DevilDark: The Fallen Kingdom Review

Despite their brutishly simple style, Action-RPGs remain steadfastly appealing; being able to dispatch hordes of enemies and then sifting through the chunky remains for useful items seems to push all the right kind of buttons for many gamers. DevilDark: The Fallen Kingdom by Triniti Interactive attempts to cash in on this simplicity, but it pulls its punch a little too much, making for a less than compelling title.

While there are no specific classes, players can find themselves beating down baddies with one of three basic weapon types - each with their own bonuses (ostensibly tied to a minimalistic 'skill'-tree) to change up how you approach each fight. That said, you're going to run straight in, smash the 'special' and attack buttons, chugging potions as needed and continue with your current quest until it is completed.

Thankfully the game does throw up some challenges in the form of boss fights, but they're few and far between, leaving the player stuck grinding for additional levels, cash and equipment to safely take on the rapidly scaling 'story' quests.

The variety of said weapons and armor are also limited, though weapons do feature innate special abilities, 'elemental' damage, and some armor set bonuses can be extremely helpful. What is far less appealing is the inclusion of IAP-only items, some of which can be very powerful, and more disturbingly, despite having paid for the game, there are advertisements in the menus - possibly a hold-over from some earlier freemium iteration of the title.

Although DevilDark is competent enough to remain entertaining for hardcore fans of dungeon-crawlers, the need to revisit areas again and again, the taunting inclusion of IAP items, and lack of any real character customization makes it a hard game to recommend.