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Honestly, there’s not much a rhythm game has to do in order to make me happy. A nice selection of tap-friendly tunes, decent UI, and adequate replayability features are the extent of my wishlist. For its part, O2Jam U [ Free ] manages to satisfy two of those three criteria, making it a satisfactory addition to the genre in my book. More importantly, O2Jam U manages to unveil a new wrinkle with the inclusion of freemium elements, a somewhat unique addition to song-based rhythm games.

If you’ve ever played a rhythm/music title on iOS you should be familiar with the gameplay in O2Jam U. Simply put, select one of the 16 currently available songs and earn the highest score possible by tapping out notes coming down the screen. Play results are scored on a grading scale and gems are awarded which can be used to purchase different tile patterns for each song. The tile patterns are a nice way to extend the life of each song, but I didn’t like the fact that patterns weren’t one-time purchases for songs.

Song-wise, you can expect a lot of K-Pop and other similar beat-heavy tunes. Obviously, musical preferences vary greatly, but I thought the song selections were definitely appropriate and lent themselves to a fun experience. Thankfully, folks can simply download the app for free in order to check out the musical variety.

O2Jam U also offers a multitude of standard options in addition to pattern changes. For example, each song has three difficulty settings, as well as the option of playing with 2, 4, or 5 rows of scrolling notes. There’s also a speed option, for those wanting a bit more hectic experience. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking as far as features, but it’s nice to see all the different options consolidated in one game, even if the overall UI seems to be a little peculiar (I imagine due to something being lost in the English translation).

While the UI’s quirkiness can somewhat be looked past, what’s less acceptable is the poor optimization that seems to permeate across all iOS devices. Selecting songs and navigating through menus almost always leads to slowdown and/or temporary screen freezes. I assume this has to do with the online infrastructure that the app hooks into (the game is a straight port of a PC title). Regardless, the performance issues put a significant damper on the overall experience, especially when it occurs mid-game (although some slowdown appears deliberate and not necessarily performance-based). Another significant side effect of the online system is a requirement to have an internet connection in order to play.

Seeing how O2Jam U is a free title, folks may be wondering about the freemium/IAP situation. Surprisingly, the system is quite fair. Upon first launching the game, you’ll be given 100 points which are used to play “paid” songs. Selection-wise, 8 of the 16 available tunes are free with the other half cost 3 points each. As you can imagine, the 100 points will go a long way towards replaying those 8 songs and when your point total eventually declines, you will slowly regenerate a limited number of points over time (the IAP for additional points is also reasonably priced).

Slowdown issues aside, I found O2Jam U to be a fun little music game. There are enough initial points to sample all the songs, and the decent amount of options ensures some replayability. Song selection may be a bit sparse, but that can easily be fixed with future support. There are some folks that will find the network requirement and performance issues to be deal breakers, but for everyone else, O2Jam U is worth at least a try.

TouchArcade Rating:

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I love the App Store. On a single platform, I can draw from a well of my favorite classics like Doom [ $4.99 ], and try out thousands games like N.O.V.A. 3 [ $6.99 ] that take their inspiration from popular console and PC games but offer an experience tailor-made for tablets and smartphones. But what I enjoy most about the App Store is the chance to drop a buck or two on quirky titles you don’t see on any other platform. Take Rocket Fox [ Free ], for example, a new puzzle/platformer game starring a fox named Guy who loves fireworks. He loves them so much that he’s not content to admire them from afar like your average Fourth-of-July party-goer. No, Guy likes to hop aboard rockets before they blast off and ride them skyward. Of course, what goes up must come down, and that’s where you come in.

