Review | Heaven vs Hell

LifeisXbox’s Heaven vs Hell review | I’m always skeptical when a mobile game makes its way to Steam. You see, a lot of times, this turns out to be a big mistake because shaking the mobile feeling rarely happens. Last month, Heaven vs Hell, a semi-turn-based action strategy game, was released on Steam. Developed by Neex Games and published by Greenolor Studio, Heaven vs Hell reeled me in with its cute-looking angel and demon graphics, and it actually managed to leave an impression on me, despite still incorporating obvious mobile game mechanisms. Let me tell you all about it, shall I?

We played Heaven vs Hell for 4 hours on PC. This game is also available on Android phones.

What we liked!

• Basic yet satisfying graphics and music: The first thing that will tell you that Heaven vs Hell was originally a mobile game, is the graphical style being used, especially the user interface is a dead giveaway, in my opinion. Luckily, in this case, I didn’t really mind. The art style is very, very adorable. Even though the battlefields themself aren’t anything special (however, they do vary), the characters are looking quite cute. They are just a bunch of loveable peeps. The soundtrack provided for Heaven vs Hell is what I call basic, but it does the job. I didn’t feel like I particularly needed better sounds playing in the back, so an honest fit here.
• Artifacts: Along the way, you’ll be collecting artifacts in Heaven vs Hell. These can be obtained when winning battles. There are a total of 36 artifacts that you can gather in-game, and they offer additional interesting benefits, such as a stick of force that ensure ‘units attack +3%’, or a sweet strawberry that gives units 2% extra health. Oh, and by the way, for you achievement hunters, the Steam game also has 20 achievements for you.
• Enemies and units: At first, the angel side will be your units, and the demons will be your enemies. However, you’ll be able to play as demons later on as well. Anyway, the angels have various units available, such as angels with bows, or wizards that can perform magic attacks. It’s very important to keep in mind that each type of unit has different strengths and weaknesses, and you better use those to your advantage. Then, there are the enemies. There are only a certain amount of levels available in-game, so there isn’t a lot of room but A LOT of enemies, but there is variety, nonetheless. I expected to only encounter demons, but I also ran into zombies, spiders, and even crabs. Of course, there are also bosses, like the first one, which is a sea monster!
• Combat: Naturally, you start at level 1, which is Heaven’s Gate. You have three battles per level: an easy one, a medium one, and a hard one to finish the level. Then there are also boss battles, which you’d always expect to be labeled ‘hard’ but they aren’t! But there is more! You get an extra 50 dungeon levels (called floors), which are basically dangerous battles that will offer you loot and rare artifacts. When battling, you earn coins, gems, and keys. Coins can be used to buy and upgrade your own army and units, while gems come in handy for buying magic spells in the shop. Keys are needed for ‘upgrades’ in-game. For example, you won’t be able to access all spells or units at once; it takes a certain amount of keys to unlock the next spell or unit. When you reach 15 keys, you can even start playing the game as demons instead of angels! Now, for the combat itself: this is turn-based, kind of. Your units can either attack an enemy, block attacks, or teleport to another spot, but this, of course, takes some sort of ‘mana’. So they all have a health bar and a mana bar. This second one has to be fully regenerated before you can perform an attack. This implies that strategy and time management is of the essence in Heaven vs Hell. It happened more than once that I needed to replay a level because I just went into battle without a clear strategy.

Somewhere between

• Mobile mechanisms: As to be expected, I still felt the mobile vibes coming off of Heaven vs Hell. I brought it up before, but the user interface clearly shows the mobile origin of this game. The gameplay itself is very basic, and this also shows it could very easily be played on a mobile device. I’m really glad to see there are no microtransactions to be found here though, and all in all, the mobile mechanisms in Heaven vs Hell didn’t bother me as much as I thought they might!
• Difficulty: As I mentioned before, battles are always tagged with easy, medium, or hard. However, I often found these tags to be inconsistent. It happened that a medium battle was waaaay easier than a so-called easy battle. That shouldn’t be the case, right? The gameplay also becomes quite easy for a few levels once you’ve got a good team, and I often thought about quitting because it felt too easy and too repetitive even.

What we disliked

• Apparently, quite a lot of bugs were present in Heaven vs Hell at first, but they have all been taken care of, so nothing more to add here!

CONCLUSION

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