Sometimes I come across mobile games that seem to have potential, and I get drawn in for a solid play session. This title is one such game wherein I spent 2hrs and 30 mins of my time and made it fairly far in before the developer (Enigma Software JSC) decided to put in a figurative brick wall thus stopping all progress and enjoyment of the game. Unfortunately, this is common practice in a lot of games because it incentivizes the player to spend real money in hopes of overcoming the burden or obstacle. Luckily, I’m no fool and refuse to fall to this trap.
As for the game itself, you control a lone warrior for reasons unknown as you make your way through dark, ruined dungeons and gloomy forests to a goal not stated. Simply put, you must defeat all the enemies and occasionally beat bosses. The stage is 2D, and you have your main attack which can be charged up to deal additional damage as well as stagger your foes. You have a dash maneuver to evade attacks, a jump function and three abilities to use that differ in their effects – one slashes downwards with great power, another lifts your enemies to the sky and a third acts as a counter. Each ability can gain an alternative function known as a charm should you gain high enough a level. Your character can be equipped with your standard RPG gear ranging from sword, helm, chest, arms, feet, ring and amulet. You can further augment your power with masteries that give various bonuses such as increased move speed or damage to bosses, and various others. You can upgrade these masteries and your equipment as well to further yourself even more. Equipment also ranges from the standard rarities of common, uncommon, magic, epic, and legendary.
In addition to a campaign, you have another area which you may do combat in to raise your passive income of gold or dust (used to upgrade your equipment). There is also an arena to fight for additional loot to gain more powerful equipment. Like every other mobile game, there is also a premium currency that can be bought with real money or acquired scarcely through achievements and watching ads. This premium currency is used to play roulette and gain 10 random pieces of equipment of various rarities at different odds for said rarities with legendary having only 0.6% chance to get. As you can imagine, this again pushes the player to spend real money in hopes of getting good gear.
The brick wall that I mentioned occurs in the campaign during chapter 2 (of 3) at the last stage, node 20. The boss here has double the power requirements of the previous stage (each stage has a recommended power for the player to be at in order to beat it successfully). With all my gear max level and of the epic variety except for two, due to the bonuses having matching equipment, I only come to roughly 6.5K power level and the boss asks for 11.5K power level, approximately. The boss kills you in 3 hits no matter what you do or try. This effectively puts a complete stop to the player’s efforts and feels cheap, and unfair. Up until this point, the player had to effectively utilize their skills and abilities to get past everything. However, with the way the developers made the boss, on this level skill goes out the window and the player is left feeling frustrated. There is simply no way to gain enough power by merely playing the game, you have to leave yourself to that 0.6% chance rate to get the gear that can allow you to pass it. And as stated beforehand, that requires you to spend real money. Which is understandable since games cost money to make but with the odds given at getting legendary gear, a player would have to spend an obscene amount – easily 100 or more dollars. And with that cost, a proper PC or console game is time and money better spent.
In closing, if you’re looking for a fun three hour diversion on the Google Play store then you’ll have fun with this game provided you are skilled enough to enjoy such gameplay. It is basically a 2D dark souls clone with even the same message in the same red lettering displayed when you die. Otherwise, give this game a hard pass.
Bogdan's Review Blog 