Buy Hail to the King: Deathbat

First of, this is going to be a very long review. But it should help you make up your mind whether you want to buy this game or not.

This game feels very much like diablo, ocarina of time and other amazing RPG's. The gameplay is really smooth when it comes to movement. The combat however gets a little repetitive after a while, but it is easy to remember and easy to execute.

The music is fantastic, no need to say anything else.

The collectibles are easy to find, the levels are amazing.

There is constantly a reference to avenged sevenfold's music.

There are two things which aren't as good as the rest of the game which are:

The Graphics and the character-design, specifically the playable characters.

The graphics are for mobile devices (and I respect that) but for the PC-version I would have expected a little better quality for the graphics. The characters' quality is also on the low side, but this could be improved with an update.

The playable characters look kinda lame, ( I expected something that would reflect them like their live performance) Matt looks by far the most amazing of the six playable characters.

I would rate this a solid 9 out of 10

I'm not a fan of RPG's but this game was one of the few which i have really enjoyed. I'll do just a brief and objective review. This review is based on my experience playing this game, my experience as a gamer and my knowledge both on gaming and on avenged sevenfold's music. I tried to point out the most important cons and pros. The game is fun and well made for an avenged sevenfold game but I dont think outsiders will have the full experience of the game without previously have inspected avenged sevenfold's discography.

TLDR: It's a nice game for avenged sevenfold fans, and a so so game for outsiders. If you want to take advantage of this game's full experience, please check out avenged sevenfold song lyrics, because they contain the major part of the content and references. Of course it has its cons but overall is an enjoyable game for everyone and it's worth it's small price.

PROS
- Easy to beat, hard to master
- Decent storyline ( Nothing outstanding but pretty enjoyable )
- Decent gameplay
- Ability to switch between many playable characters
- Aproximately 10 unique weapons in the game, having their physical and magic damage, all are good for a different kind of scenario
- Hidden treasures and bonuses
- Both main and side objectives are rewarding ( completing levels and getting its bonuses )
- Fairly challenging achievements
- The soundtrack was a good mix between what avenged sevenfold is all about and what a game soundtrack should be
- Major boss fights were unique and different from each other
- Specific boss fights had specific songs ( According to avenged sevenfold's lyrics and discography )

CONS
- Poor cinematics ( even though the overall idea was good, maybe the cinematics could be improved a little bit )
- So so animations
- Confusing to land skillshots
- Hard to battle and to use the potions ( Was actually nice in a touch screen, not so good without it )
- Many inside references which you'll only get if you have an overall awareness of avenged sevenfold's discography and lyrics
- Changing Characters won't give you any different sensation, only the look itself ( as far as I could see )
- It was quite fun but quite short
- Minor boss fights relied on easy strategies used before
- Most of the boss fights' soundtrack are the same ( Unholy Confessions )
- Weapon's damage, skills and differences arent well explicit
- The game actually weight's more on your computer than it should weight ( Still doesn't weight much, but its req arent optimal for the game )
- ESC key quits the game without warning
- Poor translations

I'm a big fan of A7X, but im not letting that effect my review.

First off, this is obviously a game made for os and android, so you cant buy it expecting it to be groundbreaking or innovative, its a mobile game that is put on steam for more availability.

Secondly, they wanted it to feel oldschool, and it does. It has that old school combat and movement to it.

Thirdly, I think the way they used their songs in this game was clever, u have "Unholy Confessions as the boss theme, u have the "Nightmare" chime sound when you open a chest and get a key, and many others. It works into the game great

Lastly, the difficulty is medium so thats good, its not too hard or too easy. I find myse;lf running out of lives from time to time, or occasionally grinding for coins so I can buy a better weapon, but its not that necessary to progress through the game.

