[rating: 4.5/5]
Infinity Blade 2 Review: Reviews are all about a persons honest opinion of a game and because of that I feel that I have a confession to make, I never played the original Infinity Blade, I know, pretty incredible right, one of the biggest games in iOS history, gorgeous graphics, intuitive controls and from what I read an engrossing storyline all combined to provide a ground breaking game.
But not for me, and because of that I come to Infinity Blade 2 with a slightly different perspective to many of the reviews out there and with some specific questions too.
I’m always skeptical about the claims that manufacturers make about certain aspects of of their games, especially the subjective ones such how incredible the graphics are. However, I must say with Infinity Blade 2 the graphics live up to all the hyperbole that has be written already.
The graphics are simply amazing, from the first cut scenes though to the in game action there is no difference with the depth and detail being enhanced by the striking lighting effects that glint off of slashing swords, dance through the windows of ruins and soak into your battered armour.
One of the great things about this game too is the fact that you can take in all this beauty as between the battles you can peruse the scenery save in the knowledge that you’re not going to be attack as you do so?
Simply put, No! A brief overview of the back story is given to you as the game launches but I found myself more looking at the gorgeous environment than listening to the storyline to be honest. Regardless of that though it’s not to long until you are thrusted into your first battle and all thoughts of a storyline are soon forgotten.
That being said though the story is well presented and especially well acted as cut scenes and battles merge into a seemless journey to which I found myself soon becoming engrossed.
More honesty here, not that I haven’t been up to this point I should add, one of the reason I stayed away from the original Infinity Blade was due to that exact fear, however, if Infinity Blade 2 is anything to go by then I was surely wrong.
Yes, there is a lot of swiping back and forth across the screen but unlike the button bashing games of old there is an actual method the madness. Again, during the first few battles you are taken through the process of attack, parry, block and avoid and it’s reading your enemies next move that will give you your opportunity to take advantage and move in for the kill.
There are a great range of enemies too and some of them are so large they appear to be too large to fit on the screen but despite this there is no slow down and the game continues to crack on a quite a pace.
The other features that move Infinity Blade II away from the average button bashing fighting game are the RPG elements that not only allow you to upgrade you apparel and weapons, which is required if you are to progress without too much difficulty, but also magic which comes in very handy especially in the later battles and can be called upon to be the difference between life and death.
Another great decision by Chair Entertainment Group, LLC was to make the game a universal app for both the iPhone and iPad for just $6.99. It would have been easy for them to split the two apps to make more money but this was not the case. The only downside to this is the fact that there is no iCloud integration to keep your progress in sync between the two devices.
Infinity Blade 2 is a truly engrossing game, did I enjoy the battles? Yes. Did the game-play get a little repetitive at times? Yes. Do I keep coming back for more? Yes. Put that together with the eye-catching graphics, storylines and fluid RPG elements Infinity Blade 2 is clearly setting the standard that everyone has to beat in iOS gaming.
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[rating: 4.5/5]
Mage Gauntlet Review: The game reminds you that long before 3-D, photorealistic graphics came along games were still fun.
Mage Gauntlet {$2.99} is set in a world where evil was long ago defeated and confined by the great wizard Whitebeard. And, wizards and mage guilds defend it to keep it that way. You, however, are an orphaned young girl who doesn’t know anything about your parents or where you come from. You do know, that in a land of magic, you are a freak. Magical things don’t affect you like they do others. You appear to be immune to magic’s power, even destroying magical things just by touching them. Not understanding why you are different, and being shunned because of it, you seek out the great Whitebeard to find answers.
Much of the game is spent navigating passages and swinging a sword to take out monsters and objects in your path. The interface is very simple to control and there’s a limited number of buttons to manage. That keeps the game moving forward quickly. While there’s a fair amount of text boxes to read that could be considered to slow the game down, I found them to be a nice break from constant sword slinging. They are important to the story and improving your skills and equipment.
The graphics are retro Nintendo style, which takes nothing away from the game and add to the classic feel. The sound effects are clean and crisp and the music is 8-bit which is what you would expect for a retro game. The sound effects and music can be turned on or off separately if either one is not your style.
This game did not try to reinvent the wheel, or even improve it, as far as game design goes. But it implemented a time-tested format and provided a new story to explore and adapted it well for the iOS platform. This is a solid app, especially if you’ve got a soft spot for old-school game play.
