Archangel Review

Archangel is a special breed of game. Maybe comparable to a Diablo of the modern world, Unity’s new game involves a mean amount of dungeon crawling to crush, kill, and destroy the forces of evil to inflict a justice so brutal that none will ever cross or defy the will of Heaven ever again.

First off, this is a game that is without a doubt perfect for those who love the grind of a good dungeon crawler; without taking any shortcuts it throws the player straight into the action in a take no prisoners approach against the hordes of enemies. It does however start off fairly slowly, for those who are concerned about getting to grips with the mechanisms of a typical crawler.

The controls are fairly straightforward. Tapping once at the ground will move, whereas tapping toward the direction of an enemy will cause destruction by way of fireball, or whatever other power it’s possible to pick up later in the game. Likewise, as more moves and spells are discovered various touch gestures will open up further opportunities - such as flicking the character to execute a shield bash that will send enemies flying. This is all in good fun, but after slogging my way through the first eight acts I felt as though the game was taking it’s sweet time to pick up. Sure there were larger enemies to rally against, and hordes of their annoying minions, but nothing was holding my interest. And as top-notch as the visuals were, I was getting sick of seeing the same gritty dungeon walkways.

One thing I did like about Archangel, however, was the ability to resurrect enemies after I’d annihilated them - thus turning them into my own minion army, which I could then conform and control. I also had a great time kitting out my character with the latest treads (which in English translates to equipping him with the most powerful items and equipment), and picking up various loot that I could either gamble at the end of a level or equip to my heart’s desire.

I managed to run into a couple of glitches from time to time; such as my game restarting me at the beginning of the level despite not having died and occasionally my enemies decided to glitch their way into the floor, which gave me some trouble resurrecting them. These weren’t particularly game-breaking though, and thankfully the autosave function saw that everything ran smoothly in the end. And the ability to save the game to the Cloud means never having to worry about a malfunction ever again.

Overall, Archangel offers an extensive number of levels with intense spell-casting action, and with over 100 items to collect and further abilities to discover, there’s plenty here for the dungeon-crawling aficionado to enjoy. I would definitely recommend this for someone who is twiddling their thumbs waiting for the new Dark Souls game to arrive, but for those looking for an epic in-depth storyline, this game may not be their cup of tea.