Overall I reccommend this game, but i only recommend buying it if youre a fan of the band, or want something casual to play in your free time. This isn't a hardcore gamer experience, just casual, as most mobile games are :)

I'm damn impressed with this game! I bought this thinking it wouldn't be much but a few levels but hey, it was cheap. BUT it had more to offer than what I thought, of course, me being a huge Avenged Sevenfold fan I had to give this game a try. The sountracks and SFX are well done (It was ported from mobile, a damn good port as well) combat can be a bit irritating, simple layout, easy to find currency and references to the band, nice graphics, and even flags marked A VII X (A7X) referencing the band's nickname. Obviously this review isn't much but I wanna get back to playing :P

8/10

I gotta say, I'm dissapointed. It's my own fault really, but I'm dissapointed. Looking at the screenshots, the game looks fairly good. Heck, it looks fantastic. I miss when games had such nice colours in them, and such visually enjoyable environments. Nowerdays, everything seems so dull in an effort to be more realistic. Watching the trailer and seeing that you could pick up coins and stuff made it seem like this game would take some classic elements of videogames and that it could be a lot of fun. Sadly, even though I've only played through one full mission, I'm not seeing it.

A bunch of people are probably already going to hit the thumbs down button on this review because it's negative, and they are fans of Avenged Sevenfold or something and can't accept the fact that they could be accociated with a bad product, but I am a fan of them as well. I'm not a hardcore fan of pretty much anything, but I enjoy their music, at least some of it. But you need to understand, I don't want to give this game a bad review, it's clear that effort went into this, as for how much though... I'm not sure.

The biggest problem, like it is most of the time, is just the gameplay. It's... well... there's nothing to it. Nothing to it at all. Do you like clicking the mouse button? Does that one thing alone make a game fun to you? Then I guess you might like this. But that's really all there is. There's no complex mechanics here for fighting. It's literally just pressing the left mouse button to swing your sword over and over, or the right mouse button to fire a quick magic spell. You can't even aim in this game, your mouse is used for clicking the buttons, and pressing "next" on the text boxes in the game. You do not, you CANNOT, actually aim with it. The mouse cursor is on the screen at all times as well, but that's not a big deal really.

What is a big deal, is the fact that to actually hit an enemy, you need to walk towards it first.

This doesn't sound that bad, but when the only possible way to dodge attacks is to walk AWAY from enemies, this makes it practically impossible to avoid damage a lot of the time, unless you play the game as though you were a manual balloon pump, taking a single swing, moving backwards, and then moving in again to take another single swing, for however long it takes to kill a single enemy, which judging by the enemies in the first level, is about 5 seconds per enemy. With quite a decent number of enemies, combat becomes very boring, very quickly. If it was fun to kill enemies, this wouldn't be a problem. But it's not fun. There's hardly any feedback to your blows, and it just doesn't feel good smacking things around with your sword.

Why is it like this? Why is this game so utterly mind numbingly simple? Well, probably because this is a mobile port.

Yeah, a mobile port. Hopefully this made some of you turn away already, because you know how badly this usually ends up. Mobile ports of games don't really change the gameplay, and since they were made for mobile devices, they are generally VERY simplistic in terms of gameplay. Oh, and it used to have microtransactions, though those are not in here any more. Take that as you will.

So, what exactly does this game offer? It has fantastic visuals, that I can't deny, it has pretty good music from what I can tell, though not all of it really sounds like what Avenged Sevenfold would make. And the voice acting is... non existant. Punishment for death is pretty much non existant as well, as every time you die, you just respawn at a frequent checkpoint with no consequence. Seriously, not even more effort, as enemies do not respawn. Except for the bossses of course. And with no way to dodge attacks other then just... moving slowly... bosses can be somewhat annoying to a degree. As like I said before, you need to move towards an enemy to attack them, and cannot attack while dodging in pretty much any way.

The incredibly simple and obvious mobile port type gameplay is not something that can be overlooked, and leaves this as a very boring and occasionally frusterating game. It's a shame really. I did not have high hopes for this, but it looked good from the screenshots. It ends up being more of a chore than a fun game. If only it was a bit more complex, or at least made it fun to kill things, this could have been good... but alas, it is not.

When I first saw gameplay of HAIL TO THE KING Deathbat, I prayed, "DEAR GOD, please give this game a Steam release!" but this dream seemed SO FAR AWAY that it was almost LOST to me. I was about to grant my hope its REQUIEM when suddenly, A LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN shone at me and I saw it in the Steam store, leaving me with NOTHING TO SAY; a mere SCREAM of excitement was UNBOUND from my lips. I let it download as I went to work, but as I was COMING HOME all I could think of was playing this awesome game UNTIL THE END. So far, the game has met my expectations, despite trading cards being MIA (not for long, thankfully). I look forward to playing it until 4 AM.

