Diablo has enjoyed enormous success with the PC gaming community. Combining a simple but effective control scheme, dark and moody graphics, an even darker storyline and a haunting music composition, the game would have many players clicking merrily away through many-a-night. At this point you might be questioning what a discussion of Diable has to do with German Developers Independent Art’s upcoming title: Demon Hunter. For better or for worse, discussing Diablo seems to be very appropriate here, as Demon Hunter appears to have borrowed many, many ideas from the PC classic.

The story appears fairly straightforward. The Prince of Darkness took a deep offence when his girlfriend broke off the engagement on the grounds of his incredible bad temper, and after a period of depression he decided avenge himself by achieving the dreams of all villains, destroying the world. Perhaps I simply made that up just now, but if your little digitalised hero does not intervene with the demon’s plans people are going to feel pain. Whereas Diablo’s story was somewhat of a surprise for an adventure game in that it was a “localised” affair, focused on a single dungeon and small town to explore,

Demon Hunter looks to be opting for the traditional epic plot, spaning eight separate chapters of mayhem and misery, including hell itself it seems. In true action RPG style however, the levelling-up of characters plays the prominent role. The system promised appears to have a certain element of depth to it, whereby the actions the hero take will affect which skills improve on gaining a level, and if combined with a solid, brooding storyline the game could well have the presentation to draw people in.

An interesting inclusion, yet to be fully explained, is that our hero is “permanently threatened by something terrible.” To fully understand the nature of this terror, the hero must interact with various creatures that inhabit the world, in other words, talk to them. Hopefully this, potentially great, feature is implemented well, as the prospects for psychological warfare on the gamer are high, and anyone who has seen Mulholland Drive or Donnie Darko will know that the most enjoyable form of entertainment is that which can make you wonder: “what is going on?" A further indication that this may well occur in Demon Hunter is the “fog of war,” whereby the hero can only see what a normal person could, presenting opportunities for the developers to hide enemies behind objects, read to pounce at just the right moment…

Unfortunately, the potential this game has for multiplayer (a potential realised in its genre rival: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers), looks to have been ignored. There will be a link-up trading mode on offer, but trading items is dull compared to the absolute appeal the game would have had if exploring it with a friend. This omission could well harm the charm the game will have with consumers, and may have them reaching for Lord of the Rings instead.

Possibly the most blatant game feature copy from Diablo that will be found within Demon Hunter is the available character selections. You will be given three choices, each with their own distinctive play style and combat specialities. Firstly, a warrior, the unsurpassed martial arts expert who enjoys beating demons over the head with a sword. For those who prefer not to get too close to the horrid creatures, there is the hunter (from the game’s title, I would have assumed that all the characters were hunters, but I digress), an archer of exceptionally high accuracy and speed. If weapons aren’t your thing, the final character is a magician, who I expect will wear a robe and pointy hat, carry a wooden staff and launch fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his toes. If these character classes sound familiar it’s because they are exact copies from their Diablo counterparts. It even looks like the skill and level advancement for these characters will work in a similar vein to Diablo’s. Not a poor programming decision certainly, Diablo’s characters and level advancement were on the whole very well balanced, and there is no reason to suspect Demon Hunter’s to be any weaker, but some originality in the character design would have been nice.

It has been revealed that the game boasts a random dungeon feature, which, although it may appear appealing on paper, is a piece of distressing news. How can quality dungeon design occur if everything is randomised? The inherent lack of control over the map placement means that the levels will almost assuredly be a shallow ‘maze’ affair. With good fortune, the rest of the gameplay will hide this weakness beneath the relentless mass of enemies, but it’s going to be that much tougher for Independent Arts to get the game working in an engaging and in-depth manner. A full 70 or 80 hours of gameplay are promised, but that means nothing if the level design is so monotonous that ten hours is a chore.

The game has been in development for in excess of 12 months now, and does look stylish, in places. The characters seem to be a good scale for the isometric camera and have a decent level of detail. The backgrounds are basic, but moody, and there appears to be a heavy amount of action on screen at any one time. Unfortunately, some levels, such as the desert, look nowhere near as appealing as the very impressive jungle and ice levels, and indeed there is a question over whether any of these levels will comfortably fit into the gothic mood that the original dungeon levels created. There is also an issue to whether the frame-rate will suffer a hit from the constant action, which will obviously depend on the skill of the programmers, but as it will likely be fundamental to the quality of the game, Independent Arts should be given the benefit of the doubt that they will get the hordes of enemies running smoothly.

Demon Hunter has a long and winding trek ahead of it if it wishes to prove itself as an essential purchase, as all the early impressions of the game point to it being an attempt to provide what is basically Diablo on the portable system. Not a terrible aspiration, but given the quality of the PC original, a very difficult aspiration to reach indeed. Although a minor problem, even the title itself – Demon Hunter – sounds like something you could expect from a b-grade horror film, and certain gameplay choices appear a little poor, the random dungeon was really not required and the lack of a proper multiplayer mode will surely hurt its pulling power for most consumers. That said, the early screenshots of the game do look very promising, and if Independent Arts can manage a strong atmosphere from the graphics, sound and story, and implement a solid control scheme based off Diablo’s, Demon Hunter may just have the gothic appeal to be a sleeper hit. Keep an eye out for more information, if nothing else, seeing how this game matures will be very interesting indeed.

- Matt