Archive for the ‘RPG’ tag
‘Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD’, ‘Real Racing 2′, ‘World of Goo’, ‘Dungeon Defenders: First Wave’, ‘N.O.V.A. 2′, ‘Geared 2′ ‘Battlefield: Bad Company 2′ And Much More Available Now
Today is the eve of the final Thursday in December before the pre-holiday iTunes Connect freeze. Starting on December 23rd and running until the 28th, developers won't be able to release new games or updates, or change any of the prices of their games. Last year the top sales charts also got frozen, and no one knows if that's going to be the case again this year or not. What we're seeing now is the mad rush to get everyone's games released before the freeze. If you were looking forward to a game with a holiday release date that isn't in this list, it's still possible that it will get released, but it's looking more and more unlikely as we get closer to the 23rd.
All of these games should now be available worldwide. Get mashin' that buy now button-
Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD, $6.99 – [] – The highly anticipated collaboration between Crescent Moon Games and Galoobeth Games is almost upon us. We were impressed with the depth of the game in our preview last week, and the excitement for Aralon couldn't possibly be higher in its in our upcoming games forum.
Real Racing 2, $9.99 – [] – Last week Firemint revealed the full details on just what to expect in Real Racing 2. A career mode, licensed cars, and tons of track are all some of the goodies that we're going to be in store for. Oh, yeah, and there's also 16 player online multiplayer that basically rewrites what to expect of iPhone online multiplayer gaming.
World of Goo for iPad, $9.99 – [] – As mentioned in our recent review, World of Goo on the iPad is simply incredible. It was a remarkable game before it hit the App Store, winning buckets full of awards and scoring many 10/10 reviews… and the touch interface only serves to make the game even better. I've been unable to put this game down since we scored our preview copy. If you have an iPad, you need this game.
Dungeon Defenders: First Wave, $2.99 – [] – This is the second game available on the App Store that utilizes Unreal Engine 3, but the graphics aren't what's impressive about Dungeon Defenders. What's truly awesome about it is the Game Center-powered multiplayer that allows four players to play together in a cooperative mix of tower defense-like gameplay mixed with an action RPG. It's even universal.
N.O.V.A. 2 – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99 – [] – Gameloft is back again with a second installment in the N.O.V.A. series. This one will have you battling through 12 chapters in the singleplayer campaign, which I have a feeling will take a back seat to the 10 player online multiplayer. 10 maps are included for online play with 5 different game modes which include standard and team based deathmatch, capture the flag, freeze tag, and instagib.
Geared 2, 99¢ – [] – We loved the original Geared, and its sequel seems better in every way. Gameplay amounts to figuring out how to place gears to make the target gears spin, and unlike other gear-based games there isn't any kind of grid for the gears to lock on to, allowing you to place them wherever you like. Oh, and to make things better, it's launching at a buck and is universal.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2, 99¢ – 15 missions are included as well as 4 player online multiplayer. In comparison to other games being released today, that doesn't sound like a whole lot, but it's a game from a popular franchise that's also launching at 99¢– A price I'm not sure many expected.
Shadow Guardian, $6.99 – [] – Gameloft's take on the Uncharted series. Gameplay involves lots of running, gunning, jumping, climbing, and of course, treasure hunting.
Hook Worlds, 99¢ – [] – Evolving the Hook Champ and Super QuickHook world even further is Hook Worlds, a swinging game that Rocketcat Games is calling four games in one. Four game worlds are included, and while they all rely on swinging of some sort, each world looks and plays different thanks to four different characters with their own abilities.
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, $6.99 – [] – An incredibly unexpected release by Square Enix, especially as I (and I doubt I'm alone on this) were expecting their next games to be their classic ports of RPG's they've been talking about forever now. Sadly, the port leaves much to be desired as mentioned in our first impressions post. Definitely wait for an update to fix critical issues before buying.
Altered Beast, $2.99 – [] – My mother would literally murder me if she had any idea just how many quarters I pumped in to the local Altered Beast machine. I'm surprised it took Sega this long to release this game, as in my eyes it's just as classic as Sonic. Either way, it comes loaded with their new bluetooth multiplayer compatibility for two player beasting.
Broken Sword – The Smoking Mirror: Remastered, $6.99 – [] – The continuation of the Broken Sword series, in a universal app. We loved the first installment, and are expecting great things from its sequel.