Each level begins with Guy slipping inside a large flower while a counter ticks down from three. Once the clock strikes zero, the camera flips to an overhead view, the flower bursts open, and Guy, mounted on a rocket, shoots up to the clouds. Seconds later, his rocket blows apart in a torrent of colors, and Guy begins to freefall. From here, you tilt your iPhone to guide Guy away from the hard earth and watery depths, and toward trampoline-like flower pads. Flower pads come in different colors and designs that denote their functions. Red flowers give you a slight boost, blue ones throw you up even higher, and yellow pads give a breathtaking view of surrounding topography. Flowers can only be used once before withering away, leaving you to find the next one by the time Guy starts hurtling back down once again.

Because flower pads sit on lands of different heights and distances, you have to choose which flower pads to land on and in which order. Do you use a yellow pad first, which will send you soaring high and afford a breathtaking view of the sprawling topography? Or should you leave it and bop around the red pads first, since those ones won’t lend enough momentum to cross the water to the other isle where more flowers await? Other levels ask you to fly high enough to drop through flower rings, find and land on a level-winning finale flower, use flower rockets that fire off explosives on impact, and more.

The appearance of rocket flowers brought about a distinct and pleasant shift in Rocket Fox’s pace. Rocket flowers don’t shoot arbitrarily; an arrow blinking in one corner reveals which direction the rocket will fly when you land. Rockets destroy the first flower they come into contact with, but they also cause closed flowers to blossom into new launching pads. Figuring out which flowers to clear away so rockets wouldn’t blast them into charred petals en route to closed pads I needed to crack open, coupled with making split-second decisions during brief airborne periods and the addition of new elements like rockets that send you shooting forward, shifted the game’s pace from soporific to an intense brainteaser that rewards quick thinking and skill.

Upping the tension and satisfaction of a good plan coming to fruition are a few risk-reward factors thrown into the mix on each level. Players are graded according to factors such as the time they took to finish a level. As you grow in skill, you’ll find yourself tempted to make use of the dive button in the lower-right corner of the screen. With a touch, Guy stiffens like an arrow and streaks toward the ground headfirst, giving you no further chance to alter his direction but shaving several seconds off your record once you grow comfortable enough to use it from great heights. That, and it just reeks of style.

Another temptation comes in the form of Fox Fire, colored flames that spit out of flower pads each time you collide with one, swirling around Guy like leaves caught up in a gust of wind. You can tap flames to collect them, then use them to buy items that slow your descent, increase your buoyancy, and grant you a second chance should you accidentally take a nosedive into earth or sea. But, each item lasts only a single turn. Whether you win on your next turn or slip up and have to try again, you lose your power-ups. More importantly, collecting flames means tearing your eyes away from pressing concerns like landing on flowers instead of carving fox-shaped holes in the ground.

Fortunately, flames don’t disappear, so you can wait until you have more airtime than usual (say, after hitting a yellow pad) to frantically claw at your screen then give your attention back to Guy’s disagreements with gravity. And, although items do help, I never once felt like I needed one, even on the more trying stages. The only significant mark against Rocket Fox is that most levels must be solved in a particular way. Perform one move out of order and you’ll likely run out of flower pads and end up back at the retry screen. That wouldn’t be so bad, but the game takes several seconds to load between attempts, then makes you sit through Guy’s three-second launch countdown, totaling to almost ten seconds of downtime between each gaffe. You’re bound to play later levels many, many times before completing them, so keeping relevant data loaded in memory to expedite attempts would have been welcome.

Don’t think twice about tagging along with Guy as he journeys to and from the stars in a journey crafted from charming storybook graphics and a unique twist on puzzle games that only a platform as diverse as the App Store can provide. Rocket Fox is free with a single $1.99 unlock, but by the time you hit that pay wall you’ll know for sure whether or want you go the rest of the way. I think you will.

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Punch Hero’s [ Free ] moment of brilliance occurs when it has you against the ropes. You’ll come to a point during the game’s eighteen-bout arcade mode where progression seems well-nigh impossible. Down to a trickle of health, you will think about throwing the towel in, taking an uppercut to the chin so you can earn some gold and turn the thing off.

