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It's nearly a great rogue-lite shooter | Review - Dimension Hunter

1K View2023-12-05

Dimension Hunter

ActionRoguelikeShooterDungeon

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✨Overview

Dimension Hunter is a roguelike pixel art twin stick mobile shooter takes players in a journey through ever-changing dimensions filled with vicious monsters. As players navigate dungeons, confront challenging bosses, and explore diverse environments, the dynamic nature of Dimension Hunter keeps each playthrough fresh and exciting.

🟩Pros

+Diverse levels and bosses
+Plenty of possible upgrades that add variety and experimentation
+Fluid controls
+A well implemented aim-assist option

🟥Cons

-Energy system is a bit too restrictive
-No compelling reason to try out new characters due to the imbalance
-English translation could be better

⭐️Score: 6/10

📖Story and Premise

In Dimension Hunter, players assume the role of dimension hunters, warriors tasked with traversing various dimensions to eradicate monstrous threats. Set in a multidimensional setting filled with monsters, magical users, and futuristic weaponry.

This world was once led by a figure named Frank, who established a prospering society blending technology and magic. However, he has gone missing since, setting the stage for the game's events to commence. There's almost no narrative here aside from the premise; the game immediately hands you the reins to the open-ended roguelite as soon as the tutorial ends.

🎨Graphics and Art Style

Dimension Hunter adopts a pixel art style with vibrant color design that complements its multidimensional theme. The environments are detailed, showcasing the diversity of each dimension with unique landscapes and color palette. The character design, especially that of the heroes and monsters, is highly imaginative and contributes to the overall immersive experience. It’s a mix of fantasy, futuristic, and retro gaming themes. The action-packed music and sound effects are serviceable but I find it a bit lacking in music soundtrack and overall atmosphere.

🎮Gameplay

Dimension Hunter's gameplay revolves around a combination of roguelike and twin stick shooter elements in a linear progression of levels and dungeons. Left stick to move, and right touch to shoot and use abilities. The gameplay is simple, just evade enemy projectiles and attacks, and inflict your own damage. Clear the rooms one by one, until you get to choose which upgrade and room to enter next.

🌍The multidimensional world

There’s so many chapters and levels in the game. The first chapter alone has 12 areas, with 3 dungeons each. And you’ll probably not get far with one sitting, as each dungeon run costs 5 energy points out of 30 total, and you’ll bound to ran out within the first few minutes. Unlike in other games, there’s no abundance energy bonuses for beginners to get you hooked to the game aside from spending your Gems, watching ads, or spending money

🆙The rogue-lite progression

The game’s rogue-liteness comes with temporary upgrades only specific for that level alone — not all progress is reset or start from scratch, even the weapons and level progress are retained.

During runs, there’s so many types of possible upgrades and augments that it’s fun even just thinking about them and the possible combinations. There many elemental upgrade types like Fire, Lightning, and Ice, as well as the ability to modify your weapon.

You can have an upgrade that add elemental damages to your projectiles, or perhaps summons ice spirits upon activation of skills, or a persistent lightning orbs that circle the player inflicting passive damage. Weapon modifications that duplicate all projectiles, bounce them around enemies and walls, or perhaps adds perpendicular projectiles to both sides. No level run will be the same.

NPCs are scattered across the levels that provide you different services. Trading modifications, upgrading them, or maybe just increasing your HP or Shield just before that boss fight. One thing surprised me is that you can even fight some of the merchants, if you want an additional challenge with a matching reward. Speaking of boss fights, there are multiple bosses within a given run, and you’d have to defeat all of them to clear the dungeon. The bosses are as diverse as the levels, with varying attack patterns and projectiles to master and evade.

After each level, the modifications reset, but you can increase your character’s overall power by gathering equipment and weapons, and then upgrading them. You can also upgrade your character’s attributes and assign points to a Talent Tree system.

🕹Controls

The controls are fluid, the characters move without problems and I have no issues evading the bullet-hell coming my way. The built-in auto-aim is nice; I don’t have to actually aim exactly at the enemies, I can just hold the right fire button to kill enemies, but the option to manually aim is still there. It’s a bit powerful compared to manual aim, but not powerful enough to make it unfairly boring.

However, the controls aren’t perfectly, especially when interacting with NPCs scattered around the map, I can’t count the times I’ve accidentally shot NPCs because it’s hard to position my character to interact with them.

🥷Characters

There are different characters to choose from, which costs Gem to unlock. They’re pretty easy and cheap to unlock so there’s no pressure to spend money in this element. Each character has their own talent tree to progress into, special ability, and starting weapons.

Each character will also have their own separate equipment slots and weapons equipped. This is nice and all, but I found the characters a bit imbalanced and weak after playing my first character for a while, especially the Melee-based character which is just poorly implemented with the gameplay that it dies so easily with no way to mitigate the damage, that playing ranged is 100% the better option.There was no compelling reason for me to play or even try a new character since they all start very weak.

💵Monetization

Dimension Hunter is a free-to-play online game, with in-game purchases, energy system to limit play, and optional ads implemented in the gameplay system. In-game purchases come in the form of more currency, cosmetics, equipment, and energy. While the optional ads come in the form of providing extra rewards and a free revive if you die on a run.

The free-to-play experience is viable, but players are inevitably gated and pressured to spend in two major ways: the energy system and the character’s power level. Even if you want to grind for free, you can’t because of the energy system, as a result it’s hard to recommend this game to all the heavy free-to-play grinders out there.

📊Technical Performance

Dimension Hunter ran smoothly, as expected for its pixel art visuals. I think it’s safe to say that most phones will work with this game, it even stayed in the background without restarts; I had it minimized for quite a while and when I opened it, I was back in the game like nothing happened. I did however notice that it still runs when completely disconnected from the internet, even if you login and “select” a server in the main menu.

⚖️Conclusion

Dimension Hunter delivers an engaging and vibrant roguelike experience with its multidimensional theme and dynamic gameplay. The extensive world, diverse upgrades, and challenging progression system contribute to the game's depth. While it's nearly a great rogue-lite shooter, there are issues with character balancing and minor control quirks, and overall It's hard to recommend this game to all the heavy free-to-play grinders out there, as the energy system is too restrictive.

Mentioned games

Dimension Hunter

ActionRoguelikeShooterDungeon

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