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Surprisingly deep and challenging for a one-handed game | First Impressions - Dark Season

2K View2023-03-10

Dark Season is a brand new RPG mobile game designed for one-handed play. It is currently available on Android only in the Korean Language, an unfortunate news for international players. But barring some language barriers, it is still highly playable and the game is easy to understand.

The world of Dark Season is a weird one. A cross between medieval fantasy and a modern setting, and a realm populated by various magical beings. It’s pretty weird seeing guns, tanks, drones, and computers in a medieval looking setting alongside magic portals and mystical beings, but that’s how the game is.

Players control a lone hunter, battling various different monsters across over 70 stages, with three levels per stage and nine areas per level (70 stages - 3 levels each - 9 areas each). Players will be given a two random weapons amongst 26 different choices that players can unlock and play with. It combines aspects of the dungeon crawling, rogue-lite, and bullet-hell genre; and crossbreeds a game that is both challenging and thrilling to play.

Dark Season is not an easy game, in fact the difficulty is immediately evident even in the first ever level. It will test players' abilities to effectively dodge incoming projectiles and enemy attacks, while trying to come up with their own attacks. What’s impressive is, this depth of combat is all done with just one-hand.

Dark Season is challenging, yes, but it is fairly balanced. Amidst all the bullet-hell clutter and the barrage of enemy attacks, everything still is properly cued visually to the player. Giving players the right amount of time and proper cue to evade attacks. It never felt unfair, but make no mistake, it is unforgiving.

The rogue-lite nature exists in the form of temporary character bonuses, where every once in a while, when players clear an area, a choice is presented to them. It’s either focus on your attacks, or defense, or a little bit of both. Once the level ends, the bonus disappears.

However, progression for both the characters' levels and the stages are retained and do not reset upon death. As players progress throughout the levels, they will unlock more characters to play and level up; and more rewarding gameplay elements to tinker with.

To wrap things up, Dark Season has made a good first impression on me. The game is challenging, thrilling, and fun to play. The combat is fun, and I like many of the systems in place. I just wish they could tweak the time currency a bit so I could play more frequently.

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