Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox

This game does not get updated for regular buyers. Only a select few people are allowed to play these supposed updates. Everyone else in Early Access has seen very little progress for the last 2 years. Wait for release, if it will ever come, definitely do not buy this in early access.

Stay away from this game. It has not been updated for two years . Supposedly there is some secret cabal of players who get updates, but those who paid into early access get jack squat. The developer is a thin skinned pansy that bans you from the forums for needling him in the most gentle manner to deliver a quarter of what was promised before we all die of old age.

This game has not been updated for the last 2 years.

The only thing this guy does is come up with excuses on why he hasn't worked on his game in years. Not even worth it, if it was free.

I kickstarted this game years ago based on promises that sounded fantastic. I just tried this game after over a year of not looking at it and it is still the same mess it was last time I tried it, when it was already super late. Even if he ever finishes the game the graphics are so ugly and the engine so out of date it will be unsellable. My advice to everyone, including the developer is to move along and let this die.

It was a tough choice, sadly steam has no "middle" vote. And i cannot recommened the game in this final release. There are a lot of good things if you like old school hard games. But there are four things that are really bad and they really destroy the game. First: Dungeons are all mazes with the same boring hallway after hallway. Every space on the grid is used. So almost no interesting places. All look the same. And there are not many different graphical layouts. You mostly use the map, because you even have a hard time to remember the way back to the entrance. And the dungeons are sometimes way to big and too empty at the same time. Second: NPC are worthless, they have no real purpose. A visit to the city is always only because of the vendors. Every city is the same "placeholder location" like the dungeons. Sometimes some specific shops are not in every city, but that is the only variation. Third: Not much monster variety. The monsters look good and are interesting. But it gets boring fast, because they are only a few different monster types. Fourth: The thing that let me stop playing. Bad balancing. At the start of the game a few years back the balancing war way better then now. The later implement item system was a good implementation, but really poorly balanced. Example: You find a good weapon and onehit almost every enemy the next hours till you level up enough (the monster level up with you too) and the weapon is outdated. Then the same happens again. Before the new item system you had never such "wow i am god" and "wow i cannot beat anything" moments. The game was harder back then and every new item has given you only a small improvement. You were happy about every piece that made you stronger. Not like now, at which only one item can make you superman. Conclusion: The game has a big potential. The promise is interesting. But it would be a way better game, if it had no "always the same looking and it is infinite" and more "Wow, the last 30 dungeons was really fun and there is a new monster type that i have not seen yet". This game is the best example, that quantity is never better then quality. The developer is a really nice guy and he is full invested at his game. But it sadly get boring soon, because of the above four reasons.

I really couldn't get into this game. I really really tried. I know this is going to be unfair because it is listed as 'early access' but it's been in early access for 3 years and feels really barebone to me. These are all my opinions but I could not play past 1.5 hours because I got REALLY bored. In fact, the screenshots really make the game seem cooler than it really is because the world and moving around in the world was uninteresting. I can't put into words why but I did not feel really compelled to explore. When I died I did not really feel compelled to jump back into it and try exploring elsewhere. Maybe my expectations were wrong and my judgement is unreasonable as a result of it. However I did not like the game for my opinions stated above so that's that.

Its a pipedream that is never, ever going to happen, despite the developers and a few rabid fans protesting.

5 years in Early Access, Malevolence has been released as version 1.0! Normally I would say yeah!! but I have reservations about it being released. I can't help but feel that this game has been rushed out to be able to say "it took a long time but we finally arrived!" After playing for a while (character is close to being level 11), my conclusion is that this game is not a complete product and the author is saying that whatever is missing is coming out as a dlc ! The greatest strength of Malevolence are the dungeons which are, to a certain point, fun to explore, they are huge (45 x 45), multiple levels, and contain a variety of props to interact with (boxes, chests, fountains - with mostly negative effects, and more). But there are also so many traps that you disarm a trap and move one step only to have another trap. The disarming method is original but quickly becomes annoying as you have to do it so many times. And this does not include the traps that requires a spell to disarm. In fact, there are by far more traps then monsters in a dungeon floor! Another problem are your torches: they don't last very long, and time is used as you are fighting a monster yet you can rest for 2 hours and your torch still has the same amount of use left. If you light a torch, save the game, load your game, the torch is gone. Still the dungeon can be interesting to explore until the traps gets to you. The other part of the game is the great outdoor! Boring! Go up one hill, down in a lake, up a hill, (repeat), desert biomes have lakes and rain. The third aspect of Malevolence are the town or city. You can sell almost anything provided the town has the proper shop. Guild quests are absent (coming in a future DLC), crafting (DLC) Let's talk a little about your stats: the basic str, dex, cons, etc... keep changing but not progressively. They sometimes go up but mostly down. I am at 0% str and cons, 45% charisma and so on and how is that helping me and how did I get there! Further more you also have things like "Thorough" = 0, "Steve Irwin" = 3, "Parfait" = 3 and so on! Please help me here, what is a stats called Steve Irwin??? I know Tasseloff from the Dragon Lance series so it must be my disarming skills, bust I'm not sure. And Parfait is French for "perfect"... perfect in what?? And what is "Horny Swordsman"??? So, when I look at my character page, the only thing I know is that I am at level 10, close to 11 and I have no absolutely no idea what advantage I get by going up a level! To me, the author is just trying to be "original" in his way of establishing the character's progress which is a bugger for me! Now I will not talk about the music which can not be turn off nor can you reduce the volume! I was left with great deceptions on seeing that not much has change since I played it 5 years ago and waiting for a dlc that might make it what we expect from Malevolence is not honest to the supporters of an early access game. At this time, I will not recommend this game, specially at the price it is currently selling for. There are great games out there with more content, better graphics, more enjoyable at a lesser price. Sadly so!