Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse (PS2) (2001)
Developer: Metro3D

Review by Faididi and Co.

This is not Armada with swords and spells

Story: Average

A bad year begins for the people in the land of Gothos, because the terrible Shadow Lord is scheduled to show up after 365 days, and his minions are already running amok in the countryside. Luckily, a strange lady named Anna happens to be the Dark Angel of Retribution, and she has come to save the world. The townsfolk have little to say over the course of the game, keeping the story basic enough so you don't have to give a crap.

Gameplay: Below Average

Metro3D's Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse is a single-Player action RPG that takes the arcade-like feel of the same developer's earlier adventure, Armada, and combines it with the dungeon-running, item-cycling hackfest of Blizzard's Diablo. From a world map, Anna can enter the towns or the dungeons. In the towns, she can buy or sell items, while in the randomly generated dungeons, she can fight through endless floors of bad guys and earn experience points, gold, and equipment. The weapons come in swords, axes, guns, and other varieties, and there are also many types of armor and accessories.

Unlike most other action RPGs with randomized dungeons, Dark Angel is rather lenient. Although our heroine can become quickly overwhelmed if she's careless, there are no real penalties for getting wasted. Item durability isn't even a factor here. If Anna runs out of stamina, she merely loses a few in-game days' worth of time piecing her ass back together at a town. The Shadow Lord shows up as the final boss at the end of the in-game year, but our heroine doesn't need to go face him then, because she can actually take all the time she wants to explore.

Perhaps the best part of Dark Angel is its town development system. Besides upgrading herself, Anna can help the three available towns by completing rudimentary optional quests, such as rescuing villagers from dungeons or simply donating resources. As the towns develop along a trio of factors (economic strength, scientific prowess, and military might), they'll offer more powerful equipment for sale.

Unfortunately, the rest of Dark Angel just isn't that enjoyable. The game's full name inaccurately describes the entire range of foes whom Anna battles, as the bad guys include everything from ghosts to mutants to even cyborgs, but they pretty much all rush toward her in the same brainless fashion. Different kinds of enemies come with different vulnerabilities, but regularly changing weapons to maximize the damage dealt against them soon becomes tiresome. Given the simplistic combat, the glaring lack of multiplayer support, and the absence of different character classes, this is probably the only RPG where you want the heroine to get wasted repeatedly (or to travel via the world map continuously), so you can skip faster to the end, without spending real-life months watching Anna slogging through the same shitty dungeons over and over again.

Controls: Average

Moving around, attacking, and working with the menus are all easy enough to do. Giving the shoulder buttons more functions would've been nice, though.

Graphics: Average

The characters and the environments look decent at best. One of Anna's feet appears broken when she runs at a certain angle.

Audio: Below Average

There is almost no spoken dialogue, and the enemies' phrases sound annoyingly repetitive or apathetic. This game's silent computer-controlled allies are nowhere as fun as the talking friends in Armada. Some sort of rock music can be occasionally heard in the dungeons, but glitches cause it to play at odd intervals.

Overall: Below Average

Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse is a woefully unspectacular action RPG that offers little more than tedious, unstimulating combat and weak visual and audio effects. Stick with Armada instead, because that game at least gives you a choice of multiple character classes and the option of bringing along your friends.