Din´s Curse is an action-heavy hack&slay game that takes most of its inspiration from Diablo 1 and 2. Combat: Din´s Curse is developed by a tiny indie studio. Make no mistake, the game looks very ugly. Blocky characters, textures that don´t mix well and a poor variety of sound effects. It takes a while to get into. Under this rough surface, the combat is surprisingly fun. It controls much like any other action rpg, left-click to move, right-click to attack. And a few hotkeys for additional abilities. Unlike other action rpgs, your character is not locked in place when he performs an action. It gives you way more mobility than you would expect. You are even able to pull off tricky shots while sidestepping. Character growth: Each starting class comes with three skill trees. For added variety, you can create a hybrid class out of 2 skill trees of different classes, this adds lots of replayability to the already strong line-up. The skill trees take heavy inspiration from the World of Warcraft skill trees. For example, the warrior class comes with an weapon (arms), a gladiator (fury) and a defender (protection) skill tree. This is not neccessarily a bad thing, the skill trees from WoW offered strong themes and varied gameplay, which is still the case here. Exploration: A town and a dungeon. This is your playground to explore and solve quests in order to save the town. It is all randomly generated but the variety of towns, dungeons and quests is limited. But there is a pretty good chance that you won´t notice it. Something will hold your attention: there is a chat box that informs you about events in the town or dungeon. Usually bad news. Raids on the town, plague outbreaks, new bosses arriving. There is much to keep an eye out for, you usually have more pressing matters to care for than complaining about variety. It is a captivating and exciting feature. Full review + screenshots at: http://hellgates2.blogspot.com/2015/12/review-dins-curse-add-on-demon-war.html
I am a bit surprised at the rather negative reviews found here. The wealth of game mechanics, the charming game world and the charismatic duo of protagonists help a lot in looking over the few deficiencies in the combat department. Combat: I admit, the game has weak spots in this area. It can´t compete with the energetic combat from Diablo 3. And the difficulty and damage spikes are for real. But you can adjust difficulty on the fly. The good things: The number of enemies that the game throws at you is impressive. Especially during tower defense quests you face huge hordes while your traps shoot lasers, fireballs and werewolves (yes werewolves). Furthermore, the six available character classes offer very distinct playstyles. Among them is the Umbralist, one of the best interpretations of a stealthy assassin in any actionRPG. Character growth: Your skill tree is very intriguing. There are three circles that are unlocked as you gain levels. Each of your skills branches further into possible modifications for that skill (e.g. add a poison cloud). Then you have a selection of skills that are not connected to the skill tree (called auras). Oh and let´s not forget your lovely ghost companion with her own skill trees and builds. This system achieves something most games can only dream of: it stays relevant and your skill points remain precious up to level 100. Exploration: The Final Cut is a combination of the whole trilogy. The games were moderately short but when stitched together into one campaign, the game becomes massive. It can take up to 50 hours to beat the final boss. The areas in this game are not randomly generated and generally look very pretty and distinct. The excellent music plays also an important role in making your stay enjoyable. I just wish Van Helsing would run a bit faster. PS: You can find the full review including video clips and screenshots in my blog: http://hellgates2.blogspot.com/2016/06/review-incredible-adventures-of-van.html
