Dungeon Fighter Live: The Fall of Hendon Myre

Just recently I was reminiscing about the older generation of games and how they’ve stopped being made. One of my favourites was always Streets of Rage and its kind with its 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up gameplay. Well what do you know, by strange coincidence I’m now here to review a brand new 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up but with some modern gaming twists.

Dungeon Fighter Live: The Fall of Hendon Myre is the first release on Xbox for Nexon, creators of the ever-popular 2D MMO Maple Story as well as Dungeon Fighter Online which Dungeon Fighter Live is based upon. The premise of the game is that you play as one of three characters (each with unique fighting abilities) who have been sent to the town of Hendon Myre to investigate the recent increase of the mysterious illness afflicting the residents. You do this by beating up lots of monsters while performing quests for the residents of the town which if course is the norm in gaming (a game based around rational discussion would be boring).

The gameplay itself is very similar to the old 2D beat-em-ups of the 90’s with your characters working their way round maps beating up every creature they come across using the moves at their disposal. You start off with basic simple attacks but as you level up you’ll unlock special moves which can either be mapped to certain keys or performed using basic combinations of movement and button presses. It’s all very simple and draws you in quite rapidly to begin with.




However, there isn’t much else to it. Many of the enemies are simple pallet swaps of each other and can easily be picked off one by one due to enemies only approaching and attacking when you get close enough to them. Much like Diablo a lot of the enjoyment comes from looting the enemies and obtaining the best items and this can prolong your enjoyment if that’s something you enjoy.

The issue here is that much like Nexon’s other games there is a premium option to take where you can spend MSP to obtain resurrection stones which unsurprisingly resurrect you instantly when you die or can be exchanged the high end equipment for your character. To their credit the Stones are very cheap with packages ranging from 40MSP to 200MSP giving you between 20 and 150 Stones respectively. With most of the equipment costing only 5 stones its quite cheap to max out your characters equipment.

However once you’ve bought this top end equipment the game very much becomes a slog through the same levels to finish off the quests you are set as your character becomes over-powered. This can be adjusted though by playing through the harder difficulty versions of the dungeons, but this can become dull if you don’t find the right balance as if you go to a dungeon which is too tough it can take 5 minutes to kill one enemy!




The other problem here comes from the other players. You can play this as local co-op or by yourself and while local co-op can make this game a lot more fun, playing on your own becomes very dull. However when it comes to playing with random players online there come some very frustrating issues. The first is the large quantity of Ninja Looters in the game. These are people who just pick up everything dropped whether they can use it or not. I can’t count how many times I swore at people online for picking up weapons which they couldn’t use while my character did. The only saving grace is that quest items can only be picked up by people who need them and once you’ve got all the quest items you need you can’t pick up anymore.

Graphically the game is nicely presented with a very hand drawn manga look about the characters and world, though the characters and enemies glide across the screen a little which can be distracting. The levels can often be difficult to navigate however and you’ll find yourself often wondering why you can’t get to the next area until you realise you’ve not hit the door in exactly the right place.

The in-game music while nothing amazing is far from awful and won’t become annoying any time soon. As you can expect though sound effects are very basic and limited to various grunts and groans created by the monsters and your character.




Achievements are relatively simple in most cases and chances are you’ll pick up the majority by the time you’ve finished playing through the main campaign though it can become a bit of a slog at times. The last few achievements are quite tough and will require your character to be both high level with good equipment as well as having a good team of players.

Overall this isn’t a bad game as such and in short bursts can be quite enjoyable, but prolonged periods will start to drag and become monotonous. But credit must be given for combining the old school thrills of 2D side scrollers with the looting and quest systems of most MMO’s. With a few tweaks here and there this could be a great game but as it stands it’s just above average.

Overall 6/10

Hmm, wondering if I should even bother starting this now.

Cannot add another impossible completion.

Nice review Tenlo. A DOTW from me I think.

Nice review!

Nice review. Playing through this just now. Find it to be quite good but I am co-oping my entire run. I don't imagine it being too much fun solo and the quests definitely seem abit much at times. Played alot worse

Seems like a fair and thorough review chap!