It's not really an ARPG in the traditional sense. What Akaneiro is, is a cross between Diablo and Sonic. Instead of scrolling horizontally and bouncing on things to collect rings, you attempt to blitz through levels to collect red shards which are currency.
Each time you complete an area it goes on cooldown and you move on to the next, you can pay shards to reduce the cooldown time orIt's not really an ARPG in the traditional sense. What Akaneiro is, is a cross between Diablo and Sonic. Instead of scrolling horizontally and bouncing on things to collect rings, you attempt to blitz through levels to collect red shards which are currency.
Each time you complete an area it goes on cooldown and you move on to the next, you can pay shards to reduce the cooldown time or just wait it out. So it really has an arcade feel, and combined with the art style makes for a pretty entertaining romp through baddie stomping. This is also why you will see people complain about the AI, they are under the impression that they are playing Diablo, but like I said, it's more akin to Sonic going really fast and jumping on heads.
The gear is pretty snazzy, some of the particle effects are very nice, the abilities look good and feel fun to use despite a small selection. One of the cool things about the combat system is that it allows you to hotkey three abilities in three different sets. So one set can be all out damage, one for survivability and one for ranged damage or some hybrid. You can swap between sets with tab, it's actually pretty fun to see what you can put together when chaining harder mobs. Dash AoE Teleport AoE and so on.
Is it the greatest game you'll ever play? Probably not. But it's one of those games that's definitely worth a go round, even if it's just to see the sights.
Let's talk cash shop. You can buy gems/shard in the cash shop which are used for purchased items, skills, buffs in game. Of course, every mob you kill, chest you open, and zone you clear will give you shards. So it's a trade off between grinding a bit and paying money to avoid grinding. A pretty tame cash shop in the wider world of F2P games.
If you're thinking about giving it a go, I say do it, but don't give up until you've done the first four zones. Once you finish the tutorial and get to the town, talk to each NPC just to get acquainted with the vendors. I still can't believe professional reviewers didn't know that you could train skills because you had to purchase them from a trainer. It takes all of two minutes and you'll know where everyone is.
Remember, it's not a normal ARPG, it's an arcade game that's built as an ARPG.
Controls (10/10): Simple, intuitive, open to create your own skill grouping and chain combos. 1
Visual aesthetics (9/10): It's a beautiful game. It's Sumi-e meets comic book, kind of like Okami. Only thing that bugs me here are the text boxes which have this very generic and cold font like someone typed it out on a notecard. Hey Spicy Horse, any chance at some handwritten text in game? It's an overlooked detail at this point, but it sticks out like a sore thumb when everything else is so pretty.
Graphics (9/10): Mostly smooth, a few bugs here and there, but nothing that detracted from my enjoyment.
Audio (6/10): At first I really enjoyed the music, but it's the same track all the time. Hopefully they add some variation for each zone. The other thing you'll notice is that weapons don't seem to have their own sounds, abilities do, but attacks don't. It's really very bizarre to hear your sword go "Thud Thud Thud" when you hit things. Could use some work in this department.
Story (3/10): I'm going to go out on a limb and say that story isn't this game's main selling point. Dialogue? Pretty much non-existent. Plot? Anemic at best. It's just a step above, "bad things happen, stop bad things." I'm sorry to give it such a low score, but Green Eggs and Ham has more depth.
Fun (8/10): And this is really why I gave it the 8. I don't grade on aggregate from the other scores, I base my score on how fun something is. After-all, it's a game and I play games for entertainment. It is fun, it's not something you can sit and play for hours upon hours, but it's worth playing here and there. If you're wondering about "end game" it really is built into the zones, each area is basically a speed circuit that you come back to on higher difficulties to see how fast you can blitz through and get a higher score. Like I said, it's an arcade game at it's core.… Expand
Akaneiro: Demon HuntersYour Score0 out of 10User Score
