Funny Hell – 2.99 (Bulkypix + Fazen)

Real time base defense games have generated quite a following in the iOS gaming world. Cartoon Wars was my, and probably a whole lot of other’s, first foray into this genre. Even though there’s not a whole lot of variety throughout the genre, they really seem to sell well, and are almost always fairly addicting. I recently was able to get my hands on Funny Hell, developed by Fazen and published by the ever popular Bulkypix.

Like others in the genre, Funny Hell has you sending out various characters to battle the enemy. However, in Funny Hell, you’re given a mission or two at the beginning of each stage, which does set it slightly apart from other titles. The first 10 of 50 levels, that are split up across 5 different worlds, each leading you closer to the center of ’hell’, and each having an available 3 ‘skull‘ ranking, are set up like tutorial levels, adding another character to the line-up, and getting you acquainted with the enemies, and gameplay in general. Most of these levels are completed when you send out a certain number of characters, or kill a certain amount of enemies. After this, the gameplay picks up fairly quickly, with the first real stage’s mission having you survive for 3 minutes and 30 seconds, which, believe it or not, can prove to be quite the challenge, not often, but sometimes to a frustrating extent. There are more of these mission type levels as you progress throughout the game, having you save up a certain amount of coinage, or kill a certain amount of one type of enemy. It does add some extra strategy behind the already fairly strategic gameplay. Each of your characters has a certain ability, generally either shooting a projectile, or having a strong attack. There are some which both fire projectiles and melee attack, but cost more as well. You will need to go through some trial and error figuring out which enemies require which units to be sent out to ensure the most possible damage is done, but once you figure it out, deciding when on the battle field they should come into contact with each other also becomes part of the strategy. You’re able to build an offensive attacking stone type character on the side of your base, which tosses projectiles out, but only within a certain range. If you’re having trouble with some enemies, sometimes waiting for them to make it down towards your base so that you can also attack with that stone character is the best course of action. It makes for some challenging, and entertaining gameplay.
There is no upgrade store, which is kind of upsetting, but as you progress through the game,
Funny Hell is controlled like most other base defense titles, tapping on the units you want to send out, which are located at the bottom of the screen, and swiping anywhere else on the screen to scroll left and right. There are also coins which pop up randomly as you are battling, and they bounce along the ground, disappearing fairly quickly, and are picked up by tapping on them. This might become a problem for some gamers, because as the coins are bouncing, sometimes in the heat of the moment, you can wind up trying to tap on a coin, and end up tapping on a unit to be sent out since they are directly beneath the bouncing coins, and when it happens, it can be incredibly frustrating.
The graphics and animations are fantastic. Graphics-wise, the game is fairly cartoony, and very vibrant with loads of color. The character and enemy designs are done very well, and fit the extremely vibrant cartoon looking environments to a “T”. The animations for attacking, movement, falling objects, coins bouncing around, death, they’re all fantastic, really adding quite a bit to the entertainment. The BGM that’s included with the game brings it all together to create one hell of a great base defense game.
Funny Hell is definitely a release that deserves it’s $2.99 price tag, and then some. Being universal, and coupled with incredible replay value, emphasized by the addition of GameCenter leaderboards for Coins, Killed Monsters, and Skulls, along with an incredible 60 achievements to try and unlock. There’s quite a bit of challenge here, especially if you go ahead and try and grab 3 skull rankings on each stage. Having missions for each of the stages does bring some originality to the game, which is great to see within the base defense genre. It looks like December is a great month for Bulkypix publications. Fazen has created an extremely polished, and well produced title, and I can’t wait to see what they bring iOS gamers in the future!


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