Ender of Fire Review

Game Info

I love dungeon crawlers, brawlers, and beat-em-ups. Games like Diablo, Torchlight, Baldur’s Gate, Streets of Rage, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade, and The Simpsons are a lot of fun to me. I have a great time in single player but especially co-op in these types of games. I tell you this so you understand that I am the target market for this game. When the opportunity to play and review Ender of Fire came up I jumped at the chance.  The trailer looked pretty good and I looked forward to a fun co-op brawler to play with a friend. The problem here is that day will never come. I won’t ever subject anyone who’s company I enjoy to this game. Writing a negative review is something I truly abhor because a team of developers poured their time, energy, and love into their game. That’s not something that should be looked down upon, ever. Having said that, oh Ender of Fire I thought you’d never “ender”.

The trailer and screenshots look pretty decent so long as you’re okay with the mage yelling “Lightning” 63 times in 90 seconds. It’s a decent looking game with some cool character models, but it’s pretty rough on the ears once you get past the title screen main theme. To start you get to pick a level 10 (10? really?) character from the beginning and that choice is between a male knight, female archer, and male mage so no gender swapping here. You also start with their abilities unlocked from the start but without the knowledge on what they do or how they can be used. Basically you’re thrown into the world to sink or swim in brutal fashion forced to experiment with even the most basic of attacks. It is cool to have all those attacks at your disposal from the beginning there’s just no telling what they do without doing some mad scientist trials. There is a pause menu giving you descriptions but they’re hidden and not all that helpful considering you’re popping back and forth through multiple menus just to see it.

The game is rough. There isn’t any hand holding here, which is perfectly fine when you learn that the dodge stick and dash button are paramount to your success. You’re only able to carry 3 health potions, that you’ll definitely use, and there are no heath bars above the unending mob of the enemies you’ll face. The bosses have health bars thankfully, they just repeat multiple times over themselves like a Photoshop layer. Range combat is a chore. Targeting seems to have a mind of it’s own and you’ll shoot at thin air just as often as you do goblin #1347.

The Recommendation

At the end of the day, this is a $15 game made in the mold of Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara with a progression system and gameplay built to madden and baffle. When you play a game like Ender of Fire the things that drive you forward are the lure of loot, leveling up, simple but fun gameplay and hopefully an engaging story. I can’t say that Ender Of Fire has any of those things tackled well, which is honestly something that really bothers me. I wanted to like this game a lot more than I did, but you deserve not to waste your time and money on a game that’s simply not worth either.