Developer Orz Games is clearly a big fan of PopCap’s work (aren’t we all?). Leave Devil Alone takes PvZ's gameplay and reskins it, swapping a cute take on western horror-folklore with a cute take on eastern horror-folklore.

There’s an attempt at a light-hearted plot, but I really have no idea what’s supposed to be going on thanks to a mixture of bizarre (but charming) cut-scenes and some epically poor translation (more on which later).

Plot doesn’t really matter here, though. It’s all about strategic gameplay, as you drag and drop your defences to halt successive waves of enemies advancing in four rows from the right of the screen.

Using a regenerating monetary system (which you harvest yourself) you must purchase turrets, shields, and traps in the shape of various fantastical beasts. You can purchase additional defensive measures in between levels, which include upgradeable magical attacks.

Confronting its demons

Leave Devil Alone ramps up the challenge surprisingly quickly, so you have to learn to establish a decent early defence lest you find yourself overrun come the manic final wave.

While the tutorial is pretty effective at communicating the basics, it has to be said that the translation is a bit of a problem elsewhere in the game.

The broken English is largely charming and often ignorable, but it tends to drift into the nonsensical, meaning you don’t always get all information you need.

There are other issues that spoil the package somewhat, such as a slightly unwieldy defence menu. It’s fine early on, but it soon gets to the point where you can’t fit all of your defences onto the one screen. The scrolling system isn’t quite good enough, particularly in the heat of battle.

There are also one or two technical issues, such as the screen whiting-out when you quit out and re-enter. I also couldn’t get one of the units (the level-two sand monster) to materialise when selected, which was a considerable blow to my progress.

Leave Devil Alone is a fine way to fill the time waiting for Plants vs Zombies to arrive, and some may even prefer its slick eastern-underworld setting. However, poor translation, technical issues, and one or two gameplay quirks mean that we’ll continue to keep an ear to the ground for PopCap’s polished original.

(From:http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk)