Diabolic

“While it has a few bright spots, it ultimately falls short due to repetitive gameplay, poor balance, and noticeable performance issues.”

“Shallow, repetitive gameplay that requires mindless grinding that feels unnecessary.”

“Unbalanced combat and a frustrating death penalty mechanic.”

“The basic plot is simple and does not set any particular goals other than to propose a main quest and a few sporadic side quests.”

“The story is practically non-existent and the little dialogue there is, is poorly written/translated.”

“Everything is linear, with only a couple of optional quests (that only take a few minutes each). I wouldn't pay full price for it, there being plenty of comparable freeware games. The plot (not very complicated) is completely dropped after you beat the final boss.”

“A choice was made to use obsolete, decades-old retro pixel 'art' as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics.”

“There's no options to change the resolution for the game or customize the graphics settings.”

“There's no way for gamers to try to improve the low-quality graphics.”

“The music is too calm and often does not fit the atmosphere.”

“Levels 8, 9, and 10 kill all this atmosphere with dozens of more powerful enemies who are immune to stun attacks. After a couple of level-ups and replays, sadness comes back: again, you become the strongest monster in Diabolic's world, and the music emphasizes it.”

“For me, Diabolic is a 'guilty pleasure' - a repetitious, unbalanced game that still managed to surprise me with its atmosphere that, as I can assume, appeared there almost accidentally, but nevertheless worked fine for me.”

“With its grind-heavy structure and lack of polish, the game never lives up to anything and the experience is more tedious than rewarding.”

“Because it's way too short for its price and way too grindy for its content.”

“And it's not a game you enjoy any type of grinding because the new levels and the adventure part of the game is what keeps you going as they're not randomized and you know exactly when the enemy appears, so going back to them is a chore.”

“While it has a few bright spots, it ultimately falls short due to repetitive gameplay, poor balance, and noticeable performance issues.”

“I wanted to give it a chance, but it quickly devolved into a grind-heavy, poorly optimized slog that lacked polish or depth.”

“Poor game optimization.”

“They're all written in either Russian or broken English, appear at almost exactly the same time, very shortly after the game launched on Steam, all have a direct Steam purchase of the game, and the accounts are used consistently to write fake reviews for asset flips and other cash grabs/scams.”

“Diabolic has the completely unrealistic cash grab price of around $USD; it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the unethical nature of the developer.”

“Gamemaker Studio is most commonly used to make retro pixel shovelware and cash grabs.”

“The collision system is what had me dying the most. Once you go through an item (for example, those little dartboards), don't ever try to go up to it or you'll get locked. See those columns? They aren't standing; instead, they're lying down on the floor, and you have to avoid them (while, of course, the enemies can go through them). As soon as you reach the area after the prison, even the max speed is the same as the speed of the enemies. Add the fact that you keep getting stuck as if you dare to touch a column; you cannot move left or right and need to go up or down. This creates a perfectly frustrating situation that makes you not want to continue farming that prison again and again. Replayability? 0, due to the same problem happening repeatedly.”

“The limited variety of the enemies, of which there are about 10 or so, isn't helping in replayability.”

“You can even clear your save to reset all your upgrades and try it out again with a different character build, so there is some replayability despite its shortness.”