Devious Dungeon review: 2D dungeon-crawling fun with an addictive edge
Devious Dungeon for iOS is only the latest in a long line of 2D action titles from Ravenous Games, but this time random dungeons and hero upgrades make it a head above the rest.
Devious Dungeon was made by Ravenous Games, the same folks who made the similarly-styled League of Evil and Random Heroes games. If you played either of those popular titles, you know these developers aim for the retro gaming style, while bringing in modern features to keep the experience interesting. Devious Dungeon is no exception.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Familiar gameplay
At its core, Devious Dungeon is a platformer like you might have played in the 1990s. You get controls on the right for jumping and attacking and directional arrows on the left to control your hero. Though nothing can match the tactile precision of a controller, I found the touch controls to be very responsive, even when performing tricky maneuvers.
You start Devious Dungeon inside of Olaf's Emporium; a place you will return every few levels throughout the game where you can buy upgraded items like armor and weapons, and heal yourself before going back into the battle.
From Olaf's you can warp to the dungeon where the core gameplay begins. Here, the goal is to kill all the monsters you come across while trying to collect coins, find the key to the exit, then exit to move on to the next level. Each dungeon level is randomly generated, so even if you die and come back to a level, it will be completely different. It's important to note that your health carries over from one level to the next, so playing it safe is the best way to get through a run of levels before returning to safety at Olaf's Emporium.
To make it a bit more interesting, there are secret areas in some levels where you can find hidden treasure, and sometimes special tomes that give you a big chunk of experience points. This is why it is best to search out every level before heading for the exit.
Get stronger with upgrades
What gives this platformer an extra addictive quality are the RPG elements that let you upgrade your hero. Gaining experience through killing monsters and finding special books, your character levels up, letting you choose to upgrade one stat for either Strength (for more damage), Dexterity (chance to critical hit), or Health (higher overall hit points). You'll need to choose your stats wisely to create a perfect fighting machine.
You also can upgrade your equipment. Using coins earned from killing monsters and destroying decorative items in each dungeon, you'll be able to buy new weapons, armor, rings, amulets, and potions. You often won't earn enough on a run to buy more than one or two items, so it's important to buy things that will make you survive the longest early on.
I really like the RPG elements because they give you a goal to work toward in an otherwise hack-and-slash type of game, but the system isn't perfect. Instead of giving you a choice of weapons, for example, you can only unlock one weapon at a time, so you'll have to unlock and use every weapon as they become available. This is true for armor, rings, and all other items you can buy. I think it would be better to offer some choice here so you could focus on being a swordsman, for example, instead of using whatever item comes next in the upgrade chain.
Dungeons and bosses
There are five differently themed worlds with 10 randomly generated dungeons in each. When you complete all the dungeons in a world, you have to face an extremely challenging boss character. At least, it will be challenging at first, but like many action platform games of the past, you can learn the behaviors of each specific boss to take advantage of his weaknesses. Killing a boss gives you a big chunk of experience points, so figuring out his moves is crucial to leveling up and making your fighter stronger for the next world.
Conclusions
Devious Dungeon comes from a long line of great 2D old-school platform action games on iOS from Ravenous Games, and it shows. The controls are precise, it's easy to jump in and start playing, and there's tons of content to explore. And with the addition of RPG elements in Devious Dungeon, it gives you an even better reason to keep playing and make your hero stronger.
The fact that each item unlocks one at a time is a bit of a letdown because you can't really specialize (or play a "role" as in role playing), which somewhat takes away from the overall enjoyment. But with random dungeons, increasingly difficult monsters and bosses, and secret areas to find in-between, Devious Dungeon is still makes for a lot of fun on your iOS device.