But you won’t. Instead, you weave under a vicious right hook and in cinematic slow motion land your own devastating punch. Your opponent is dazed. Jab, jab, jab. Right in his big, stupid face. He comes to, and, mad as hell, throws an uppercut. You weave under it and this time, in similarly cinematic slow motion you throw a left hook. The knockout punch. “Oh my God,” you’ll probably say while your cats look on in shame.

This game’s comeback KO is one of the most gratifying skill-oriented moments the iOS platform has to offer. It is akin to the feeling one gets when cracking a thousand on Super Crate Box’s [ $1.99 ] Construction Yard, or killing your first Big Purple Freak in ZiGGURAT [ $0.99 ]. And while the skill ceilings of those games look down upon Punch Hero’s from high above, high-fiving each other in the Exosphere of Amazing, it does not matter one bit. That moment makes you feel as if you are awesome, thus, you are awesome.

It’s a glimpse of the boxing game the App Store deserves. A glimpse because for that highest of highs, it is a ridiculously vertiginous ascent from the usual grind the game tries so hard to put the player through. Remember the aforementioned “eighteen-bout arcade mode?” If you want to see that through without succumbing to in-app purchases, you are going to have to replay most those fights again and again, ad infinitum.

Despite vague aesthetic similarities and a similar, mostly innocent (more on this later) propensity for racial stereotyping, Punch Hero is nothing like Punch-Out!! Whereas Punch-Out!! is a timing-based puzzle game, Punch Hero is, hey, a boxing game.

Opponents have no patterns as far as I can tell, so you are left with the game’s very simple tap-and-swipe controls, along with the knowledge that the next opponent you face is going to hit harder and have a larger pool of health. Which would be fine if all it took to trudge your way to the top was your wits and reflexes, but it’s not.

No matter your skill, you are going to get hit so hard, will face opponents so resilient, that you will need to upgrade your skills and gear using the gold doled out to you at the end of a match, or via IAP. Most items that actually buff your stats are nearly unattainable without spending actual money, while attribute upgrades the average player will need to complete the arcade mode take dozens upon dozens of monotonous hours grinding out gold to acquire. Or, you know, you could just buy them.

When microtransactions and in-app purchases became the monetization method of choice for many social and mobile developers, the worry was that “pay-to-win” would become the norm. Punch Hero utilizes a “pay-to-compete” system so unfair as to require an unfun punishment should the player not want to spend actual money.

A bit of a non-controversy occurred when another outlet’s reviewer noticed that, among all of the cultural stereotypes presented in Punch Hero, the African American fighters were portrayed most offensively. The writer’s casual description of the “full-lipped, wide-eyed ‘Sambo’ look” even fails to mention that the standard “black male” face is also called “Full Lips” in the game’s shop.

Punch Hero developer Johnny Oh, who seems like a really sweet guy, replied to the review, asking for feedback on how to change the black fighters to make them less offensive. It was an honest response to the kind of inadvertent racism that really can only be replied to with a sigh and a shake of the head. It’s a product of cultural detachment, rather than anything mean-spirited. By contrast, Punch Hero’s invisible paywall feels terribly mean-spirited.

It’s an unfortunate decision that’s marred what is otherwise a pretty good game of boxing. Groundwork for iteration, then, rather than something I’d recommend this go-round. That’s fine. As for me, I think I’ll go ahead and delete the game from my phone, hanging onto the memory of that one wonderful high.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Despite the majority of the gaming world wishing otherwise, Nintendo seems pretty dead-set in not bringing any of their beloved properties to other platforms. Which means, if you’re standing in line at the bank and get a sudden hankering for some Mario Kart, you’re mostly out of luck if you aren’t sporting Nintendo hardware.

However, video games are an iterative pastime, and Mario Kart is far from the only kart racer around. On the iOS platform, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing [ $1.99 ] is widely considered to be the finest answer to Mario Kart currently available, and we’d tend to agree. It pits a cast of Sega characters against each other in the power-sliding, weapon-laden, arcade-style racing we’ve come to expect from a kart racer, and it does it extremely well.

