Throw minions in Army Corps of Hell [Preview]

30 Jan 2012 at 13:00:00 by John Robertson

On the surface of it, Army Corps of Hell sounds somewhat typical. An action-RPG for the PS Vita in which you play a demon that has been kicked out of hell. Understandably slightly pissed off, said demon assembles a small troop of idiotic minions (who don't know any better than to oppose the bulk of hell) and sets off to reclaim his place at the top of the sinful table.

Then you actually get your hands on the game and you realise that this is far from normal at all. I came to the Army Corps of Hell preview with few expectations, I left with a lot to think about.

Rather than fight directly yourself, it's your minions that get their hands dirty. They encircle you as you move like an un-Godly halo swarming at ground level. You attack by facing your target and instructing minions to jump upon it.

The more minions you fire at the target the faster it will die. Initially the system feels awkward and unnatural, but once you've got the basics down it reveals a surprising level of death depth. That depth is obvious, even though we've only played the first few levels of the opening chapter - indicating that (hopefully) more is to come.

As ever with videogames (and games in general) your skill is determined by how well you manage your resources. Initially you start with only 20 minions at your feet (at the end of our demo we had 80), which can create problems when faced with multiple enemies. It's vital that you prioritise those enemies which pose the greatest threat and deal with them first as you do your best to avoid (with the help of a dodge button) the rest.

You’re limited to a specific number of minions that you can fire at each enemy type (the max we witness was 20). Upon reaching the maximum you have the option of executing a 'salvo' attack which will dispatch the enemy with a single hit. Salvo attacks are vitally important when enemy numbers are high, as regular attacks take far too long to create an impact.

The key to performing such an attack is to keep as many minions alive as possible, which isn't as difficult as it might be. When minions are thrown from an enemy, or attacked by one, they fall to the floor in what is essentially a down-but-not-out-mode similar to what you can see in Gears of War. Reviving them is simply a case of walking next to them (item upgrades can increase the minimum distance), automatically picking them up off of the floor and putting them back into their swarming state.

If a down-but-not-out minion is hit again, or left too long without being revived, it will die. However, cages are dotted about levels, from which minions can be rescued and brought into your squad - although you can never exceed the maximum number for the level. When you get far enough, your standard soldier minions can be complimented with spearman and mages - both of which have specific skills and attack patterns useful against certain enemies.

I realise that was a particularly numerical and wordy description of the core gameplay, but there really is no other way of going about it.

The final level of our demo featured the usual kind of boss we've come to expect from games set in hell, namely a naked woman floating above a giant four-headed snake. As with all bosses, the trick is to dispatch of the frilly bits before attacking the jugular. In this instance that means cutting off adjacent heads and exposing the weak spot between the two, after a few rounds of the that you've got a clear shot at the naked girl. Hey presto! Boss defeated. Although it was actually a lot more difficult than that, taking three or four attempts to get right.

Those levels that we played were about 10-20 minutes in length, which seems about right for a handheld game. Although a case could be made for each individual one lacking much differentiation from the last, enemy quantity and the colour of the backdrop are the primary means of switching up the pace.

As I said, I came out with a lot to think about after playing Army Corps of Hell - it's a combat system that I just wasn't familiar with at all. It's clear that there's a decent framework of mechanics in place here and some potential for delving deep into the nitty gritty of tactical play, but whether the game can offer enough in the way of level design challenge will be the biggest hurdle.

Still, it's nothing like the rest of the PS Vita's current line-up and for that alone it's worth keeping an eye on.

Oh, a word of warning: if you don't like Japanese death metal, you're going to need an understanding of how to mute your Vita and a ready supply of your own tunes.

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