Gamer reviews for Rise of Darkness
Rise of Darkness: Hack Hack Here, Slash Slash There
Are you looking for a good time killer? Do you want to play a game where you hack and slash your ways through numerous dungeons? Finally, would you like to play a game where you can get various pieces of loot showered upon you when you defeat an enemy? Then look no further, Rise of Darkness (SEED 1 – Rise of Darkness iOS) has a great solution for you.
Released by Tony CMGE on May 15, 2015, on iOS and Google Play, this freemium game will only mildly tempt you to purchase their micro transaction goods ranging in price from $4.99 to $99.99. However, it never felt as though I needed to pay to win, which is the downfall of many freemium games.
The game itself suffers from the common of the pitfalls of online gaming such as full servers, lag spikes, people spamming the chat, etc. But once you can log into the server and get out of the main hub the gameplay itself is great. Rise of Darkness has a very Diabloesque feeling to it, which is to say the top down camera and the constant item grind. That is what makes this kind of game fun. The story itself is pretty generic, you have some satanic beast inside you that you can channel its form and save the realm. Rarely will the story be an issue for anyone who is into these games. The separate leveling system from beast mode to regular human mode is a tad unwieldy, due to the fact that the beast attributes use items that are dropped (or purchased), which leads to regular human mode being more effective more times than not in the beginning. Of the initial three classes available, they all have a balanced feel to them and you won’t get drops for a wizard if you are a warrior. The dungeons themselves are done in instances instead of free roaming which makes play through on the same dungeon on higher difficulties predictable. The optional mini-game, Devildom, feels like it might have been something just thrown in as filler, so it is best ignored after the initial forced tutorial. The trails section provides a good grind for gold that you can use to buy potions and improve your current gear. Although with most games where the biggest draw is the loot showers you may end up switching out gear quicker than you can fully upgrade. There are guilds available that one can join as well. These are helpful if you want to engage with the community and get access to higher level or unique quest.
RoD runs using the Unity 3 engine which allows for sharp detail on the 3D rendered characters and environment. There are the occasional framerate drop or collision issues that can completely distract from gameplay. The problems are few and far between and the character models and certain dungeons are not that bad to stare at when you could be potentially looking a screen for hours on end.
The music and gameplay sounds are staples of all RPGs. It’s one of those things, you probably heard it a numerous points in your life so you can hate it. The voice acting in the intro video is laughably bad. The actor is trying so hard to sound sincere and sinister at the same time that it creates this odd vibe that you can’t help but chuckle at.
With the complaint about Devildom, off putting voice acting, and sometimes major server issues Rise of Darkness is a pretty solid game. The hack n’ slash gameplay and the constant stream of better items make RoD a great free RPG. It still tries to pressure you to pay but, it doesn’t have that mandatory feel to it. One can easily get legendary equipment and become overpowered without having to drop a single dime. So, if you want to hack, slash, shoot magic missiles, or want to just flatten a large group of cannon fodder, give Rise of Darkness a try.