Throw in fantastic course designs, a full single-player campaign and challenge mode, and both local and online multiplayer options and you have a seriously good kart racer, even with the lack of everyone’s favorite plumber.

Over the weekend, Sonic All-Stars Racing got just that much better with its first significant content update since being released in June of last year. The big ticket items in this update are two brand new characters: Shadow the Hedgehog and Knuckles the Echidna. These are two extremely popular characters from the Sonic universe and are a great inclusion here. In addition to the two new characters there is also a brand new track to race on.

The other big feature in this latest update to Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is native video-out support either wirelessly using AirPlay or through an HDMI hookup. I checked out this feature back at GDC and can say that his game in particular scales up to the TV screen extremely well. Finally, iCloud progress saving has been implemented as well as some UI changes including character faces on the mini-map during single player and Game Center avatars for when playing online.

If you’ve got kart fever on-the-go and don’t have a spare copy of Mario Kart handy, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing should do the trick and is an even better game now thanks to the latest update.

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While dwindling on consoles, RPGs of all shapes and sizes are flourishing on mobile devices. There have been some truly creative and unique RPGs released in the past few years, and perhaps none is capable of tugging at your heartstrings and pushing you to fight just one more battle than Game Stew Studio’s new iOS game, Tower of Fortune (ToF) [ $0.99 ].

Like Puzzle Quest and Sword & Poker before it, ToF infuses a basic role-playing game with mechanics drawn from a completely different genre entirely—in this case, slot machines.

The premise of ToF is pretty simple. You’re a hero. You’ve a lady to rescue. You need to gather coin, get loot, and defeat evil incarnate. A “game of the year”-winning story, this is not, but the simple framework provides enough context to the game to make it work.

Before you even get to the gameplay, though, you’ll be hard-pressed to ignore ToF’s eye-catching retro art style and ear-pleasing chip tunes. Both the game’s quirky, NES-era visuals and strong selection of catchy music make the game visually and aurally simplistic and yet undeniably charming, like the greatest Gameboy games of yore.

Presentation is all well and good, of course, but how does the game actually play? Surprisingly well. ToF succeeds in blending the requisite RPG features with the mechanics of a slot machine, albeit with only one truly noteworthy quirk.

Currency is central to ToF, and it’s what powers all of the game’s subsequent systems. To progress through the game’s world, you’ll need coin. To battle, you’ll need to spend (and potentially lose) coin. To upgrade your hero, you’ll need coin. To heal after battle, you’ll need coin. To buy items… you get the point.

There are two ways to earn coin in the game: through fairly nonintrusive microtransactions or by fighting monsters. Given that the combat is the star of the show, most will be content to get their hands dirty and earn money the hard way, and it’s not hard to do so willingly as prices aren’t as exorbitant as they are in similar games.

This is where the game’s slot system comes into play. When you enter combat, you’ll be greeted with a simple one-line, three-reel slot machine. The reels are filled with icons that represent doing damage, taking damage, gaining XP, and gaining coin. Whatever icon appears on the left-most reel determines what happens during the turn, and the more like icons matched, the more significant the effect. In addition, the effect is multiplied by repeat matches, so if you get XP one spin and XP again the next, you’ll get an XP bonus.

One more level of both gambling and depth is added to the battle system by way of a simple “Bet” button. Prior to a spin, you can bet your coin to enhance the effects of the spin. Every effect is doubled after a bet, so you’ll be crossing your fingers in hopes of avoiding taking damage icons and screaming in joy when you hit a full three-match of XP or coin. This becomes critical as bad guys get harder and have more health.

I’m not much of a gambler, and random elements in games tend to annoy me to no end—here’s looking at you, Crisis Core. But after hours of playing, I’ve found that ToF manages a fine balance between feeling cheated and feeling lucky, and hard battles are nail-biters as a result. As you begin to fight more difficult monsters, the high wrought by a good string of luck and the stomach-sinking disappointment wrought by a bad one make the game quite compelling.

