Đánh giá game dungeon hunter 4 năm 2024

Up to that point, the combat is challenging but always fair. Your health and mana replenish automatically. You’re treated to a nice assortment of combat skills. Ads for in-app purchases aren’t intrusive. It feels like freemium done right.

Then you’re sent off to uncover the fate of a necromancer. The room floods with waves of enemies, some of which can dramatically reduce your movement speed. Others sap away your mana at an alarming pace. A post-death loading screen says something about replaying other areas to grind experience. The next one offers a discount on a new helmet, and with that, the masquerade is shattered.

Though the in-app purchases are disappointing, it’s not as though the core of Dungeon Hunter 4 is some unique gem to be ruined. Its top-down, hack-and-slash fantasy gameplay has been done countless times before. There are four fantasy-staple classes to choose from, which are boring in concept but distinct in practice thanks to highly varied skill sets. Melee fighters have a dedicated attack button, whereas ranged characters use a dual-stick shooter control scheme. This allows for a few different play styles, with the former focused on tanking and area-of-effect damage, and the latter focused on backpedaling and steering enemies through choke points in the environment. The virtual buttons are responsive, and their on-screen layout is spacious. Moving and fighting are never problematic.

Enemies almost always outnumber you, but until the moment described above, they don’t outgun you. Combat is a fast-paced mix of bashing, dodging, and kiting. Special abilities allow you to turn invisible or stun foes with lightning strikes, and help to break up the typical slash-fest encounters. Playing cooperatively with up to three others turns battles into grand firework displays of fire, sparks, and steel. For such a wonderful looking game, it’s quite impressive that the framerate stays strong when the effects pile on, even on the somewhat dated iPhone 4S.

If you’re willing to put in the time and money, there’s an extensive world map to explore. Most locations are dotted with random challenges that can be completed for some quick gold and experience. There’s always somewhere to explore or an enemy to fight. Most of these activities are boring defense missions or fetch quests, but if you’re unwilling to open your wallet, grinding them over and over is probably the best way to level up.

Dungeon Hunter 4's paid items system is disheartening because it initially leads you to believe it’s not like other free-to-play games. Then, to add insult to injury, paying for items doesn’t feel rewarding. A $5 purchase of 550 gems will earn you an entirely new set of armor, albeit the weakest one money can buy. Some individual daggers cost upwards of $9. Purchased weapons, for example, are so powerful that they cut down most enemies in only a few hits. Say goodbye to any semblance of challenge. Meanwhile, your loot drops are almost certainly worse than the item you just paid real money for, and the coins you’re collecting can’t be used to buy the more powerful items you’ll need to purchase later on.

Verdict

Fighting your way through Dungeon Hunter 4’s gorgeous world can be fun—especially with friends—but the obvious paywall and inelegant in-app purchases stall this adventure well before it has a chance to impress. You essentially pay to for the opportunity to reach the next point where you will again need to fork over cash to proceed. In this free-to-play fantasy, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

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Dungeon Hunter 4 Review

mediocre

Shameless and balance-breaking in-app purchases overshadow Dungeon Hunter 4’s good looks and solid combat design.

I’ve never hid my disdain for Gameloft’s lack of humility when it comes to the size of their games. I simply hate having to play “iPhone Storage Roulette” every time I want to download something. So much so that I tend to shy away from their games. Why am I droning on about this? Because Dungeon Hunter 4 is absolutely worth that headache.

Demons are overrunning the land. Lots of folks are dying. Naturally it falls upon the player and their engine of death (i.e. character), to get things back in order. What follows is an adventure anyone who’s played previous titles in the series will be familiar with. Movement, attacking, and special abilities are tied to virtual controls while the menu houses all manner of inventory and crafting options. After a series of introductory levels it’s time to wander the countryside while loot and level grinding.

One of the reasons Gameloft has a tendency to release oversized games is because they pour a lot into their audio and visuals. Granted I’m not an authority on the matter but I’m fairly certain Dungeon Hunter 4 is one of the, if not the, best looking and sounding games in their library. This extends beyond the movies, too. In-game graphics are colorful and varied (for the most part), while the music and even the voice acting (no, really) can be a pleasure to listen to. I honestly laughed out loud at some of the dialogue, and not in a bad way.

The refinement of Gameloft’s freemium mechanics is also impressive. There are certain restrictions, naturally, but they never really get in the way of having fun. Charms can be removed, combined, and added to various pieces of equipment, and while each task takes real time to finish the items can still be used in the interim. The only problem with this system is that it doesn’t function when there’s no internet connection. That means without WiFi or cellular data turned on it’s not possible to upgrade or de-charm anything.

Another issue I ran into seems to be limited to the tutorial sections, but it was still a doozy. There were certain points during my game that the touchscreen controls would simply stop responding. This typically happened after leveling up and was a huge pain to deal with since it was always mid-fight and left me completely defenseless. Exiting the game and jumping right back into it fixed the problem every time it came up, but it also reset my quest progress. For whatever reason it eventually stopped happening, thank goodness.

Aside from a few minor gripes, Dungeon Hunter 4 is a spectacular dungeon crawler. It’s gorgeous, well written, funny, full of loot, and doesn’t overtly punish players for not spending their money. I just wish half the features didn’t stop working without an internet connection.