Holy snaps, Never Gone completely took me by surprise because it’s an awesome looking game. It’s a mobile game – which instantly put me off – but the promotional artwork in the press release and the launch trailer for the game are just exquisite. This is a true and through hardcore hack-and-slash game and it was inspired by the likes of Capcom’s original Devil May Cry games.

Zhuhai HippieNetwork Technology’s 2D hack-and-slash, side-scrolling action title recently launched on the app store at the end of June. It rolled out silently without a lot of fanfare, but it’s one of the few games that definitely deserved to get a lot more pops from the media than what it did.

It’s about vampires, demons and humans battling against one another for control. Players will take on the roles of either a Blood Knight or a Dark Sister, crafting up to 200 different items, weapons and armor, as well as unlocking skills and special abilities along the way. The game’s combo system was heavily inspired by the same rapid-succession attack setup featured in Devil May Cry, and it has boss battles and large scale fights equivalent to what you might find in Monster Hunter.

There’s a trailer for Never Gone that you can check out below to give you a brief idea of what the art and gameplay is like.

It’s a dire shame that this is limited to mobile devices. Even more than that, you need a fairly hefty smartphone to run Never Gone – at least 1GB of RAM – due to the fact that the art assets are in HD and if your phone can’t hang with this big boy then you’re going to have to either upgrade or settle for something more casual… like Candy Crush Saga.

The art-style for this game is fantastic. There’s a dark Gothic aesthetic to the designs and characters, as well as grim-dark monsters flooding the stages for players to battle. The anime-style combat animations and lightning fast attacks ensures that the game never slows down and never disengages players from the fight.

You can see another teaser clip below featuring a mad combo from the Dark Sister. Check it out below.

The only thing I could think about when they were rapidly tapping the ‘A’ button on screen was “Someone is going to have to call the police because an index finger is about to commit suicide.”

I just can’t imagine playing a game like this on a mobile phone and having the controls be as responsive as they need to be. This seems like the sort of game where any millisecond delay in input latency and you’re freaking dead.

Hopefully HippieNetwork balls up and ports this game to PC. I’ll buy it in a heartbeat if it makes it to Steam or GOG. Anyway, if you want to torture your fingers and play Never Gone on the iPhone you can download a copy from the iTunes App Store for $2.99.