Game review: Dungeon Hunter - iPhone / iPod Touch (From Epsom Guardian)

Game review: Dungeon Hunter - iPhone / iPod Touch

3:52pm Friday 20th November 2009

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Dungeon Hunter is an epic action-packed RPG hack-n-slash adventure.

It thrusts you straight into a fantasy-style nonsense plot of being a prince brought back from the dead to banish sinister forces from the once peaceful kingdom of Gothicus.

Along the way you will travel from a spooky catacomb, into a forest, on to a dank bandits’ lair and then assorted other beautifully designed locations including caves and temples.

You’ll eventually end up at the castle of the malevolent queen. She is the prince’s former lover, responsible for his death and for bringing evil to the realm.

En route to fulfilling your mission you’ll explore dungeons while visiting numerous towns and villages, interacting with characters and taking on various side quests to earn wealth and experience, such as rescuing a merchant’s son and recovering stolen goods.

You’ll need to slay an almost endless procession of monsters from skeletons and zombies to crawling rat things and spider beasts.

To help out there is a myriad of weapons and items which your hero can collect and use.

In hardcore RPG style there is a complex levelling-up system and a bottomless put of customisations.

At the start of the game you choose from three classes of hero to play as. Each has its own key strengths – the warrior is powerful, the rogue has great dexterity and the mage uses powerful magic. In reality there are only subtle differences between how the different classes play out but this is enough to provide motivation for working through the game more than once.

As your hero progresses he will gain experience which translates into points that can be used to boost four attributes - strength, dexterity, endurance and energy. Each class also has its own skills tree, with an array of abilities which can be enhanced.

In addition there are 10 slots into which you can place equipment for your hero to use. Each weapon, piece of armour or magical item equipped will affect your hero’s offence and defence capabilities.

There are thousands of ways you can configure your hero. Veteran RPG players will be in their element with this level of complexity but novices might be overwhelmed at first.

The game could be quite inaccessible for newcomers to the genre. Menu and interface pages are not especially user-friendly, crammed full as they are with numbers and text. An auto-equip button is available to take some of the strain out of understanding all the stats, but more detailed explanation of the game’s intricacies would be very useful.

There are two methods available for controlling your hero’s movement in the game. One uses a virtual joystick, the other involves tapping the screen where you want your character to go.

I prefer the joystick option myself. It works well overall but isn’t perfect. Sometimes movement is a little awkward, especially during combat.

Speaking of combat, there are also buttons on screen for attacking enemies and unleashing magical powers from yourself and your fairy sidekick.

There is lots of fighting to be done in the game. While it’s fast and furious, it isn’t subtle or sophisticated. It’s limited to lots of button tapping as you frantically try to land more blows than the monster or pack of monsters you’re up against.

It would be good if the joystick floated around following your finger, while the attack buttons could do with being slightly bigger and more responsive.

Dungeon Hunter is a gorgeous looking game.

The varied environments you will travel through are all vibrant and rich. There is great use of lighting and texturing, as well as nice sound effects and music, to really bring the game to life and create a sense of drama.

There are lots of clever touches, such as flowing water when you cross a river, which are impressive for the platform the game is on.

The Gothicus world is vast but sadly not completely open. Parts of it remain out of bounds as you are kept to particular paths and areas.

Though a fantasy theme runs throughout the game, it’s not a jolly game full of friendly wizards, wise-cracking goblins and beautiful princesses. Dungeon Hunter is a dark, moody, atmospheric sort of adventure game.

Aside from what I’ve mentioned already there are a few other little shortcomings in the game such as a lack of randomised dungeons, slow loading times and not being able to save the game part way through a level. If you leave the game you will need to restart the current stage instead of picking up from the point you exited. On the positive side, when you get killed in the game you only go back to the beginning of the level rather than restarting the whole adventure.

Overall Dungeon Hunter is a very polished game, typical of the quality seen in Gameloft titles.

The game’s been out a few weeks already but it hasn’t dropped off my radar as I’ve wanted to play and review it. Now I have, I can recommend it to anyone looking for a deep, enjoyable, absorbing and long gaming experience.

Despite being open well over a year now the App Store has only seen a very small number of good RPGs for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Despite a few niggles, Dungeon Hunter adds to that number with aplomb.

Verdict: 8 out of 10 – An engrossing, engaging and epic adventure game. Arguably the best and most complex full-scale RPG game on the iPhone and iPod so far.

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