About Darkblood, the first 10 levels there is some zako in it, but then its 20 levels where you're fighting goblins and more goblins until you get back to zakos again. I have been playing this game recently and yeah it kind of sucks to get to level 30, but its not very hard, you just need to play for a couple of weeks though, the stress system limits you in what you can do.
Update: it actually sucks till 32, at that point they start throwing human enemies against you, they seem to be palette swaps of the player characters you can create, well initially but they do use different armor later on. Still around level 11-32 is alot of work, and alot of tedious grinding of goblins and whatever the hell the next tier of goblins are called.