Inferno Legend Review

By Jason Parker (Ragachak)

In Chess, Someone Must Take the Black Pieces

Inferno Legend is a fairly unique game, and one that I fear perhaps tries to do both too much and too little at the same time. It is a Turn-Based RPG and an MMO at the same time, which is quite the bold claim. Regrettably, the MMO function is very lacking, though the RPG portion of the game is prevalent. In Inferno Legend, you play as a character in the service of Diablo, the Lord of Terror. Instead of being a hero in this bold game, you take the dark turn, and serve as one of a number of different evil archetypes that all have unique skills and talents to serve the Dark Lord. The story, while simple, is engaging. It is a fairly rare thing in a game to be able to play from the perspective of the antagonists, or place the heroes in the antagonistic role as the case may be. So for this, I salute the producers for putting forth such a bold, intriguing product. But is it ready for the masses? I fear that it is not. The game spends a fair amount of time teaching you the systems that it employs so that you may spend lots of time mastering them, but these same systems tend to be quite restrictive towards your freedom.

The story is simple, but enjoyable to get into. Before mankind existed, there were a host of angels and demons, both vying for control over creation. For thousands of years, these two forces did not come in contact with one another, and there was peace to be had. The five highest Angels wished to push their superior civilization onto the earth and create a new race, but there was dissension. A civil war broke out, which the demons took advantage of, playing on the ambition and greed of the opposing side, and formed a coalition, whose goal was to wage war on the Heavens. The “Creation War”, hosted by Diablo, Baal, and Mephisto would have catastrophic results; the heavens and earth were re-divided, giving the Demons and rebellious Angels more land than they had before. It sort of feels like if Diablo were made into an anime format with different classes to pick from. It could still use a great deal of work, but it is a step in a bold direction.

It’s no Vampire Savior

The races/classes that are available are reminiscent of ancient monsters of mythos and theater. One thing that certainly disappointed me was the inability to pick a different character. Once I chose the Samurai/Akuma, I was stuck with that. After log-in, it takes you immediately to the main map where you left off, and does not show a screen to pick a different character. This leads me to the thought that you would have to have several accounts to play other characters.

Vampire: Vampires are a balanced class; easy to pick up and play. They are the kings and queens of the evening, skilled with swords and magical powers. They use their mastery of the night to overwhelm opponents and get to the punch first.

Cyclops: Giants from the abyss, they tend to dwell deep within mountains and caverns. They are powerful in a physical sense, bringing a great presence to the battlefield that many cannot hope to match. Combine a massive, mighty hammer with the Cyclopean Beam power, and little can stand in their way.

Faerie: A cute magical girl, specialized in the magicks of Hell itself. Preferring Thunder and Ice, these adorable girls should not be underestimated. The best with magic, it is said that even Death itself is able to be bent to these Witches’ will. . .

Samurai: A fallen warrior, now called an Akuma, or Demon. They are masters of all aspects of the sword, martyred soldiers who wound up in Hell. They eagerly wield their blades in the service of Diablo, combining magic with his blade to rend all foes asunder.

Mummy: The Mummy was not available from my point of gameplay. Very little seems to be available about them.

Turn-Based Fast-Paced Action

Inferno Legends Combat System is Rather… Bare.

Though it is labeled as an MMO, there is almost no interaction with other players. You can challenge players to battle in the Arena, but there is still no dialogue between players – just a battle that one player winds up the victor in. You can set it to autopilot, where it decides the most appropriate action for you, but even if you pick “Attack” or “Skill”, I did not noticeably get to choose what I attacked. My avatar would just leap in and start killing! While that’s all well and good, I suppose I prefer the Final Fantasy Tactics/Disgaea style, where I can pick whatever is in my range. Enemies who can summon allies can be especially upsetting, as they suddenly ruin your attacks on the major enemy you are fighting. There is no bulling past them, shy of area effects.

You are not alone, however. You can recruit allies, or pick them up in events. Progressing through the game can acquire you more allies who can bring special powers to bear on your combat zone. Combat moves very quickly, and even has a timer that occasionally forces your hand. The attack animations for each creature and player movement are unique and colorful, offering interesting special effects, even for this sort of simplified art style. It carries itself very well and the art and musical background lend itself to the story in a very fluid manner.

Entering a new act brings you to a map that has a series of missions upon it. Each mission has its own ranking and requirements for rewards, once that mission is done with. The mission itself opens into a new map, that you as the player move step by step, acquiring gold, exp, and battling enemies. They unfold in the shape of hexagon stones that the player walks across, unlocking new terrain with each step. At the end of each mission is a boss encounter, harder than the normal minions that you would face, as is tradition in any RPG. If you should perform well on these missions, you can unlock Treasure Chambers, which have artifacts, gold, and other great rewards in them! However, these treasures are guarded, and it would be recommended to level quite a bit after unlocking a chamber. This game really pushes past the mold the other Eastern browser/install games use, in that it feels like an RPG, descending deeper into these linear, but visually appealing dungeons.

