Devil Hunters - Dark Adventure of Heroes Review

What is it about hack and slash games that make them so blasted fun to play? People have been asking themselves this question since the Diablo series hijacked the imagination of an entire generation of PC gamers. As is to be expected, this has spawned countless imitators on virtually every platform known to man, and iOS is no exception to the rule. Can the free to play, action role playing game Devil Hunters – Dark Adventure of Heroes live up to this stellar legacy, or is it just flailing a sword in the dark?

Who needs a story, right? This is probably how Devil Hunters was pitched to the development team. Devoid of any true narrative short of, “See bad dude. See bad dude bleed,” the game focuses on the single component that makes the entire genre worthwhile: combat. Using the now old hat of a virtual joypad, the actual fighting controls consist of a gigantic sword button, used for the standard slash, as well as a series of buttons assigned to special and magic-inspired attacks. Once used, the specials respawn at varying rates depending upon how much they have been leveled-up.

Which brings us to the crux of any other game in the genre: loot. Where other iOS titles have managed to capture the process extremely successfully, Devil Hunters seems to put more emphasis on items that can be gathered and then crafted into new items. While this is passable under most circumstances, it leaves something to be desired when sorting through the post-battle bounty bestowed upon the player. The satisfaction of tweaking items and experimenting with different loadouts are sadly lost in the wash.

Despite combat being crisp and the powering-up of stats being gratifying, Devil Hunters does seem to suffer from some technical issues - especially on early generation iPad products, such as the admittedly dated iPad 2 used to review this title. Under most circumstances a crash here and there is acceptable, but when it happens once every three to four loading screens it is normally a sign of larger quality control issues.

There are many things to like about Devil Hunters – Dark Adventure of Heroes. The battling system is solid, leveling provides a sufficient payoff for time invested, and perhaps most importantly, the free-to-play mechanics don’t jump at every opportunity to nickel and dime the player into submission. However, the game plays like a puzzle that is missing a few critical pieces. That said, it is at least worth venturing into a dungeon or two.