In practice, the system works surprisingly well. This is largely thanks to the game’s simple loot and upgrade systems, which allow you to upgrade your character periodically with simple items and stat boosts, you can do a decent amount to prepare for battle and tip the tide in your favor.

If there are any complaints to be had, they would revolve around the game’s sense of progression. Progression is a critical component of any RPG: it’s what keeps the genre’s fans playing, even when everything else—from storyline to graphics and beyond—may falter. ToF struggles a little bit in this regard, as progression is too random and too fleeting to feel rewarding in the long run.

Moving through the game from area to area requires paying escalating “unlock” fees. This means that you’ll need to amass a substantial purse. This in-and-of-itself wouldn’t be that bad, but when combined with the game’s rougelike treatment of death, you can find yourself frustrated.

Should you die, you’ll lose all the equipment, levels, and upgrades you earned as you play—you keep only your unspent coin. As a result, some may beat the game in a day while others could theoretically play it indefinitely and never see the end.  This near-complete randomness makes it hard to feel any sustained, substantial, and satisfying feelings of progression.

In spite of this issue, though, the game never stops being fun to play. The game’s ability to produce such a wide spectrum of emotional highs and lows is no small feat for a game, and additional elements, like the game’s fun mini-quest system that introduces small objectives that reward XP when completed, do wonders at keeping things fresh.

Ultimately, Tower Of Fortune may not have the progression elements, compelling story, or depth of its meatier RPG brethren, but it has all the stats, levels, loot, triumph, and tragedy a RPG fan needs for on-the-go gaming.

TouchArcade Rating:

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It was in July of last year that SNK Playmore brought their classic fighting game franchise to iOS with The King of Fighters-i [ $4.99 ], and it was the only game that could really stand up to the then current standard for touch screen fighters Street Fighter IV [ $4.99 ], and in many ways it even exceeded it. Which series you prefer is largely a personal preference thing, but I always felt that The King of Fighters-i edged out Street Fighter IV in overall quality and playability.

The problem was that by the time The King of Fighters-i hit the App Store, the superior sequel to Street Fighter IV had already been out for a month. It was called Street Fighter IV Volt [ $6.99 ] and it came packing everything that made the original game so great plus additional characters, new features, and most importantly online multiplayer. The online matchmaking worked surprisingly well in Volt, and despite The King of Fighters-i being absolutely fantastic it was still just a single player- or Bluetooth multiplayer-only game, and online battling was the new hotness.

Now nearly a year later SNK Playmore is taking a page out of the Volt handbook with the just-released The King of Fighters-i 2012 [ $6.99 ]. This latest entry in the iOS KOF series contains everything from the first game that was great in addition to – much like the release of Volt – new characters, new features, and online WiFi multiplayer. Since basically everything from the first game is included in the 2012 edition, you might want to read our original review of KOF-i as well as the details of its extensive update to get the nitty gritty on the game.

As for what’s improved in The King of Fighters-i 2012, for starters the roster has been significantly expanded from 20 playable characters to 32. Art of Fighting, Psycho Soldier, Kim and Ikari are the 4 new teams of 3 that make up the new additions. Also, there are 2 more characters – Nests-style Kyo and Classic Iori – available as DLC for $1.99 each. These are alternate versions of existing characters, and they’re certainly entirely optional purchases, but it will be interesting to see if more characters end up coming down the road and if they’ll be paid or as a part of free updates.

The single player part of the game includes everything that was in last year’s version: an arcade ladder in 3v3 team battles or 1v1 flavors, an endless survival mode, and an excellent training mode. The lengthy Challenge mode from the original game returns, with some new challenges thrown in for good measure. A brand new single player addition to KOF-i 2012 is a Time Attack mode. Here you must battle through 10 straight opponents as quickly as possible, with a Game Center leaderboard tracking your best overall time.