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[rating: 4/5]
Fara Review: A beautiful, and beautifully done, fantasy role-playing game for iPhone. It is well suited to the small screen and brings all the best features of the genre without overdoing it.
Fara {$2.99} is a fantasy tale of finding yourself on an island stuck in medieval times. You are washed up on a shore to be greeted by a Viking-esque famous swordsman. You get no answers as to what has happened, but do get some instructions on how to proceed. Not having a lot of options, you follow the instructions and set off on your first quest.
RPGs involve large maps to explore and Fara handles this motion quite well. You move to the edge of the screen, and the screen slides to reveal what is beyond. There’s no interruption in play to wait for a new screen to be rendered as in some other games. For the iOS environment, this is quite good, and makes for natural movement through the environment.
Like all good RPG titles, quests introduce you to new environments, new dangers, new skills, and new characters. There is variety in these adventures and a certain amount of choice, so completing the quests and moving on to the next one is compelling.
Fara isn’t the most polished game as far as visual quality is concerned. But it is adequate for the task and doesn’t detract from the game play. The music is unique and has that epic feel that is expected from fantasy titles. The sound effects add to the game as feedback and just general environmental noise. They help with the illusion that you are really in the role.
If you like RPG games, Fara is one to try. It strikes a nice balance between not pushing the iOS platform too far, yet including all the best features of the genre to make for great game play.
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[rating: 4/5]
Pocket RPG iPhone Edition Review: The game is just that – a pocket-sized role-playing game that has all the elements that make the genre fun.
Choose between a Dark Ranger, Blade Master, or Battle Mage for your character; each has a different style of play. The Dark Ranger, for instance, is an archer that begins his quest in an icy land just outside the ruins of castle that appears to have been freshly destroyed. The defeated guards warn you of the creatures nearby and it doesn’t take long to encounter slimy opponents with which to learn your skills.
The difficulty grows throughout the game and requires strategy as well as brute force. There are plenty of looting opportunities to help your progression when not engaged in battle. You will need to have gold to buy better equipment and train in new skills if you want to continue to progress. The opponents get bigger, badder, and quicker, and so must you. Learning how to engage your opponents, which weapon to choose, and deploying them effectively takes expertise that only comes through experience.
The on-screen joystick controls take a bit to master. They seem a bit touchy and easy to get confounded with. A bit of practice and the control gets better, but with the small size of the iPhone screen, it seemed to remain a problem. My fingers always seemed to slide their way off the control area. Switching to the iPad made it much easier. This game is not designed for the iPad (there’s another version that is), and at 2x the graphics were not at their best (but not bad), but the text was much easier to read and the joysticks much easier to control.
The music is appropriately epic and majestic for this type of game. And the graphics are nice and crisp, and pleasantly medieval. Some of the cut scene 3D animations are quite impressive. More of those would be nice. From time to time, the viewing angle can be awkward depending on the setting, but in general it provides a good panorama.
If you enjoy role-playing games, Pocket RPG for the iPhone {$.99} has all the elements you’re familiar with. It holds true to the genre in setting, lore, and interface. This one seems more of a challenge than most, which can make it just the game to sink hours and hours into.
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[rating: 2.5/5]
Conan: Tower of the Elephant Review: Chillingo are hitting the App Store in normal prolific style with Conan: Tower of the Elephant {$1.99}. Don’t turn away yet however, this is nothing to do with the former Governor of California, instead it concentrates on the character he portrayed back in the 1980’s.
Where does the elephant come into the story you may ask, I certainly don’t remember Conan battling one. No, instead the elephant is a reference to a precious stone, the Heart of the Elephant’ that you are challenged to hunt down and retrieve from the Tower of the Elephant.
Conan: TofE is an RPG adventure where the emphasis is on action as Conan hacks and slashes his way through the levels. It’s this hacking and slashing that will not only prevent you from getting killed but also enables you to spend the gold that you gain from your slaughter on improving your characters and earn XP.
The control method for fighting uses a circular pad to swipe over while a d-pad controls your movement. It’s an interesting new control method and while you will find yourself swiping over the screen in a frantic manner it’s really no different to button bashing multiple action buttons which is the usual tried and trusted method for such games. A choice of control methods would have been nice.
The graphics in the game are slightly old school and are certainly not pushing the boundaries that we have come to expect from Chillingo and this is repeated throughout the game where there is a general feeling of just going through the motions.