I usually write kinda long reviews, but I'll keep this one short. This isn't a good game. It's a pretty lazy port of a mobile game, the controls don't feel good, and the whole thing feels really bland and dull. Yeah, it's filled to the brim with Avenged Sevenfold stuff, but that doesn't make it good even if you're a fan. Don't get this game.

PS: Unholy Confessions is my favorite song of all time, and hearing it play during the most boring and dull boss fights ever is painful.

For those who've played the mobile version and are wanting to know what to expect from the Steam version, the answer is nothing more, nothing less. It's the exact same game in every way. There are no graphical options, the resolution defaults to your desktop resolution. The UI is still decidedly touch oriented, and gamepad support is lackluster requiring you to reach for the mouse every time a menu or pop-up box appears. You won't be playing this on your couch undisturbed. But it is a fairly smooth port that looks and runs about the same as its mobile counterpart. You won't be impressed, nor will you be disappointed.

For those who have yet to play it and want to know what the fuss is all about, the answer is not much. Hail to the King: Deathbat claims to draw inspiration from games like Diablo and Legend of Zelda, yet it sheds some of the most enjoyable elements of those games. All that awaits you here is a linear hack and slash with one button to slash, one button to shoot magic and movement keys. That's it. Equipment is limited to a weapon and items are limited to barely more than health and magic potions. Most of the levels share a similar design, typically a dark gothic appearance and consist of decent textures slapped on low-poly models and maps. The games story is decidedly lackluster and the only time the games music gets good are when an instrumental version of Unholy Confessions plays during the boss battles. Outside of that, it's Psuedo-Retro sounding tunes with Arin occasionally bashing his drums over the top. Hardly a terrible soundtrack, but a waste of what could have been a memorable one.

A rebuttal to the common prasing of the games difficulty: The game gives you five lifes and makes you restart the level should you lose them all. Aside from that, there's no other real consequence. The game isn't hard by any stretch of imagination and offers but a gentle slap of the wrist for repeated failures.

All things considered, the games price reflects the game itself. It's only a few bucks. Feel free to dive in if you're curious, but be forewarned: there's nothing to call home about.

I have a couple of their older CD's but I'm not a what you'd call a "fan", so this review has nothing to do with the band.

There are a few problems as others have noted:

* Escape quits the game without warning.
* It's hard to aim magic.
* Some actions require the use of the mouse, like dialogs and using a potion (?).
* There's no map of the areas.
* It's mostly "hit and run" fighting with no dodging or blocking.

But all that doesn't matter because it's just plain fun. The areas are fun to explore, it's fun to scramble after coins showering out of chests, and fun to run through the spikey logs and acid spewing statues.

The repeatable bonus stages seem to be where you make most of the money so make sure to find the 3 bats in each area to open them up.

Edit: I finished it on normal in about 5.8 hours. Nightmare mode looks interesting enough to replay it and find the few collectibles I missed.

Before i start i would just like to say this was gifted to me by a friend, who knows i absolutely hate avenged. That said i found this to be a pretty good old school, dungeon crawler game. (despite the fact i have to mute it when music plays becasue i hate it and listen to my own) Graphics wise, its meh, but people have said its intentional, so ill let it slide. The combat is basic, but still fun, magic is a pain in the ♥♥♥ to aim though. Overall, id give it a 7/10... now to find a game with slayer music :)

If you're a fan of Avenged Sevenfold, you'll greatly appreciate this game. The music is great, and there's plenty of references to their songs. It's pretty fun, and if you like the genre then you'll like this game. The graphics could've been improved, but I don't mind.

Fun game for A7X fans but nothing major gameplay or story wise.

Great soundtrack, would recommend as a casual game to add to your collection if you're an A7X fan such as myself.

While it is just a port of the mobile game, it is still a good game. Hail to the King: Deathbat has been rated 4.7/5 stars on the Google Play store with over 2000 reviews, do not be swayed by all the negative reviews on Steam. The game is a top down dungeon crawler inspired by games like The Legend of Zelda and Diablo. It is also full of tunes and references to the band and is perfect for any A7X fan.

