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With its stiff animations, low-res graphics and skeletal plot, Dungeon Hunter: Alliance provides no real reason for players to care about what’s happening onscreen. Players can poke the touchscreen every sixty seconds to unleash a magical attack via their fairy (controlled with the right stick or touchpad), but otherwise, combat remains the same throughout, and it gets tiring very quickly. A brainless, tactless, button smashing affair, the objective is to just keep hitting stuff until everything is dead, regularly chugging down health potions to counteract the masses of enemies that inevitably swarm one’s chosen hero. The cycle then begins anew, until you decide you’ve had enough and throw the game cart into a lake.Ĭombat is exactly what you’d expect from a hack n’ slash RPG that hasn’t evolved from its iOS prequel. There will be a boss at the end, who usually has some poorly written dialog (without any voice acting, naturally) and needs to be defeated to unlock the exit. Typical progression sees players grabbing a main quest, taking on the one or two available sidequests, then wandering into a freshly unlocked dungeon to kill things. The world revolves around a hub town surrounded by various dungeons and spooky forests. In other words, if you’ve played almost any Western action RPG in the past fifteen years, you know exactly what to expect.
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An ability can be mapped to the square, triangle and circle buttons while X is used to perform normal attacks. There are three archetypal character classes to choose from - Warrior, Rogue and Mage - each with their obvious specialties (melee combat, one-on-one quick attacks and magic, respectively) and upgradable abilities to choose from. As a retail-priced PS Vita game, Alliance‘s mindless action, boring character progression and complete lack of narrative structure makes for game that only succeeds in making the player look for something better to do. As a negligibly priced iPhone app, the original Dungeon Hunter was a solid piece of disposable RPG fluff that could keep one entertained for a few minutes at a time.
#GAME ID DUNGEON HUNTER ALLIANCE USA SOFTWARE#
Lately, however, its decision to encroach into dedicated gaming territory has only exposed how weak some of the software is.Īlliance is no exception. Usually, Gameloft can get away with these sorts of games by keeping them on iOS and Android, where it can provide cheap emulations of bigger console games on a platform that tends to lack better alternatives. As with all Gameloft games, it completely borrows its gameplay from other titles, creating an experience that walks a wafer-thin line between homage and plagiarism. So, we’re going to judge it on that exact same level.ĭungeon Hunter: Alliance (PlayStation Vita )ĭungeon Hunter: Alliance is a typical hack n’ slash roleplaying game, in the same vein as Diablo or Torchlight.
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This is being released at the same price point - and thus believes itself to be in the same league - as games like Marvel vs. There are some schools of thought that say price shouldn’t be a factor in a review, but … come on. It is more or less the same game, with one major difference - it’s being sold in stores for $39.99. Gameloft hasn’t stopped there, however, teaming up with regular co-conspirator Ubisoft to release another port for the PlayStation Vita. A few months later, the game was ported to Mac, where it has recently been on sale for $0.99. Dungeon Hunter: Alliance originally came to the PlayStation Network in April 2011, where it is still available for $12.99.
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