The Game of Life for iPad, $6.99 – [] – While The Game of Life is nowhere close to as near and dear to my heart as Monopoly is, I love board games on the iPad. This version has a few exclusive features such as being able to view the whole board and local multiplayer with up to 6 players at once. I'm still waiting for my iPad version of Mouse Trap!
Pix'n Love Rush DX, $3.99 – [] – I still can't get enough of the original Pix'n Love Rush for the iPhone, and the iPad version seems to be dripping with even more high scoring retro charm.
ZombieSmash HD, $2.99 – [] – We thought the original was great in our review, and from the looks of it, the iPad version provides even more zombie punishing action. The HD version adds multitouch controls for even more zombie mayhem.
Pocket God: Journey To Uranus, $4.99 – [] – This not-so pocketable version of Pocket God comes with an awesome new space interface, two new minigames, and other fun things. And of course, Bolt Creative is promising tons of updates.
Space Miner HD, $2.99 – [] – We absolutely adored the original Space Miner in our review, and while it would be cool if the game was universal, this is one HD we don't mind re-buying.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, $6.99 – [] – Mortal Kombat with Retina Display graphics? Street Fighter proved that a fighter could work well on the iPhone, and hopefully Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 continues that tradition.
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‘Infinity Blade’ Concept Was Conceived For Kinect
Here's a neat one. The creative nucleus of Infinity Blade [$5.99] was originally concieved as a title instead of an iOS game. Game creator Chair Entertainment's co-founder Donald Mustard explains in .
"We always have some cool ideas on deck, and kind of the inception of Infinity Blade began as a discussion around: 'If we were going to make a Kinect title, what would we make? What would a Chair Kinect game look like?'," he said.
"That discussion happened, you know, a year and a half ago. We had this really cool design, and it's not that dissimilar from the game you're playing today; it's just been refined and adapted to the iOS screen, which honestly I think is where the design works the best. "
Mustard neglected to get specific about what ideas were being thrown around in these conceptual stages of Infinity Blade, but theoretically, a Kinect version of the action RPG would have you acting out the sword swings and parries and near-miss dodges with your body and arms instead of your fingers. It's a neat idea, and what's wild is, it could totally work. Kinect fairs best with broad, sweeping motions such as a pretend sword slash. But that's not to say Infinity Blade sucks on the iOS. It's, as we've said before, a fantastic Chair joint.
The kicker here is that even though plans changed for Infinity Blade, a Kinect version could still happen. "Yeah," other Chair co-founder Geremy Mustard told Joystiq, "if the Kinect really takes off over the holiday season, who knows?"
Who knows, indeed. Maybe I'll actually turn on my Kinect again if Chair decides to bless it with the gift of Infinity Blade.
[via ]
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‘Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD’, ‘Real Racing 2′, ‘World of Goo’, ‘Dungeon Defenders: First Wave’, ‘N.O.V.A. 2′, ‘Geared 2′ ‘Battlefield: Bad Company 2′ And So Much More Coming Tonight
Today is the eve of the final Thursday in December before the pre-holiday iTunes Connect freeze. Starting on December 23rd and running until the 28th, developers won't be able to release new games or updates, or change any of the prices of their games. Last year the top sales charts also got frozen, and no one knows if that's going to be the case again this year or not. What we're seeing now is the mad rush to get everyone's games released before the freeze. If you were looking forward to a game with a holiday release date that isn't in this list, it's still possible that it will get released, but it's looking more and more unlikely as we get closer to the 23rd.
All of these releases work just like they do every week. They appear for download in New Zealand first, then as the Earth slowly spins around and it becomes Thursday in more regions the games slowly filter out. For those of us that use the US App Store, all of these games will be available at 11:00 PM Eastern.
Aralon: Sword and Shadow HD, $6.99 – [] – The highly anticipated collaboration between Crescent Moon Games and Galoobeth Games is almost upon us. We were impressed with the depth of the game in our preview last week, and the excitement for Aralon couldn't possibly be higher in its in our upcoming games forum.
Real Racing 2, $9.99 – [] – Last week Firemint revealed the full details on just what to expect in Real Racing 2. A career mode, licensed cars, and tons of track are all some of the goodies that we're going to be in store for. Oh, yeah, and there's also 16 player online multiplayer that basically rewrites what to expect of iPhone online multiplayer gaming.
