The English version of Devilian Mobile CBT went live on May 25th (the Korean CBT launched on April 19th). Like the Korean version, it seems that GAMEVIL went with a limited number of participants since not everyone who signed up got into this CBT. The CBT is Android only but I am running it using BlueStacks on the PC (since the device I was originally trying to run it on doesn’t meet the minimum specs).
The game actually runs incredibly smooth on the virtual machine though. The only problem trying to run it this way is not being able to actual use real touch actions to provide simultaneous input to the movement “button” and the skill “buttons”. The game does provide an auto combat mode which makes things easier in this regards as far as my being able to run the CBT to get a feel of the games design (though as you level and progress, the games difficulty begins to scale and mechanics do matter where you need to move and dodge more than what the auto combat performs). GAMEVIL has a brief beginners guide that runs through the UI, characters, combat, and game systems.
While the game is called Devilian (Mobile) and is created by Bluehole Ginno (the same development team that does Devilian for desktop computers), there isn’t that much commonality when it comes to character classes, story line, and most everything else in general. I will just say it now; it’s not the same Devilian as the PC version. It utilizes some of the concepts but also doesn’t try to mirror the PC version of the game. The game play for one obviously needed to be completely revamped to work and feel right on touch devices. The campaign itself is fairly linear and any story is presented in a static fashion with just a few tidbits of lore. The combat itself is more action arcade style where you quickly progress through a zone and fight an initial wave of monsters before having to tackle the boss. That action combat itself is actually rather satisfying for a mobile game (much better than I expected to be honest).
Devilian Mobile also does not even try to mirror the classes in the PC version. The first three classes the game is going to launch with are essentially all melee style characters since that form of combat is the easiest to adapt for mobile touch screen devices. The sole male character is Kylar and is modeled after the Berzerker. The next character is Ayla and her model assets come from the Tempest/Death Scythe class while her combat is that of a duel wielder using chakrams. The final character is Elin (no mistake that she shares the same name as the one from TERA because it is exactly the same model). The Cannoneer/Cannon Shooter in the PC version of the game is based on the Elin model but the mobile version has no ranged shooter or mage class just yet. Elin in the mobile version wields a large scythe.
Unsurprisingly, there is no character customization as this really isn’t a mobile MMO game. It does have some multiplayer and social capabilities utilizing HIVE (a global social platform for mobile gaming). The underlying game systems when it comes to achievements, rewards, currency, itemization and skills are also completely different. Some of the systems for monetizing the game draw upon some designs used in the Korean PC version of Devilian. To put it honestly, just like how I treated Trion’s version of Devilian as a completely new game (since there are significant enough changes from the Korean version), I need to do the exact same with Devilian Mobile.
And because of that, there is much that I still need to decipher about how this version works in terms of character progression. So just like Trion’s version, I am going to eventually do a writeup of the game after this initial CBT is over with more details via a first impressions point of view.
UPDATE: I was only able to play the CBT until around level 8 before I could no longer get the game to load via the emulator on the following day. It would throw a Korean dialog up which a few times was displayed in very vague English with something about “emulation”. So either the emulator check for the CBT either was not working earlier or it was enabled after which is unfortunate since as I stated above, it ran exceptionally well.