Time Attack is a nice addition to an already great single player offering in The King of Fighters-i 2012, but that’s not why we’re here. We came for the multiplayer. Naturally, the Bluetooth local multiplayer mode from the original game made its way into 2012, and remains a fine option for squaring off against a buddy in your same vicinity. However, the real draw in the new online WiFi multiplayer mode.

The online portion for KOF-i 2012 works about how you might expect if you’re familiar with Volt – that is, it’s pretty good but not great. Naturally there is a bit of lag at times, but nothing too earth-shattering. Finding a match can also take a long time but I imagine that will clear up a lot as more people get the game. When talking about real-time multiplayer on a mobile device like the iPhone, it’s hard to expect perfection. For what it is the online matchmaking in KOF-i 2012 is really fun for people who get tired of fighting against the CPU all the time. With the right expectations, it really is a killer feature of the new game.

So, with a large portion of The King of Fighters-i 2012 being nearly identical to last year’s release, whether or not you should buy this new edition will hinge on how important new characters and online play is to you. With a whopping 12 new fighters added to the roster, I think it’s worth upgrading just for that, and people in our forums are totally digging the new version too. Along with a decent online offering and KOF-i 12 is likely a worthy upgrade for fans of iOS fighters. One thing is for sure though, Street Fighter IV Volt now has some serious competition, and it looks like the future is pretty bright for fighting games on the App Store.

TouchArcade Rating:

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We’ve been following F5 Games’ upcoming social RPG Pocket Heroes since we first saw it back at last year’s E3. The idea behind Pocket Heroes is to let players around the world build up a party online and play through an RPG-style game, taking turns asynchronously. For simplicity’s sake it’s been described as Dungeons & Dragons meets Words With Friends, which sounds like an exciting proposition.

In early April we got an update on the progress of Pocket Heroes which pegged the release date as May 10th for a price of $1.99. Well, in a new post on the developer’s website we get a bit of a good news/bad news scenario. The bad news is that Pocket Heroes won’t be hitting its intended May 10th launch date, but on the bright side the team feels confident that they will still see a release sometime during May or shortly after.

The good news is that the extra time has gone into making some significant improvements to where Pocket Heroes was previously at. First off is a huge overhaul of the UI, including getting rid of the placeholder font seen in the game’s preview trailer, which was a point of contention from some. As you can see in the following screens, the new UI is much more visually appealing while also allowing you to do more. It will also change dynamically to display the pertinent information to whatever you’re currently focused on.

Also seen in the screens above is the new chat interface in Pocket Heroes. It drives me nuts when online multiplayer games – especially turn-based ones – don’t have some sort of chat functionality. In an RPG however, discussing situations and strategizing with your party members will likely be a crucial component of success, so it’s nice to see it being handled well here.

Besides the new chat and UI work, the team has also been endlessly tweaking, balancing, and fleshing out the many details in Pocket Heroes to make sure it’s the best it can be. They sound confident that the game will be launching in May, and we look forward to checking out the full version then. Be sure to hit up our forums for even more discussion on Pocket Heroes.

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It was just last Wednesday that we expected a huge update for Junk Jack [ $2.99 ] to be hitting soon, and in this case soon meant over the weekend. This massive content update gives the game long-awaited Universal support, and let me tell you it is a dream playing on the larger screen of the iPad. Unfortunately though, there’s no Retina support, but it still looks quite good with its simplistic pixel art style. Check out the new trailer showcasing the version 1.1 update features.

Universal support is just one of the many, many new things in this latest Junk Jack update though. More enemies, items, an entire farming system, tons of food recipes and a ridiculous amount of tweaks also grace the game. You can check out the exhaustive list (literally eye-tiring) in the App Store description, but all you really need to know is that Junk Jack continues to significantly improve with each new iteration and looks to continue that trend well into the future.

Note: For some reason the lite version of the game is no longer in the App Store. We’ll get to the bottom of this and update the post with a link or a reason for its disappearance as soon as we find out.