This game takes me back to the days of the old N64 and gamecube games has the same feel the music is very good(not my fav band but i like them) you can pick this game up fast. not to much depth but just right to play and then go about your day. co-op would have been nice or online death match. but it works, if you like hack n slash give this a try. If you like Avenged Sevenfold its a must have like I said the music was very good!

Well, where should we start? I'm a huge fan of Avenged Sevenfold as a band, and when this game was announced, I was a bit sceptical. A music group creating a video game out of the blue? Sounds a bit off... After playing the game for the first time here on steam, I'd have to say that it's not half bad. Besides the few things that I noted down as my cons:

-Esc key closes the game.
-(Youtube) When I try and record the game and commentate over it, the volume is set pretty loud, even though I turn it down in the mixer.
-No graphical or audio settings.
-gameplay is a bit stale, clicking and turning is the only tactic.
-boss battles are repetitive.

Overall, it's a good game if I was going to play it on my iPad or something, good graphics, fun looting, a few unlockables.

If I had to rate this out of 10...

6.5/10

(Review originally posted at www.apochs.net)

Hail to the King: Deathbat is a PC title that kind of surprised a lot of music lovers. The reason being? Subscience Studios had entered into a partnership with the Alternative/Hard Rock group Avenged Sevenfold to put out a game based on the Deathbat. The band also acts as the publisher of this title. Released the day before Halloween of 2014, it has quickly become one of the more talked about games available for purchase within the marketplace. But is this really a good game, or is it a better marketing piece that requires users to pay to experience?

The story to Hail to the King: Deathbat all stems from the legend of the group’s poor excuse of an Overkill knock-off mascot, The Deathbat. Well, at least that’s what they say. The game follows a king by the name of Andronikos, who banished the darkness from the land and kept his people safe until he was assassinated. He has awakened as a zombie, who is out for revenge against the one referred to as Dark Andronikos, the “new” ruler who appears as the original king in disguise that allows the monsters to roam freely within the kingdom. When you sit down and look at the game, this would make for a good stand alone title, makinh the fact that this is in association with the band Avenged Sevenfold really feelslike something tacked on for notoriety.

Hail to the King: Deathbat handles much like many PlayStation 1 and 2 titles, most notably games like Legacy of Kain with a top-down dungeon crawler vibe a la Diablo II on PC. You start off in one spot and make your way along the linear path to the end of the stage, sometimes having to solve small puzzles like standing on the proper pedestal in a certain order, or perform some kind of fetch quests like recovering certain gems to open up the next doorway and continue along towards the boss of the stage. For the most part it’s fairly simple, though some later levels can be pretty expansive, making the simple obstacle of the stage to advance far more time consuming than it ever needed to be.

And, much like any Action title along these lines, there ‘s to be a certain pattern to attacking, but one that seems to be a bit delayed. Regardless of the weapon you are using, even with magic spells, your foe will be knocked back but require an extra second or two before another hit will do so again. If you’re not privy to this knowledge, you will end up having your ♥♥♥ handed to you more times than you want to admit to. Really, it seems more like an odd delay in queing damage than something deliberately installed in the coding for the sake of difficulty. Sometimes any additional swipes won’t even count, forcing you to have to pace yourself, or run around in circles like an idiot to avoid being hit while spacing out your attacks for optimal damage.

There are ways to help get yourself through the few stages that exist though, which requires a great deal of grinding. Coins are just as important to you in this adventure as health and mana end up being. Within the crypt, which is the game’s introductory stage, you can buy health and mana potions, expand how much of each you can have at one time, as well as buy new weapons. The costs don’t seem much at the time, but for one of the better swords that will maximize how much life and magic at your disposal, not to mention do a little extra damage, you’ll end up shelling out over four thousand coins. Considered the norm is one coin, once in a while finding chests or breakable caskets filled with gold coins valued at ten, you’re better off just hanging out in the early stages grinding away, not to mention exploiting the bonus stages that feature a treasure goblin you can take down for more money aside the lines of free cash in this levels.

You can also change who you play as within the game through the aforementioned crypt. As you progress and complete levels, you will unlock “friends” who are meant to aid you in the quest. These individuals are actually the zombie versions of the members of Avenged Sevenfold. Even if you’re not the biggest fan of the band, some of them do actually seem to have benefits you can use, such as quicker attack times, not to mention a change to the random one or two line voice overs like Andronikos’s constant “Wait, don’t I know you?” inquiry to random foes over and over.

