Devil War: Join in the massive online battle with players from all over the world.
If you’ve ever played one of those Facebook Mafia Wars type games from a few years ago then you’d understand Devil War. Pictosoft have copied the style of an early Zynga game, but will it be a huge craze? Read on to find out more…
Gameplay: This is a MMORPG set in a fantasy world, but before you expect some sort of World of Warcraft replica… it isn’t that at all. The Role Playing aspect is much more like the old style fantasy games books. In other words, it’s largely text and there isn’t much of a graphically interactive aspect in the game (and most of the game is in your imagination). You select a career and then you set out to do quests in order to increase your experience points so you can level up your character. After increasing your level you’ll get character attribute points which you can allocate to improve your fighter. Each quest mission has an energy requirement and it’s this limit in energy which gets you to keep coming back to play. Once you’ve run out of energy then you can’t perform any quests. But your energy points will keep replenishing over time, so after a few hours you can come back to do some more quests. (Does this Farmville style play sound familiar?)
Aside from doing quests your other main way of earning money and experience points is from fighting in duals with other players. This is the expansive part which the developers want players to engage in because the fellowship feeling encourages people to rope their friends in to fight alongside them.
So what’s the aim of the game? You do quests and fight duels to level up your player, but ultimately the aim is to increase your player attribute points so that you can be better than everyone else.
Although the game is designed to be playable for individuals, it’s actually much better and more fun to play in large groups. For anyone who does manage to get their teeth into the game, then they’ll always have a desire to complete the new missions and they’ll want to unlock the new game items. Strategists who pick this game up would play to try and figure out the system and work out the optimum strategy to become the best.
So is Devil War fun? Before we answer this, let’s look a bit deeper into some of the actions within the game. When you’re attempting a mission or a dual, then as soon as you’ve pressed the “do it” button then you’ve completed the action and your information will be updated accordingly. Literally… that’s all there is to it… there’s no animated actions or any fight scenes… everything just happens in an instant and so technically you’re just looking at a game with lots of numbers. So… going back to answer the original question: is Devil War fun? This totally depends on your playing preferences and if you’re looking for a graphically rich or interactive game then this isn’t it. Devil War doesn’t have fancy cut scenes and in many ways it’s possible that the players only play to relive the Mafia War days.
Good stuff: Although there aren’t many animations, there is some decent artwork within the game. Also, having played diabolically bad games like Cage Match, then one can really appreciate the initial slickness of this game.
Bad stuff: Hmmm…. there turns out to be a fair number of negatives and the biggest problem would be the requirement to be connected to the internet. You literally can’t load the game unless you’re on the web. This means that you’re not actually going to be playing this game unless you have solid internet connection.
Winning most of the duals seems quite random and seemingly uncontrollable. The player doesn’t appear to be able to influence the fight in real time and it all happens in an instant. The reason for the spontaneous nature is because the players’ attack and defense attributes are just compared and the outcome is calculated in an instant. However, these stats aren’t detailed clearly and so it all seems very random.
After you do invest the time and effort to play the game you’ll realise that the menus and layout are actually pretty bad. Also, eventhough the game balance is fair (compared to Cage Match), there still seems like a lot could be done to improve the dualling system because most of the time nobody has any health!
Rating: 2.5/5 Devil War is great for reliving those Mafia War days on Facebook. Unfortunately, it’s not for those who seek real visual rewards with proper interactiveness and my guess is that most average players would probably find the game meaningless and a waste of time.
Having said all the above, I must admit I’m hooked on the game and I keep playing because I want to complete my execution of my current strategy.
Devil War Tips from Android Games Review:
- You can’t freely change your career type after your first selection so try and pick wisely. If you decide you must start afresh then you’ll have to reset your account. So if you think you have the wrong career then make your change early on before you’ve committed too much time to your profile.
- From general experience in these games they’re usually designed to benefit the players who are most interactive. (This way they make the game have more growing potential because players will drag friends into the game.) Since the main interaction in the game is attacking other players then technically selecting a fighter type career with bonus attack would be the best career. Before you buy a warrior, please read on…
- Although being an attacking unit is theoretically most beneficial, there are some rather big drawbacks limiting your attack ability. Firstly it’s very slow to look at a player’s stats and then it’s slow to process your attack on them. Secondly, it’s actually quite hard to find players with sufficient health who you can attack! Since these problems exist, I would actually suggest people go for the careers which boost money because money can buy attack and defense points.
If you’re losing to fights or you can’t decide what attributes to allocate your stats to, then consider the following strategy and thoughts:
- You actually can’t stop being attacked and you can’t control the levels of your attackers. So for this reason you should just expect to be attacked on a regular basis. Also, it’s very difficult to boost your defense at a rate large enough to protect yourself. In order to counter this you should just keep adding players to your party. Your party stats somehow should flow back into yours and thus give you protection from enemies.
- Since you’re increasing your stats by adding players then there’s no need to allocate attack or defense points. This kind of exposed/sacrificial strategy also means that you must never increase your health points as doing so would only put you at greater risk.
- Usually I would suggest investing points into mana, however I’ve found most players don’t have the health to be attacked, and thus your mana is largely wasted.
- Since attack, defense, health and mana aren’t stats to be improved, then the only one left is stamina. By boosting this you’ll be able to level up your player faster and increase the rate at which you earn money and experience points.
- If you don’t feel your attack is strong enough to attack people then boost your attack a few times. (In otherwords you’re still only selecting between Stamina and Attack)
- If you’re trying to find people to attack, then the best thing to do is to check your game history and go as deep into the past as possible and then select those opponents to fight. Hopefully they’ll be tempted in and will hit you back. That way you don’t have to delve deep into the history to find them again.
- If someone has angered you, then always check their profile before attacking them back. If you get revenge then they’ll be able to keep going back to their notification messages to find and attack you.
Developers: Pictosoft
Devil War QR Code
(Click on the image or scan the barcode with your Android phone to goto Google Play)
