DungeonBlitz is a free to play browser based MMORPG developed by Blue Mammoth Games.  The founders of the company have worked on popular titles including Cities of Heroes and Global Agenda.  This game is Flash based and has many features of mainstream MMO’s such as chat (with swear filters!), forming parties, and character/weapon customization.    While much of the customizations can be done with gold harvested in game, there is premium content that can be purchased with Blue Mammoth money that is bought with real currency.  I purchased a mount and a pet with Blue Mammoth currency given to me by the developers.  While the mount is attention getting and faster, I found the pet to be absolutely worthless since it does not help attack swarms of enemies coming my way.  The mount does not attack enemies either and disappears once you draw your weapon.  It is good for traveling between towns and jumping over enemies along the roads.

The enemies vary and increase in difficulty as you explore new areas.  You encounter your typical ogres, spiders, skeletons, bats and wisps.  Each dungeon has a boss waiting for you at the end.  Once the boss is defeated, you’ll be ranked on how much treasure you collected, amount of enemies defeated, number of times you died, and how much time you took to clear the dungeon.  

You can go into a dungeon alone or form a party with players and share the load.  If a person is not a team player, they can be booted from the group.   I got invited to join parties almost every time I played.  I think the frequency increased when I was riding my mount or had my pet following me.  While the people are friendly, I preferred to play solo. There is an in-game buddy system where you can request to be buddies with players and chat with them, join them or just know when they are online.  

Other than dungeons, you’ll come across various villages with trainers, vendors and quest givers.  The trainers can make you more efficient with your weapons, luckier with loot finding or better at defending against and attacking enemies within that region.  I trained to upgrade my attacks but never invested in the loot or enemy boosts.  

Like many dungeon crawlers you can get better weapons and armor by simply defeating enemies.  The item and crafting drops are not as frequent as other popular RPG’s out there.  I guess I’ve been spoiled by Diablo III. You will get some gold with every kill and most monsters drop health too.  Later in the game you will get a house with a garden where you can forge gems and hire workers to mine dragon stone for you.  The dragon stone is essential for crafting and upgrading your weapons and armor.    

Before you can enchant your weapons and armor you have to pay some gold to unlock the ability.  Combining crafting items can create gems that increase the gold drop, item drop, attack speed and so on.  Each item has three sockets for customizing.  I seldom had one maxed out since I often found a better item soon after upgrading my current one.

Each item that is equipped changes your character’s appearance accordingly.  The graphics are 2D and cartoony in appearance.  The monsters are not terribly scary but the bosses are intimidating.  The movement animations are good and the world offers plenty of colorful scenery and variety.   This is the most complex Flash based game I’ve played and it works pretty well for a MMORPG platform.  My only complaint is that the areas with forks in the road take a couple of tries to get on the desired path.

Even though the interface can use some tweaking, the controls are pretty solid.  The Flash architecture makes this game portable but sadly, not every device supports Flash.  Even if your tablet can load the game, the next obstacle is controlling it.  Movement is done by WASD and the attacks are done by clicking and using the number keys.  Easy for PC users but crippling for mobile devices.  The boss battles require both strategy and button mashing to defeat them.  Their attacks often have a pattern and when you see an opening, you gotta press buttons like crazy to get every attack in before you die.  If you do die, both your health and the enemy's health gets replenished.

The sound effects are decent and each monster has their own unique grunt, howl or growling noises.  There is no background music so you can play your own music to drown out the sounds of dying foes.

Yes there are dying gurgles of slain monsters but there is no blood or excessive gore.  You can play as a sorcerer in this game so there is magic use. Even if your warrior or rogue does not use magic, it will be used on you.  There are some skeletons and monsters rising from their graves so a couple of points will be docked for supernatural references.  This is not an uncommon theme in RPG games.  Even though my female rogue was fully clothed some of the female characters show off their chest a little bit.

So how does Dunegon Blitz stack up to other MMORPG’s out there?  Graphically it’s unique and stands out compared to other free MMO’s. The weapon and loot system is not as complex as other games but it’s still satisfying. Dungeon Blitz is free, it’s portable and fun.  It does get a little repetitive but for the price, you have nothing to lose by giving it a try.