interesting to go. However, repetitive dungeons, unreliable bows, strange controller behavior and crashes make the adventure rougher than it should be. So does accidentally vaporizing about 14,000 emeralds against a currency cap.
I still had a good time across my 24 hours. I finished the campaign, reached level 100 and earned 30 of 32 achievements. But I’m not sure I care enough to go back for those final two.
That is probably the clearest way to sum up Minecraft Dungeons II. Its buildcrafting gave me plenty of reasons to keep playing, but the repetition and technical roughness eventually started catching up with the fun.
If you enjoy tinkering with builds more than you mind running through familiar dungeon layouts, Minecraft Dungeons II has plenty to keep you busy.
