With the introduction of a new mobile platform, you can be sure Game Loft will be there with another installment of their generic dungeon crawling adventure series Dungeon Hunter Alliance. The series that got its start on the iOS and eventually PSN is here to try and scratch that Diablo itch on your Playstation Vita.
In Dungeon Hunter Alliance, you awake after being dead for years. You slowly begin to remember what happened. Back in the day, your beloved queen passed away. So you did the only logical thing and turned to dark magic to resurrect her. Well, what do you know, she was evil and decided to kill you. That evil temptress has now thrown the land into ruin and its up to you to set things right.
Dungeon Hunter Alliance is very much your standard Hack N Slash. All the classics classes are here, Warrior, Rogue, and Mage. Each of these has a unique special ability, but that doesn’t matter much as it all really boils down to running around and jamming on buttons to kill hoards of creatures.
The one unique aspect is your fairy. You start out with a lightning fairy and you can collect others that give you different special attacks. This little guy is controlled by the right thumb stick or the back touch. The back touch can be annoying if you have large hands like mine. If you accidentally graze the back touch, your littler fairy will fly off leaving you for dead. Using them is pretty simple, they can fly over to a pool of enemies and let off an area attack. This is helpful in stressful situations, but I often found myself forgetting to use it due to the less than intuitive conrtols.
The leveling mechanic is pretty standard – you put points into strength, dexterity, endurance, and energy. All of which effects your abilities, hp, and mana. Nothing new to see here. As you get new abilities, you map them to the face buttons and hammer away. This is pretty much the entire game though all 12 acts and 75 levels.
The one nice thing about the game is multiplayer. If you can actually find three people to play with, it can be fun to explore the dungeons together. This allows you to leverage each class’s strengths to really fly through levels.
Unfortunately most of the dungeons and quests are pretty uninspired. Everything is drab and ruined. That’s not to say the graphics are bad, they are actually quite crisp on the Vitas screen, they are just generic.
The fact that it’s so generic is the main flaw. Everything gameplay wise, is solid. The questing system could also use some work. It’s very difficult to understand what you are doing and where you are going. I found myself just traversing dungeons until it told me I completed a quest. If you’ve played any dungeon crawlers in the past year, you can probably skip this, but if you have three friends with DHA, it’s worth a go during the Vita game draught.
This review is based on a retail copy of Dungeon Hunter Alliance provided by Ubisoft. It is a PS Vita exclusive.