Dungeon Hunter 5

Full Review

Dungeon Hunter 5 Review

By Herman Y

Dungeon Hunter 5 is a free-to-play hack-and-slash, dungeon crawler action RPG developed and published by Gameloft, a company known for creating high quality mobile games. With the huge success and popularity of Gameloft’s Dungeon Hunter 4, the sequel Dungeon Hunter 5 was perhaps the most anticipated mobile RPG of 2015. Dungeon Hunter 5 launched globally on February 27, 2015 and acquired over 1 million s within the first month. With so much hype prior to its release, did Dungeon Hunter 5 live up to its legacy?

The Story

After a great war between humans and demons, the world is left in ruins. Following the assassination of the king, who had no heir, the Kingdom of Valenthia fell into chaos and crime rose uncontrollably. However, in this time of need the Bounty Hunter guild was formed to restore peace and order through good-hearted mercenary work. You play a forthcoming leader of the Bounty Hunter guild and go on a journey to restore order and defeat demons, all the while hunting down a rogue guild member who seeks a powerful artifact that could destroy the world.

Classes and Character Creation

When the game begins, players are given a choice between one of five starting weapons: the slow but powerful greatsword, the ranged dual crossbows, the quick dual blades, the wide-reaching glaive, or the magical staff. Although you have to choose one of these five starting weapons, the game has no permanent class system meaning you can switch to any class at any time by simply equipping a different weapon. During character creation, you can also choose to play as male or female, but unfortunately, there is no character appearance customization.

The Gameplay

Dungeon Hunter 5 is a stage-based action RPG. There is a single-player campaign that takes place in instanced stages on a large map expanding to 5 different realms. You control your character with a virtual joystick and have buttons to attack, dodge, and use skills. The combat is fast, action-oriented, and smooth. Each stage has a backstory behind it and an objective to complete. Each stage also has a normal, hard, and expert difficulty. Harder modes give better rewards and you must complete the previous difficulty to unlock the harder one. The combat is fluid and involves running through a map killing enemies and a boss at the end. Every so often there is a cutscene that adds to the story and immersion. You can also bring a companion along in each stage that is a computer-controlled version of another player’s character. Each stage can be completed in around 2-5 minutes. However, the energy system in the game only allows about 1 hour of gameplay before it runs out and has to refill.

Equipment, Fusion, and Farming

Fusion plays a large part in Dungeon Hunter 5. Equipment in this game is card-based, meaning your weapon and armor are cards that you can collect and equip. To improve your weapons and armor, you can fuse them with other weapon and armor cards. Each piece of equipment also has a certain element and fusing equipment of the same element will increase the amount of upgrade experience. Because the difficulty rises quickly it is important to regularly upgrade your equipment. This is where farming comes into play.

Completing stages can give you equipment which you can use to upgrade your main weapons. You can equip two weapons at one time which is useful if monsters have different elements in a stage, but that also means you have another weapon you need to upgrade. Because of the difficulty, you have to start farming fairly early on which involves replaying previous stages multiple times in order to obtain equipment to fuse. Farming ends up playing a large part of the game and is also hindered by the game’s limiting energy system.

Graphics

Dungeon Hunter 5 has a colorful, medieval fantasy theme that ranges from brightly lit cities and cold, icy caverns to dark, fiery dungeons. The graphics in Dungeon Hunter 5 are visually impressive although they are slightly low-resolution. It definitely did not look 1080p on my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone. Otherwise, the game does look fairly detailed with flashy effects and partially destructible environments.

The PVP Stronghold

Dungeon Hunter 5 has a new feature in its series called the Guild Stronghold. Every player gets their own stronghold where they can place minions (obtained from completing stages) to protect their gold. It is essentially a Clash of Clans feature where players can attack each other’s strongholds to take their gold. This feature replaces real-time PvP combat by allowing asynchronous multiplayer in the form of “base raids” which some players may like and some may not. I personally don’t think it fits in the game but many people still prefer it over Dungeon Hunter 4’s PvP system.

Cash Shop/In-App Purchases (IAP)

Since Gameloft’s switch to freemium gaming in early 2012 they have earned a reputation for IAP-heavy and pay-to-win games. Dungeon Hunter 5 is unfortunately one of those freemium games. With the difficulty spiking fairly early on in the game, it becomes either “farm or pay.” Gems, the currency, can be used to buy energy, expand inventory slots, and unlock chests containing random equipment between 3-5 stars. These chests are a gamble and most of the time they will only give out 3 star equipment. It is possible to earn gems without paying from events but it takes a long time just to get a few. Did I also mention you need gems to purchase potions?

Final Verdict - Good

Dungeon Hunter 5 is a game with huge expectations that fell short mainly due to its freemium nature. Although it does provide fun, fast-paced combat with an interesting voice-acted story, the steep rise of difficulty as the game progresses turns Dungeon Hunter 5 into a “farm or pay” type of game that may not be worth it in the end. Players with patience and money to spend may enjoy this game, but for most gamers, there are better games to devote your time to.

Screenshots

Dungeon Hunter 5 Screenshots

Videos

Dungeon Hunter 5 Videos

Links

Dungeon Hunter 5 Links

Dungeon Hunter 5 Official Site
Dungeon Hunter 5 Wikipedia
Dungeon Hunter 5 Wikia [Database/Guides]
Dungeon Hunter 5 Google Play Store
Dungeon Hunter 5 iTunes Store

System Requirements

Dungeon Hunter 5 Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Android 4.0 or later/iOS 7.0 or later
Android Size: 1.4 GB
iOS Size: 801 MB

Music

Dungeon Hunter 5 Music

Additional Info

Dungeon Hunter 5 Additional Information

Developer: Gameloft
Publisher: Gameloft

Platforms: Android and iOS

Release Date: February 27, 2015

Dungeon Hunter 5 was developed and published by Gameloft, a French-based mobile gaming company with subsidiaries in 28 different countries. Dungeon Hunter 5 is the fifth installment in the popular Dungeon Hunter series with millions of s worldwide. Gameloft is also the developer and publisher of other game series such as Modern Combat, Asphalt, and N.O.V.A, in addition to movie-based games such as The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spiderman.