Dungeon Hunter: Alliance

Introduction

Hacking and slashing its loot-filled way onto the iPhone three years ago, Dungeon Hunter brought mobile action to fans of the RPG sub-genre. It has since spawned one sequel, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance, which is now available as a PlayStation Vita launch title. This adventure contains a storyline where players control a king who has been brought back to life twenty-five years after his murder, to find that his people are being treated terribly by his former queen. Of course, being that this is a fantastical adventure, there’s more to it than that. That formerly fair lady has turned evil due to a dark arts spell, which was used to resurrect her after an untimely demise. As a result, it was her hand that befell our hero.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

The whole idea behind the role-playing genre and its varied styles, is the opportunity for players to be transported to a rich, fantastical world. It’s in these environments where we can interact with beleaguered citizens and leaders, in an attempt to save them from some sort of plight. That is very much the case here, as Dungeon Hunter: Alliance takes a rather simplistic storyline and runs with it over the course of a relatively lengthy campaign.

Much has changed in the world of Gothicus since its people last set eyes upon their former leader. What was seemingly a thriving area has been turned into a place where fear and turmoil rule. The queen and her seedy advisors are up to no good, taking advantage of what happens to be a kind and hardworking population. All the while, various sorts of evil beings have made the land their home. Such is the context and overarching reason for the hacking, slashing and spell casting found within this game.

At its core, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is a formulaic dungeon crawler. Like other Gameloft games, it culls elements from other genre releases and combines them into something rather standard. The end result is a mildly entertaining and serviceable, yet frustrating experience.

Before the king’s resurrection process begins, players must choose from one of his three formulaic class archetypes: the warrior, the mage or the rogue. There really isn’t much that can be said about this choice-based menu, because each of the designs happen to be pre-made. Whether you prefer to use powerful weaponry, stealth or magic is the only decision that is made available. Well, other than the chance to name said hero.

After escaping from their damp and aging crypt, players are tasked with aiding Gothicus and its villagers with life-changing quests. These are played out in randomly generated environments of different types, such as snowy cliff sides, forests and dungeons. This content is split across 11 different acts, with quite a few side quests sprinkled throughout them.

The main quest line deals with restoring peace, order, happiness and safety to the struggling land. One example of this is a task where a water supply’s poisoning must be put to an end, leading to a rather lengthy plunge into a labyrinthine environment. Not surprisingly, the place is full of various types of decrepit monsters, much like most of the game world is.

Side quests, on the other hand, happened to take a much more basic form. One asked for a lady’s husband to be safely returned, while another required stolen goods to be found. These secondary goals provided a minor change of pace. However, quite a few of them were close to the main quest’s required path.

In order to start either type of task, players must talk to someone in need, whether they’re in the core village of Thamos or somewhere else. An exclamation mark is placed above quest givers’ heads, indicating that they would like to speak to you. Much in the same way, these non-playable characters will reward you for completing their mission when approached after the fact. It’s a basic design, but one that works with this type of game.

During (and in-between) either of those above-mentioned quest types, every few steps taken will result in a swarm of attackers looking to pillage your digital avatar for his assumed wealth. This means that dealing with rabid wolves, shambling corpses, soulless soldiers, blobs, grunts and evil magicians becomes the core facet of this experience. As a result, combat ends up taking the primary role over exploration, which was disappointing.

Two different weapon sets can be equipped at one time. Players can quickly swap between them during combat through the press of a directional-pad button. That means a close-combat sword can quickly change into a ranged crossbow for a more effective attack against far away baddies. It’s a great option to have, along with the ability to map three special abilities to specific face buttons. Those become quite helpful, consuming blue energy points when activated. It’s also important to note that standard attacks are based solely on the X button, with hit detection that is occasionally questionable.

Players’ travels will turn up story-related notes. These brief messages explain past events, chronicling the unique fairies that have played a large role in the created world’s history. You see; it ends up being an elemental fairy that brings the king back to life at the start of the game, asking for help to save the land and its captured kind. Finding more of these little ones can provide special attacks and treasure hunting benefits. They can be moved using the right thumbstick, and their attacks are initiated with the use of a somewhat responsive double-tap touchscreen control mechanic.

Although it’s a rather average and uninspired role-playing game, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance does have one feature that sets it apart from some of its competitors. That happens to be four-player co-operative play, where players can team up with each other through online or Ad-Hoc means. Each user is assigned a specific colour, which highlights their avatar and its available loot, removing any possibility of arguments erupting over who should receive what.

From the start, it became obvious that this game was made for multiplayer. If you’re engaged in a solo adventure, then it will become a frustrating challenge due to a rather unforgiving difficulty level. It’s not that the individual enemies are incredibly tough to take out; the problem lies in how many will swarm the player at once. When fifteen or more baddies are huddled around you, attacking when they can land hits, it can become tough to survive. Because of this design, the experience can devolve into pressing attack buttons repeatedly while watching your health bar for signs of when to heal. A death at any time means a trip back to the start of the environment, although most of the previously defeated bad guys will be gone.

The most glaring and frustrating aspect of this experience is not how basic it is. Instead, it’s the artificial difficulty, which is a result of that aforementioned combat structure. Having to constantly fight large groups of enemies who are leveled up to where you are or above ends up being more of a chore than an enjoyable design. It’s so easy to lose life that the focus is put on when to press the L shoulder button to heal, instead of which attacks to use. Also, considering that those potions are limited and expensive, another layer of frustration ensues. If there were fewer enemies at one time during solo efforts, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance would have been a much better adventure.

With this being a PlayStation Vita launch title, another factor must be discussed, and that is how well Gameloft has utilized the handheld’s high-tech capabilities. Two of its noteworthy gadgets are only lightly used, which is not enough to keep this title from feeling like the port that it is. The touchscreen is used sparingly, to initiate fairy attacks, view the map from different angles or cycle through menus. All of those implementations are very basic and somewhat imprecise. On the other hand, shaking the system is required to break out of a stunned state or to speed up ally recovery initiatives. It’s disappointing that these features weren’t used in a better way.