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Late last week Capcom surprised everybody by announcing an iOS port of their classic arcade fighter Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 [ $2.99 ]. In all honesty, I suspect this was a cleverly timed release to casually tie in with ‘The Avengers’ movie coming out next week, but whatever the motivation I’m not complaining. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is one of the most beloved fighting games in history, and prior to the downloadable rerelease on XBL and PSN in 2009 it could be kind of a difficult game to play unless you owned the Dreamcast or the somewhat rare PS2 or Xbox versions.

With that said it’s fairly mind blowing then that today you can download the entire original game onto a device that fits snugly in your pocket (or to your iPad if you’d rather, since the game is Universal, though it’s extra snug trying to jam that in your pocket). The iOS version of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is really cool for what it is, basically a cheap nostalgic trip, but it’s plagued with several major problems that drag the experience down, making it feel more like a novelty rather than another solid iOS fighter.

The major sticking points in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 are that it’s difficult to control compared to the other top iOS fighters, the 12 year old visuals have not aged gracefully, and the overall performance leaves a lot to be desired. However, the virtual control setup that Capcom has come up with for the game is pretty clever, and just having a classic like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 in my pocket is worth putting up with its shortcomings. It’s just a shame because with a little more care I think this port could have been a whole lot better.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 features a whopping 56 playable characters, 28 from the Marvel camp and 28 from Capcom. Only 24 are available from the start, with the rest being unlocked from an in-game store using coins earned through play, or for performing certain tasks like completing the arcade mode with different characters.

In the XBL and PSN versions of the game, all characters are unlocked from the start, but I far prefer having to unlock them on my own as it gives you a sense of progress and some goals to shoot for while playing. However, if you’re dying to download the iOS version and bust out some local Bluetooth multiplayer with a buddy (sadly there is no online) right out of the gate, then you might find it annoying to have to spend significant time earning enough coins to unlock your favorite characters. Surprisingly, there is no sort of in-app purchase option to unlock everything.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is all about 3-on-3 tag team matches where characters can be swapped in and out at will, there’s a crazy emphasis on battles in the air, and the combos and special moves are all outrageous and over the top. Unfortunately, the iOS version runs so sluggishly that much of those fun moments are turned to frustration. The framerate can be a bit choppy and the virtual controls don’t seem to respond as well as even other Capcom fighters available on the App Store. This makes pulling off elaborate combos and air battling nearly impossible.

Despite the controls being sometimes unreliable, the default controls that Capcom implemented to simplify the experience are pretty nifty. There’s just a single button each for punch and kick, then there is a special button for controlling teammates and another for special moves. Besides just tapping these special buttons, each one can also be flicked in 4 different directions in order to perform additional moves. For example you can simply tap the special move button to shoot out a hadoken (fireball), but if you flick it to the side instead you can instantly launch into a shoryuken (dragon punch).

It’s a really cool idea and when it works well it’s brilliant, but for some reason much of the time it feels like the special buttons don’t respond to many of your flicks. There is the option to go with the original arcade game controls, which means no flicking for special moves, and I found that this option is much more reliable but does require more work on your part.

The visuals in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 are also a pretty big letdown. I expect a 12 year old game to look dated, but for some reason the iOS version looks worse than any previous version. Sprites are noticeably jagged and pixelated, something that is accentuated on the iPad’s bigger screen. On the bright side, the fully 3D animated backgrounds are intact here and actually look quite good, especially when you consider the boring static backgrounds used in Street Fighter IV Volt on iOS.

So, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 has a lot of issues, but nothing that renders the game completely unplayable. The controls work well enough but are far from as good as other iOS fighters, and definitely not good enough to fully pull off some of the game’s more complicated techniques. If you’re a fan of the game on other platforms and can accept the problems it has on iOS for the sake of having it in your pocket, then I think it’s definitely worth the $3 price of admission (or $5 when the intro sale ends). Personally, I’m having a ton of fun playing through the game again, even with the inherent frustrations.