Not everything in the game is about killing everything in your path, as you do this you will also have tasks to complete that can be managed via the pause menu along with your inventory and a map that I found myself referencing often as I was tasked to find various things and people around the land.
All of these things are explained via a nice tutorial as you start the game which gets you set on your quest and the story is well paced if not particularly challenging.
If you are new to the genre then Conan: Tower of the Elephant would be a good introduction to RPG’s. If you are looking for more of an involved challenge then maybe you should move on to the next game.
As a universal app however and just $1.99 it’s not a huge risk to take and who knows what future updates have to hold!
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[rating: 4.5/5]
Zenonia 3 is a crazy expansive game that sports an awesome story and tons of replay value. This third chapter in the Zenonia series takes an already popular game and improves on its weak points. The game has tons of customization and missions and will not grow old anytime soon.
The control system for Zenonia 3 for iPhone [$4.99] is pretty simple. The game has a ton of options but most of them are menu based so the overall gameplay mechanics are fairly easy to use. You have a left, right, down and up with a button for action and a quick inventory button. The quick inventory button is quite handy as it provides quick access to healing potions and things like that when you are in the midst of a hardcore battle. It came in especially handy for me when I fought the first boss and needed a healing potion. The action button is used for talking to people, moving stones, using tools, picking up items and my favorite, ATTACKING! I played through the game with the melee-based character and loved it. It harkened me back to the old school games like Zelda that I used to play with a new and improved action style with the old school feel. It definitely has a sort of NES feel to me and I love it. One other little hidden gem about this game is that you can fully customize the layout of the controls on the screen by going into the configuration tool and dragging the items around, AWESOME feature! The control never got too complex and the menu system makes it easy to equip and utilize items you find.
This game has all kinds of options when it comes to the items you pick up. You have tier based armor and weapons to go along with all sorts of other items. The menu system contains options like status, equipment, inventory, skill, fairy and quest. Beneath these options are more options and you can be as involved as you want to be with these. I tried both, not using them that much at the beginning and then using them like a mad man part way through the game. I must say, USE THEM! It improves the game and makes the game what it is supposed to be and that is incredibly in depth. I don’t mean in-depth in the sense that you can’t pick up and play but in-depth in that you have tons of options. As you dominate enemies you increase your skills in which you get to divide into four different categories. These different options let you customize your character to your style and that is what this game is all about.
The story is completely immersive and drags you into the world in which your characters are struggling to escape. Like many games, you start as a talented but unseasoned character that develops along the way. There are 227 unique maps and 136 quests that allow your character plenty of time to develop into the warrior you want him to be. The four different types of characters that you have to choose from at the beginning of the game are: Sword Knight, Shadow Hunter, Mechanic Launcher and Nature Shaman. They have done away with the weight and hunger system which is a plus for most. The slot bases inventory management system allows for utilizing all the tools that this game gives you to defeat your enemies and trust me, there’s a lot of them. With Over 200 intelligent monsters, intuitive Fairy synchronization and more mini-puzzles to master this game never gets old and keeps the environments and characters changing. All of this goes great with the immersive story and helps you understand just how deep this game is.
The presentation that this game brings to you is second to none. Sure its not going to wow you with earth shattering graphics but all of the attention to detail and focus on the little things helps you understand just how well put together this game is.
This game has 3 different difficulty modes that allow you to take on a stiffer challenge if you think you’re up to it. There is also a asynchronous online player verse player area that allows you to test your skills against other real life players. This is a huge add for me, someone who loves multiplayer games. This game never loses track of its RPG roots but it deviates at times to add something for everybody. With the head to head mode and tons of achievements via Game Center, you have social tie-ins and head to head action for those that prefer a little of those flavors in their RPG games. The head to head arena is an option though and that is a great idea. Overall the graphics and music are great but come secondary to a great story and incredibly deep gameplay. It is worth absolutely every penny and I know I’ll be playing it for quite awhile.
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UPDATE: Game Center achievements can be posted to Twitter or Facebook from the list in Zenonia 3. Thanks @GAMEVIL
GAMEVIL today announced the availability of HYBRID 2: Saga of Nostalgia for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The game is a sequel to the action role-playing game HYBRID: Eternal Whisper. If you like role playing games and enjoyed the orginal version then the sequel is certainly worth checking out.