World of Goo for iPad, $9.99 – [] – As mentioned in our recent preview, World of Goo on the iPad is simply incredible. It was a remarkable game before it hit the App Store, winning buckets full of awards and scoring many 10/10 reviews… and the touch interface only serves to make the game even better. I've been unable to put this game down since we scored our preview copy. If you have an iPad, you need this game.
Dungeon Defenders: First Wave, $2.99 – [] – This is the second game available on the App Store that utilizes Unreal Engine 3, but the graphics aren't what's impressive about Dungeon Defenders. What's truly awesome about it is the Game Center-powered multiplayer that allows four players to play together in a cooperative mix of tower defense-like gameplay mixed with an action RPG. It's even universal.
N.O.V.A. 2 – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99 – [] – Gameloft is back again with a second installment in the N.O.V.A. series. This one will have you battling through 12 chapters in the singleplayer campaign, which I have a feeling will take a back seat to the 10 player online multiplayer. 10 maps are included for online play with 5 different game modes which include standard and team based deathmatch, capture the flag, freeze tag, and instagib.
Geared 2, 99¢ – [] – We loved the original Geared, and its sequel seems better in every way. Gameplay amounts to figuring out how to place gears to make the target gears spin, and unlike other gear-based games there isn't any kind of grid for the gears to lock on to, allowing you to place them wherever you like. Oh, and to make things better, it's launching at a buck and is universal.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2, 99¢ – 15 missions are included as well as 4 player online multiplayer. In comparison to other games being released today, that doesn't sound like a whole lot, but it's a game from a popular franchise that's also launching at 99¢– A price I'm not sure many expected.
Shadow Guardian, $6.99 – [] – Gameloft's take on the Uncharted series. Gameplay involves lots of running, gunning, jumping, climbing, and of course, treasure hunting.
Hook Worlds, 99¢ – [] – Evolving the Hook Champ and Super QuickHook world even further is Hook Worlds, a swinging game that Rocketcat Games is calling four games in one. Four game worlds are included, and while they all rely on swinging of some sort, each world looks and plays different thanks to four different characters with their own abilities.
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, $6.99 – [] – An incredibly unexpected release by Square Enix, especially as I (and I doubt I'm alone on this) were expecting their next games to be their classic ports of RPG's they've been talking about forever now. We don't know a whole lot about this right now other than it's a cooperative spin on a Tomb Raider game with an isometric viewpoint. I admit, my interest has been piqued.
Altered Beast, $2.99 – [] – My mother would literally murder me if she had any idea just how many quarters I pumped in to the local Altered Beast machine. I'm surprised it took Sega this long to release this game, as in my eyes it's just as classic as Sonic. Either way, it comes loaded with their new bluetooth multiplayer compatibility for two player beasting.
Note: Since there is so much stuff coming out today, I'm just posting this early and will be updating it with all the major releases over the next few hours. This list isn't anywhere near complete yet. There is so much more.
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‘Infinity Blade’ Update Hits Next Week, Will Add New Equipment And A Monster
Chair Entertainment's Donald Mustard has shared some spectacular news with the folks over . The first update to Infinity Blade [$5.99] is due out at some point next week and it'll add a total of five new weapons, five fresh shields, five helmets, a brand new set of armor, and a new foe called the "Marrow Fiend" to the action RPG.
Mustard calls this a "booster pack." It's the first of two planned, the second of which will see a release at some point in January.
Chair hasn't been shy in the past about its plans to support Infinity Blade post release. Online competitive support has been promised, in addition to new items, areas, and monsters. As for when we'll see those new areas and multiplayer? Well, these might take a bit to create considering that the Infinity Blade team is only 12-men strong and quality is a serious priority.
But that doesn't mean Mustard didn't have anything to share on that front. Speaking about new areas, Mustard said "There will be new areas to go to, the story will be evolving a little more as you see what the God King is really up to, and we're going to let people down into the dungeons." He added that these new foes in the dungeon will "make the [current] enemies look like nothing."
Ah, so exciting. Anyone else tap out their current character and itching for some new content? Surely I'm not the only freak out there.
