Now it’s up to the most elite fighting unit in (fantasy kingdom) to discover the truth and save (fantasy kingdom) from destruction.

Mix Baldur’s Gate with Dynasty Warriors, add a dash of Gauntlet charm, then make it super pretty but ultimately generic and you have Dark Kingdom. The gameplay is your basic two-button action festival of beatings with the option of ranged attacks and equipment upgrades. The cast isn’t anything new either. You have a wizard (low HP but zappy), the fast “rogue” chick (combo-intensive), and the juggernaut of a warrior (tough and physically powerful). The setting is your basic happy kingdom that just keeps getting shit on by demons. Why do demons even care about this land? Because you need to beat something up, don’t you? It wouldn’t be much fun if all you did was knock around some serfs.

Apart from the game having the capacity for beautiful, sharp graphics there really isn’t much that makes this worthy of being the future of gaming. It’s the same basic fighting material we’ve been playing since Mike Haggar pile driver-ated his first prostitute. That’s not always a bad thing. These games are meant to waste your time between the release dates of better games, and Dark Kingdom does manage to keep your attention for a good while. The equipment system is pretty damn simple so thankfully you’ll be paying more attention to actually hitting people than what kind of bracers you’ve got on. Enemy A.I. doesn’t seem to be there. Mobs move toward you and attack. That seems to be all they know how to do. Your only challenge ever arises when there are more than 5 mobs around you at once. Even then, on the hardest difficulty you can pretty easily drop anything.

I think fans of the action/fighters will get a kick out of this one. It’s a high-end product for the genera that would make for a decent distraction. I don’t know that I’d pay $50 for it though. It’s worth about $35 at best. Rent it and see for yourself.

-Baron has been a writer for Shakefire.com since 2006.  Contact him at baron@shakefire.com

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