The developers sent us a note about the release highlighting the new features and gameplay:
With hundreds of maps, the enormous storyline of HYBRID 2: Saga of Nostalgia picks right up where the original version left off; depicting the sentimental fantasy of the hero “Grey”. A new quest system and a series of new endings now give Hybrid players more than 180 possible quests. The new version also gives players the freedom to travel between different worlds easily. Moreover, with improved controls and 23 beautifully rendered skills, Hybrid players will be fully immersed in Grey’s quest like never before.
“HYBRID 2: Saga of Nostalgia is a great blend of story, visuals and technology.” said Kyu Lee, Vice President and Head of GAMEVIL USA. “This is indeed another great addition to the role playing game lineup that we’ve had the privilege of bringing to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users.”
HYBRID 2: Saga of Nostalgia is available for $4.99 on the App Store for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
Mobile gaming is all about the ability to pick up and play a game and that’s not always possible with an in depth RPG, however, that may have just changed with Caligo Chaser from Com2uS.
You take the roll of a young knight who in order to repay a debt takes on the task of solving cases and builds his skills and abilities. While the story may not be the strongest aspect of the game it’s told with a degree of humor that keeps things moving along well enough. As with most games of this style the story is told via text but with the ability of being able to fast forward through the text it means that you won’t get bogged down.
A virtual d-pad and action button are all you need for the game itself and other than the d-pad being a little unforgiving at times the controls work well. The same can not be said for the navigation menu’s which in it’s current beta release are too small to navigate easily. The graphics are anime style and while they may not be ground breaking they also don’t detract from the game itself while the sound effects and music are your standard RPG variety.
Winning the battles can usually be achieved by your standard button bashing however that’s not going to make your progression through the game. Winning the battles using a variety of attacks, combo’s and speed will improve your ranking and earn you bigger points and rewards. Your rewards and points can be used to for items which in turn can be combined for even bigger, better and more powerful items which as you progress through the land will be more and more essential to your success.
If you’ve played similar games before you are going to be perfectly at home here and yet for a newcomers to the genre the difficulty level increases at a smooth pace which makes it feel the first few quests feel like a basic tutorial.
Caligo Chaser, even in the beta release, is a challenging and engaging RPG and it should ensure the Com2us’s success in the App Store continues where it left off.
Previewed By: Craig Willis
Beta Build Screenshots
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Elven Chronicles
Elven Chronicles [rating: 2.5/5]
Role playing games or RPG’s as they are more commonly known have a love them or hate them reputation with gamers, the ability to immerse yourself in an epic quest of magic and adventure appeals to many, while the thought of investing so many hours of game play for the benefit of finding an ancient jewel or princess can put others to sleep.
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Elven Chronicles is an old school traditional RPG where the you take the role of a young knight in his adventures travelling the world to uncover secrets and defeat evil.
The top-down style map will make any traditional RPG’er feel at home and the controls are simple to learn. Tapping directly on the map will guide Rogan, the knight, around the map while tapping on other items will allow you to interact with them. It all looks very nice although there is nothing ground breaking here in either looks or innovative use of the unique iPhone control options.
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One thing that is frustrating is that your character won’t automatically walk around an obstruction in your path and you can sometimes find yourself stuck behind a tree or fence and given the fact that you’ll have to walk everywhere with no ability to ‘jump’ back to key locations means that you’ll do a lot of walking.
The battle system is the standard turn based format and within a few moments of starting the game you will find yourself in your first battle which is high-lighted by a swirling tornado. The options are pretty limited though, choose magic or might and even a novice will soon have their first battle win on their hands and will find themselves leveling up in no time at all. With that being said though as you progress your control of how your character grows is limited and it limits your ability to grow any real affinity with Rogan.
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The missions are all pretty straight forward and some are monotonous and time-consuming, although keeping track of them is easily done and is only a couple of taps away as is your inventory which you’ll need to keep track of as the are numerous spells, weapons and other items to pick up on your travels.
There are over 20 hours of game play so if you do make it through there is definitely value for money here. For younger players or first time RPGer’s Elven Chronicles is a simple entry into the RPG genre although they may find it a little boring, however with its lack of innovation experienced gamers may want to stay away unless they are looking for some Retro memories of how things used to be!
Price: $1.99
The Good
The Not So Good
Reviewed By: Craig Willis
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