The Devil is in the Lack of Details
Devil Kings is a action game of the hack and slash variety. You go on a quest to prove that you have the skills necessary to bring order to a chaotic world. And by skills I mean you have the ability to smash the square button over and over again and are able to withstand the forces of boredom, which will only be interrupted by moments of irritation.
The combat revolves around your character going around killing all those stupid enough to face you. I would like to emphasize the word stupid. Most enemies don’t even bother to attack. Instead they circle around you waiting for you to end there lives so they can go on to a better place, i.e. not this game. These brain dead death worshipers really aren’t a problem though, it’s your men’s refusal to do anything that’s really infuriating. In later levels when you have to face off against entire waves of archers it would be nice to have some lambs for the slaughter so to speak, but your warriors and generals are all to busy watching the grass grow at the beginning of the level to care… or perhaps they just know where the real action is.
This game is marred by its simplicity. Even though there are six characters all with there own story, equipment and special abilities, the basic game play never changes. All it takes to become a first class tyrant is to smash the square button, over and over and over agian. Even more problematic is how many of the levels recycle from one character to the next, despite each characters story only being two to five hours long in length. Add this along with the lack of mission variety and you get an extreme sense of deja vu.
Although there really is no story to speak of the character design is top notch. At end of each level you will typically come across one of the games wonderfully designed boss characters. From a girl carrying a enormous hammer in the artic, to a Italian mech loving monk, to a shrilly fan waving noble, all the characters look great, and bring a much needed sense of color and diversity to there respective levels.
Devil King simply needed more. More combos, more story, more strategy, more something. It needed some extra details to help stave off the boredom that naturally comes from doing the same thing over and over again. Unfortunately as it stands the first ten minutes of Devil King’s feel exactly like the last ten, devilishly boring.