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‘Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for iPhone’ Release Pushed Back to Spring 2011
If you were looking forward to spending this holiday season curled up next to a fire with a goblet of eggnog in one hand and your iPhone in the other playing Square Enix's upcoming tactical RPG Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for iPhone, you're going to need to come up with alternate plans. According to , the game now has an incredibly vague release window of "spring 2011". If they stick to releasing this upcoming spring, the soonest we'll see Final Fantasy Tactics is somewhere in between March 20th and June 21st , the official beginning and end of the 2011 spring season.
This marks the second time that Final Fantasy Tactics has been pushed back, as originally the game had a release date of September 15th. The good news of all this is, unlike some big-name developers who seem to hold game releases to coincide with marketing plans and release schedules, Square is delaying the release to make the game better. Comparing the last screenshot released to these new ones today shows a considerable improvement.
The Facebook page is rather vague, but it sounds like the game now has full 3D maps which can be panned and zoomed around using standard iPhone swiping and pinching gestures. Also, the entire UI has been redone to be touch friendly. It's hard to say how much these screenshots represent the final version of the game as well, since they're sized at 720×480px, a resolution not found on any iOS device. Either way, Final Fantasy Tactics is high up on my list of games I want to play next year.
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First Impressions of ‘Illusia’ – A Cute Side-Scrolling Action RPG
New from , developers of the popular RPGs Zenonia 2 [$2.99/Lite], Hybrid 2 [$2.99/Lite], and even the RPG-ish Baseball Superstars 2011 [$4.99/Lite], comes another entry into the role-playing game genre called Illusia [$4.99]. Illusia is less of a traditional RPG and more of an action-RPG/platformer hybrid. You'll run, jump, and attack through side-scrolling levels filled with monsters over the course of the 7 worlds in the game. Illusia has a very colorful and cute art style, and a fairly interesting (if a little cliché) storyline. But due to the repetitious quests and level grinding, it will really only appeal to a niche group of players, mainly those who enjoy leveling up and equipping their character with the ridiculous amount of items in the game. If that is your thing though, Illusia really excels in this area.
You start out in Illusia by choosing to play as one of two different classes, a fighter or a magician. That may not sound like much, but each class can be customized to a pretty ridiculous degree through the course of the game, so it's not much of an issue. The majority of quests are simple kill X amount of enemies or fetch X amount of items, and they all start to blend together after a while. It works though because it's simply a means to level up and unlock equipment to outfit your character with, and the amount of items available provide a ton of customization options. There is also a number of IAP extras that you can buy in the game that allow you to trick out your character even more, and an interesting online auction system lets you buy or sell items with other players around the world.
One thing I did not like about Illusia was the onscreen controls. They are large and obscuring, and not very responsive. However I soon discovered that you can customize the size, positioning, and opacity of them and things improved considerably, though they can still be unresponsive at times. Luckily the action in the game is casual enough that this never really hinders your enjoyment. Another issue related to this is the haphazard touch screen support in menus. Some menu items and popup windows allow you to simply tap a button to proceed, but some of them require you to navigate using the virtual controls. Again, it's not a game ruining problem, but it can be pretty annoying.
If building up a character as you see fit while blasting through some Mario-style levels sounds like a good time, then you'll likely enjoy Illusia. I've been having a good time playing through the game, and plenty of players , but it is starting to feel a little too repetitious for my liking. The sheer amount of items in the game is really impressive, and the graphics and story are entertaining enough to hold your interest. Once you've completed the game, there's a special hard mode that provides a nice challenge as you take your leveled up character through the game again. In the end, Illusia doesn't do anything particularly mind blowing, but the gameplay is solid and it will keep you occupied for quite some time.
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First Impressions of ‘Dungeon Hunter 2′ – Now With Online Multiplayer
Last year Gameloft released Dungeon Hunter, their take on a Diablo-style hack 'n slash dungeon crawling RPG. For the time, Dungeon Hunter was one of the finest examples of the genre on the iOS platform, and we thoroughly enjoyed the title in our extensive review. In fact, you may as well read up on that review right now, as the follow up title Dungeon Hunter 2 [$6.99] is nearly identical to its predecessor. Everything from the 3 class choices, to the combat, to the way loot flies out of chests… even the menu interfaces are all practically the same. I don't mean this in a bad way either, as this kind of consistency is nice from subsequent titles in a series, but we are definitely treading familiar territory here.