What’s more, there’s plenty of references to the band as far as the overall game design goes. The most obvious are the stages, which are all based around specific song names, such as “Bat Country”. There’s also song references in the bosses found throughout the quest as well, such as The Harlot, which comes from the song “The Beast and The Harlot”. Even the music is taken from Avenged Sevenfold‘s discography, touted as an original eight-bit score that actually just sounds more like a modern computerized version instead of that signature .midi format. Either way, fans of the group will definitely get a kick out of hearing these songs brought to interactive life.

Hail to the King: Deathbat is also a fairly short title. With grinding time included, you’re looking at maybe ten to twelve hours for a complete run through, making this a game you can hammer out over the course of the weekend. But, if you want some additional fun, there is a New Game + mode available upon completion. You keep everything you have already acquired as you go through the world with a different color scheme, fighting against enemies that have a little more life than they did in your first time through. With the right sword, health and mana maxed out, nt to mention remembering the proper attack patterns, and grinding for extra coins when necessary for additional potions and extra lives in the case you die, this new mode is still an easy run through. Of course there’s bonus stages you can unlock and pages to The Book of Mortals to be found, though neither seem to carry over if you take on the additional task.

Overall, Hail to the King: Deathbat isn’t a bad game, but it’s not a great game either. There’s not a lot of levels, though some seem to go on longer than any real need, the hit detection seems a bit delayed, and a good couple hours of game play seem dedicated solely to grinding for gold in order to get what you need to reach Dark Andronikos. There’s very little challenge once you do get enough for a better weapon, not to mention maximize how much health you can have at one time. But, for a six dollar (US) purchase from the Steam marketplace, or less on other mobile device stores like Google Play, you get what you pay for: A good title you can plough through over the course of the weekend and have no regrets about.

Overall score: 6.5/10

I would definitly recommend this game to any A7X fans. There are a lot of references to the band in the game, and the gameplay itself isn't too bad at all. As for any non A7X fans, you might find this game kind of weird as there is a lot of dialog you wouldn't understand, but if you don't care about that, you can easily get a solid 6 or 7 hours out of this game.

As a fan of Avenged Sevenfold, this game is.. well.. good. But first, let me tell you, this game isn't like Skyrim or Dark Souls, so if you're looking for a "real" RPG like Skyrim, Dark Souls, etc, this game is not for you. This game is a nice port from mobile devices (iOS and Android), run smoothly without a problem on my crappy laptop.

The gameplay itself is simple, move with WASD and clicking your mouse to attack and casting spell. The soundtrack is a bit funny, never thought they would make such song. xD Story is "good", not "epic". Anyway, never press esc button, otherwise the game will close instantly. The graphic is.. err.. whatever, it doesn't bother me so much.

If you're a fan of Avenged Sevenfold, and want to support your favorite band, buying this game is a must. But yeah, I won't push you to buy this. If you think this game is a piece of ****, leave it. But if you're not a fan and looking for a simple, adventure game, this game might good for you to grab. It's cheap, only a few bucks tho. Though... I think they using The Rev to make this game more "interesting" for "fanboys" out there.

I'm more of a FPS gamer so I feel that this game is hard, at least for me it is. Looking at the screen caps, I thought it was going to be a simple game that you run through and try not to get hit, like it an ad for the band's music. But this game takes some serious skill. Skill I have not used in a long time. You can tell it's made by a gamer for gamers. You need to be smart about how you attack and how you figure bosses out. Every level is different and a different game plan is needed, which only makes it harder. It's def not a normal FPS PC game. But after the first level my gaming instincs kicked in and I adapted.

Oh yeah! THE MIDI'S ARE AWESOME!

Personally, I found this game amazing. It's a great game for those who are a fan of Avenged Sevenfold as it includes some of their iconic songs when battling bosses. Each level is great in its own way with different terrains, and it nails the feel of 'old school' gaming. But one thing which bothered me slightly with this RPG was trying to target enemies with magic, also the story line was failry short but great at the same time. Obviously everyones attitude towards this game will vary but I think this game was money well spent :)