When comparing Crawl vs Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara, the Slant community recommends Crawl for most people. In the question“What are the best local co-op PC games?” Crawl is ranked 6th while Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Crawl is:
Crawl has one lone hero enter a dungeon with objective to find the dungeon boss and strike it down. However, other players wish to take that glory as well, and will use all means possible to take the soul and spot in the story of the hero for themselves. Whoever players the hero, must struggle trough the dungeon, killing monsters and gaining money and experience to get new equipment and grow stronger. All the while other players will take control of monsters and traps to kill the hero. Monsters will make attempts cooperate to get the hero, but to get the soul one must strike the last blow and prepare defend themselves when roles change, one cannot be too cooperative with the temporary allies.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Unique gameplay, blend of cooperation and betrayal
Crawl has one lone hero enter a dungeon with objective to find the dungeon boss and strike it down. However, other players wish to take that glory as well, and will use all means possible to take the soul and spot in the story of the hero for themselves. Whoever players the hero, must struggle trough the dungeon, killing monsters and gaining money and experience to get new equipment and grow stronger. All the while other players will take control of monsters and traps to kill the hero. Monsters will make attempts cooperate to get the hero, but to get the soul one must strike the last blow and prepare defend themselves when roles change, one cannot be too cooperative with the temporary allies.
Pro Local (couch ) 2-4 asymmetric multiplayer
Crawl has built in support for local 2-4 player asymmetric multiplayer with 3 out of the 4 playing co-op against the main player.
Pro Replay value
As the game is played, different monsters are unlocked and dungeons change for each playthrough with different bosses making the game stay interesting as time goes on. Available items change each play-trough as well, players cannot choose same play-style each time as different weapons require different tactics.
Pro Retro graphics
The art style of Crawl is reminiscent of 8bit games of yore and yet are still detailed enough to have very different designs for the different monsters in the game.
Pro Not just a normal beat 'em up
Branching paths, item shops with usable inventory, and special player abilities make this game more like an action RPG than a side-scrolling beat 'em up.
Pro Allows for 4-player co-op, just like in the arcades
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara supports 4-player local and online co-op play, which reflects the old arcade setups that allowed four players to play together.
Pro Widescreen support
Original arcade games of this era were 4:3; it’s nice that the developers included a widescreen mode for modern monitor support.
Pro Challenges and trophies
Challenges and trophies are new additions to the game that extend gameplay by introducing more objectives. They are also a source of pride – and bragging rights – for players who have managed to complete them.
Cons
Con No online multiplayer
Obviously the game is designed around multiplayer play but sadly there is no online multiplayer included.
Con Short gameplay
The games last about two hours – quite short by modern standards. However, this is to be expected because they are ports of classic arcade games that were intended to be beaten in a single sitting.
Con Co-op is spotty and limited
There is no way to mix local and online players, so it has to be one or the other. On top of that, the netcode seems poor and disconnects can happen.