While Attack it! Devil Legion has a great concept and ideas, the execution of the gameplay leaves a lots to be desired. A crying shame too, since the H-content is what keeps this title at an average rating for me.
The game plays as a strategic 2D battle, with your units automatically attacking enemies and the player taking the role of a supportive bat. As this bat, you're able to interrupt enemy attacks to both defend your troops and open opportunities for counter-attacks. You're also able to command your troops to either follow you, stay in place, or continue their auto-battle routine. The concept is unique and works great with a small number of enemies. Once you reach the later levels where up to ten enemies can be on screen at once, though, the flaws in the design start to show. Paired with the God-awful camera which is a pain to control (I highly recommend swapping to keyboard scrolling), battles quickly turn into out-of-control messes where you're constantly running back and forth to interrupt enemies before they can eviscerate your troops. There was a handful of times that I felt the game was going too fast for the speed your bat or brain moves, leading to some losses feeling incredibly cheap. The issue is made worse with the introduction of enemies that require multiple hits to stun, special mention going to the mounted riders since they have FOUR bars of shield that need to be broken before they're open for a single attack.
Combat wouldn't be such a struggle if you were able to keep your troops properly leveled, but that's another kettle of fish within itself. The cost to level up your troops scales logarithmically (i.e. level 6 costs 160g, level 7 costs 320g, level 8 costs 640g, etc.), making it nigh impossible max out the stats of your girls. You hit a wall at level 9 or 10 (max level is 15), and you really start to feel this disadvantage once you hit the wizard's guild. Leveling up troops is weird as well; instead of increasing base stats, you get extra star ratings in vitality (overall health), charm (damage per orgasm), and dexterity (how long a unit can jerk off an enemy before getting forced off). Assignment of these stars are totally random, which can result in suboptimal results for certain units (looking at you, succubus that dies in one hit because it didn't get any health upgrades...)
Grinding for money sucks a lot of the fun out of the game, but you've gotta do it if you want to see the ending. Something that also annoys me is that base stats like health, speed, and attack power aren't displayed for each troop, turning proper strategizing into a messy game of trial and error.
Commanding troops is a shit-shoot like the rest of the gameplay. While you're able to make units follow your cursor or stay in place, the order isn't permanent; You could tell a succubus to wait in place while you try doing something else, but that order will wear off in ten seconds and the unit will go right back to auto-attack mode. If troops don't follow your orders all the way through, then what was the point of giving players the option to move or stop them? Returning to auto-attack is already a command, so why couldn't "move" or "stay" last until units are told to attack again?
The game also has a myriad of other, smaller issues, which include:
If you do want to jump into this game, I highly recommend you use Cheat Engine to give yourself unlimited money. That way, you can actually afford to level up your troops and buy their abilities without grinding for hours on end. It's not a free win since battles still require strategy for you to succeed, but having max levels troops at every fight should make obtaining the gallery a much easier affair.
The game plays as a strategic 2D battle, with your units automatically attacking enemies and the player taking the role of a supportive bat. As this bat, you're able to interrupt enemy attacks to both defend your troops and open opportunities for counter-attacks. You're also able to command your troops to either follow you, stay in place, or continue their auto-battle routine. The concept is unique and works great with a small number of enemies. Once you reach the later levels where up to ten enemies can be on screen at once, though, the flaws in the design start to show. Paired with the God-awful camera which is a pain to control (I highly recommend swapping to keyboard scrolling), battles quickly turn into out-of-control messes where you're constantly running back and forth to interrupt enemies before they can eviscerate your troops. There was a handful of times that I felt the game was going too fast for the speed your bat or brain moves, leading to some losses feeling incredibly cheap. The issue is made worse with the introduction of enemies that require multiple hits to stun, special mention going to the mounted riders since they have FOUR bars of shield that need to be broken before they're open for a single attack.
Combat wouldn't be such a struggle if you were able to keep your troops properly leveled, but that's another kettle of fish within itself. The cost to level up your troops scales logarithmically (i.e. level 6 costs 160g, level 7 costs 320g, level 8 costs 640g, etc.), making it nigh impossible max out the stats of your girls. You hit a wall at level 9 or 10 (max level is 15), and you really start to feel this disadvantage once you hit the wizard's guild. Leveling up troops is weird as well; instead of increasing base stats, you get extra star ratings in vitality (overall health), charm (damage per orgasm), and dexterity (how long a unit can jerk off an enemy before getting forced off). Assignment of these stars are totally random, which can result in suboptimal results for certain units (looking at you, succubus that dies in one hit because it didn't get any health upgrades...)
Grinding for money sucks a lot of the fun out of the game, but you've gotta do it if you want to see the ending. Something that also annoys me is that base stats like health, speed, and attack power aren't displayed for each troop, turning proper strategizing into a messy game of trial and error.
Commanding troops is a shit-shoot like the rest of the gameplay. While you're able to make units follow your cursor or stay in place, the order isn't permanent; You could tell a succubus to wait in place while you try doing something else, but that order will wear off in ten seconds and the unit will go right back to auto-attack mode. If troops don't follow your orders all the way through, then what was the point of giving players the option to move or stop them? Returning to auto-attack is already a command, so why couldn't "move" or "stay" last until units are told to attack again?
The game also has a myriad of other, smaller issues, which include:
- The intro cutscene softlocking the game. You need to quit and restart the program to begin playing, but it skips the last part of the opening.
- Load times being annoyingly long. It's no Wrath of Cortex, but waiting 15 seconds each time you want to restart a stage gets real old with how much you'll be restarting.
- Certain active/passive skills not matching the descriptions. Also, descriptions in general being lines of broken nonsense due to translation errors.
- Achievements, chocolate dolls, and beating levels on harder difficulties doing jack shit. Why tease the player with extra objectives if you're not going to reward them with anything?
- The training mode being super cumbersome to use. If you want to test new units or abilities, you've got to exit the level, rebuild your team, and sit through the load time as you reenter free battle.
- Random slowdowns, frame drops, and the game freezing up for seconds at a time. Also, game crashes aplenty!
If you do want to jump into this game, I highly recommend you use Cheat Engine to give yourself unlimited money. That way, you can actually afford to level up your troops and buy their abilities without grinding for hours on end. It's not a free win since battles still require strategy for you to succeed, but having max levels troops at every fight should make obtaining the gallery a much easier affair.