Money, Cash, Skills, Come On!

Maid cosplay girls, they’ll be waiting for you in hell. Running hell’s cash shop.

This is a free to play game, keep this in mind. Now, there is an option for those who wish to spend money on things. Diamonds are a currency that is acquired at the end of missions, as special event rewards, and things of that nature. You can purchase them with real money, if you have the inclination, but it is certainly not required. There are benefits to spending Diamonds on being a VIP Member. It gives access to another type of soul to accumulate, more Vigor (Up to 100), a third lucky draw at the end of instances (up from two) and other features that could make up for it if you should be an active member of this community. Again, I stress that it is not necessary, and you can acquire diamonds in-game. As of this writing, I have almost enough to purchase a VIP membership, but I feel that it is not necessary to do so. Souls can be used to upgrade minions and your own powers, and can be used on a variety of other things in-game. Gold is another currency which I seem to have an abundance of. Gold can be used to buy items in the shop as well as upgrade certain features, such as lineage points, which go into your own personal lineage (a series of bonus powers to increase the strength of your individual character), or souls to be used on you or your minions. You can also choose to use diamonds, but gold is a fairly prevalent resource.

Each character has skills that are unique to them alone. You can unlock skill points as you level up and as your minions level up as well! You can assign them down the trees as you see fit, and upgrade skills that you wish to use with more force. Your minions grow powerful as you do, and with each level your stats grow, and allow you to challenge more content. The game plays at a pretty steady pace, and I found no need to actually purchase diamonds to increase my characters power. Those who are investing more time, again, may feel differently, but it is not a pay-to-win scenario. You can be powerful and have a great time playing this game without investing a single dime. Maybe you feel that because you are having fun, you should throw them some money – that is left up to player. The game does not even mention the ability to pay-to-win outside of the tabs that offer the services. There are other bonuses, however! Playing the game and logging in daily can give you rewards, and there are daily quests that offer nice rewards to those willing to put in the time to do them.

In the darkest pits, he waits dreaming

While the main brunt of this game involves dungeon delving, and doing the bidding of an evil, vile demon, there are a few other activities open to players. There is PVP, where players challenge one another to battles to move up the ladder; the matches play identical to regular battles in the story mode. You can find the arena master in the main city where Diablo rules. These battles can be done a certain number of times a day, and battling those above you and winning increase your personal rank. Maybe my character is just amazing, but I found PVP fairly easy while playing as a Samurai/Akuma. There are other battles in the PVP section, such as combo challenges, and the chest challenge, where you battle five enemy groups in a row. Those that survive the gauntlet acquire a chest that could contain any number of items. There are also Alliances, groups of players that one can join, but that does not necessarily increase player interaction. There are other people playing the game at the same time as you, and you can occasionally see some of the achievements these other players accomplish, but it still very much feels like a single player game.

Nature of the Demon: 3/5 Good

This game is by no means terrible. Though the poor translation and lack of human interaction can be grating and downright awful, the gameplay itself is rather standout compared to the list of online games that I have played lately. It is an interesting game, and can easily consume several hours in a day if one is not careful. I loved the dialogue, despite how poor the translation can be. If the game were a bit more flexible in combat, and a bit less cluttered visually, it could go a lot farther.

Graphics: 4/5

I actually really liked the graphics for this game. They were not 1080p, next-gen style graphics, but the characters and minions all had very unique attack animations. The characters are interestingly designed, and the maps were very beautiful, granting a painted backdrop over the dungeon you are currently delving into.

Controls: 3/5

I lump combat into the controls section. You only need a mouse to play this game, as you will do very little typing, outside of naming your character and logging in. The controls were simple, and I was hoping for more options in combat other than Auto and Attack/Skill, which may as well still have been auto. Had this been corrected, I would have gained more enjoyment from it.

Features: 3/5

I did not really have as much fun doing the PVP that I would have liked. There are not a lot of things going on in this game, though it may seem that it does. Though the story is delightful, I had a great deal of fun playing it. Most of my time ended up being spent figuring out how best to maximize my equipment and stats/skills spread, and very little seemed interesting outside of the main story, and smashing faces in PVP.

Music: 3/5

The music overall really fit a lot of the settings. It could become fairly droning if you play for long periods of time, but thankfully it is easily muted. While it is easily muted, you cannot simply turn it down or up. It is either loud or off. The effects and sounds are nice, but they quite easily drown out anything else that might be going on in the background. One thing I like about other games is the ability to lower the music after a while and use my own, but that is not an option here.