If you don’t have any particular affinity for the original game but are just looking for a new iOS fighter, then Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is a tougher sell. The controls are passable, but nowhere near the likes of Street Fighter IV Volt [ $6.99 ], King of Fighters-i [ $6.99 ], or SoulCalibur [ $11.99 ] on iOS. It’s frustrating because those examples prove that Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 could have been such a better port, and it may be in the future after some updating, but if nostalgia isn’t playing a big role in your desire for having this game on iPhone then I’d suggest waiting to see how things shake out down the line.

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Being a fan of Diablo-style loot grinds, I was pretty excited to try DevilDark: The Fallen Kingdom [$0.99], Triniti Interactive’s take on the classic dungeon hack and slash. For the most part, DevilDark actually does a good job recreating the experience with nice visuals and a decent amount of weapons and armor. Unfortunately, simplistic gameplay combined with some general miscues hold the title back from stardom.

DevilDark follows the story of a wandering (and clueless) adventurer that sets out on a journey to save the world from being ravaged by an evil demon, who had been unleashed by a power-hungry king years beforehand. You’ll slowly accomplish this by doing a bunch of quests that involve fetching items and taking down hordes of baddies. An occasional boss battle permeates the monotony, but for the most part, DevilDark stays close to its dungeon crawling roots. While I realize that narrative may not be the priority in such a game, I would have liked something more than the intro cutscene and what little I can glean from quest texts.

One of the keys to a successful dungeon hack and slash is a robust inventory. While DevilDark doesn’t provide the limitless customization of say a Diablo, there’s more than enough loot to keep you occupied. Additional features such as bonuses for wearing groups of armor as well as elemental infusion do a great job adding some much-needed customization. The inclusion of a slot machine that has the potential to toss out some high-leveled gear is a nice touch, as well. However, I wasn’t a fan of the fact that some weapons and armor required currency that could only be purchased via IAP. Suffice to say, these special items aren’t required to complete the game – just expect to grind a lot more to pick up the normal currency items.

DevilDark’s visual engine is another standout feature in the game. The cell-shaded style looks great on Retina-enabled iOS devices. While Retina Display compatibility extends to the new iPad, please note that there’s currently a UI bug that’s been identified and should be fixed relatively soon. It’s also nice that items equipped on your character change his appearance. The music and character design do a decent job reflecting the overall tongue-in-cheek presentation, although the music does get a bit repetitive as you begin playing the same maps continuously.

Speaking of repetition, gameplay is quite simplistic, even for a dungeon hack and slash. There’s little in terms of additional abilities (which are tied to which weapon you wield) beyond simply attacking. In addition, DevilDark has a few quirks that, while hardly significant, still detract from the experience. For example, there are a lot of reused maps and assets which quickly become boring with the amount of grinding you’ll have to do. Navigation is also done via a static overworld map, which feels a bit disjointed.

Another annoyance is the fact that the game doesn’t warn you when you accidentally exit a map (and thus end the mission). Considering the camera angles can occasionally block the ‘world portal’ I had a few instances where I wandered into the exit and lost all of my mission progress. The lack of iCloud support is disappointing as well.

The pacing also feels a bit off. ‘Story-based’ missions seem to drastically jump in difficulty with the completion of each previous objective. While DevilDark offers plenty of optional missions to earn coin and experience in order to prepare for said story missions, I’m not a fan of the sheer amount of grinding necessary.

It seems silly complaining about excessive grinding when the goal of games such as DevilDark are to, well, grind. However, there’s a lot of ways to implement the grind that keep it interesting without messing with the core formula. If DevilDark had a more cohesive story accompanied by randomized maps and a little more complex battle system, it would be at the top of my list on iOS. As it currently stands, the visual engine and sense of progression are enough to merit a recommendation, but there is potential for it to be much more.

TouchArcade Rating:

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