Demonrock: War of Ages Review

Like MOBAs? Hate the whole "playing with other people" factor? Then Demonrock might just be up the alley of this hypothetical anti-social person I just constructed. This action RPG takes influence from this hot genre and mixes in some lane defense gameplay, all in a solo package.

Players command a hero unit from one of four fantasy archetype choices, each with their own attributes and special powers. As well, this hero unit can call in one of four selected unit types, which run forward and attack any enemies that get in the way while ultimately going toward the goal. The goal is usually to destroy the enemy base, though it's occasionally to free an ally who becomes a new summonable unit, or to defeat a giant boss monster. Still, they all fall under the umbrella of "get from point A to wreck point B" without the enemies wrecking point A, though that was never really a threat for me: running ahead to attack enemies before my units was when I'd lose.

Now, the concept is pretty clever, with the MOBA flavoring but not being overtly so, and the addition of the unit summoning that other games have done so well. It's a solid combination on paper and works at times, but the game also struggles. It starts with the challenge level, which isn't too high: keeping up with character upgrades and maintaining a smart strategy in battle will do wonders for progressing.

The production values are lacking, too: the voices are limited, there's frequent typographical errors, and unit descriptions will talk about what enemies are strong and weak against those units - but they seemingly leave off a lot of enemy types. So yeah, learning what enemies will wreck what units and vice versa is a bit of a touch-and-feel thing. The whole game just has this disconnect between the actual game and its cleverness, and the meta-elements that feel crude.

While I think that Demonrock could be more challenging and possibly more fun, there's still some good ideas at the heart of it - just be prepared to wade through a flawed execution and presentation of those ideas.