While Dungeon Hunter 2 is fundamentally the same as the original, like any good sequel it does improve in a number of areas. The graphics are a great deal better, with more detailed character models and environments and Retina Display support. The game areas are also a bit more opened up, rather than the mostly narrow and linear spaces from the first game. The skill tree is a little more complex, although not by much, and there is still a staggering amount of equipment to collect and adorn your character with. The same 3 classes of warrior, rogue, and mage are available but this time they can be specialized in certain areas, essentially giving you alternate classes to become.
The entire single player campaign is pretty much more of the same, but there is an interesting new feature which is online cooperative multiplayer through Game Center or Gameloft Live. You can connect online with up to 3 other players and work your way through campaign quests using your character. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get the online to work in order to check it out. No matter if I'm trying to search for 2, 3, or 4 players, it fails to ever find me a match, over both Game Center and Gameloft Live. When trying to start a game directly with buddies from my list, we can get into the lobby together but the moment the actual game tries to load the connection drops. Every. Single. Time. It's frustrating because I'm excited for this feature, and I hope it's just my device having a brain fart or some other minor issue, rather than a serious bug.
Barring the online issue though, I'm liking Dungeon Hunter 2 a lot so far. Although it doesn't do anything radically different than the first, it still offers up the same enjoyable elements with a few nice improvements. If you liked the first Dungeon Hunter, and were craving more once you completed it, then you should thoroughly enjoy this sequel. It somewhat ties into the thin storyline from the first, and assuming the online becomes functional it should provide a decent amount of replay value when you're finished with it. Also, there's 3 difficulty levels that unlock after beating the game the first time, which is nice because a major complaint with the first game was that it was extremely easy. Don't forget to drop by for additional information and player impressions of Dungeon Hunter 2.
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‘Infinity Blade’ Review – It Doesn’t Get Much More "Must-Have" Than This
We've been following Chair's Infinity Blade [$5.99] like a hawk since we first caught wind of the game at the Apple Keynote. Through various interviews, trailers, screenshots, and other snippets of information, the hype surrounding Infinity Blade's release couldn't possibly be more intense. For what it is, it's an absolutely fantastic gesture-based fighting game that has without a doubt the best graphics we've seen so far on an iOS device. However, for all that it is, there are also many things that it's not.
The game opens with a cut scene with your character ascending the castle to come face to face with the God King. In a cryptic foreign language decoded with subtitles, they chat back and forth for a bit before the God King dispatches his guard to fight you. This begins a brief tutorial which ultimately ends in the God King slamming his Infinity Blade straight through your gut, draining your essence, and powering up the God King even further. This begins the infinite loop that is Infinity Blade, as 20 years later, your successor stands staring the very same castle in the face.
Navigating the castle is all done via a point and click interface, where you tap pulsating circles, watch a brief cinematic animation, and wind up where you tapped. At each stop you can look around, but you can never move anywhere but to the next waypoint. When an enemy appears, you can inspect them with a button in the bottom right corner of the screen, or tap them to fight them, which is when the real fun begins.
Infinity Blade is a game of technique more than anything else. Looking at the combat at its most basic level, you're able to swing your sword by swiping, block by tapping the block button in the bottom center of the screen, or dodge either direction by tapping the bottom right or left sides of the screen. Sure, you can randomly block, dodge, and swing wildly, but doing well really involves putting all these moves together to avoid taking any damage while dishing as much out as you can.
My favorite part of the combat system is parrying. When fighting enemies, you're able to parry attacks by swinging your sword in the direction to collide with the incoming strike. It's not that simple though, as different enemies all have different attack speeds, as well as different attacks which might be faster or slower. An immense amount of timing is required to successfully parry, especially as you progress in the game. For instance, you might be fighting an enemy who is winding up a slow but extremely powerful attack. If you swing your sword too soon, you'll just scratch the enemy. Too late, and you'll have already taken it to the face. Dodging works much the same way.
The truly neat part of all this is just how well the animation of your character translates to each swipe on the screen. If you swipe right, your character swings right, swipe left, and he swings left, and so on. What you begin to realize once you get farther in to the game is just how exact and deliberate each swipe needs to be. There isn't any way to cancel your current swing once you swipe on the screen, so swiping in the wrong direction or at the wrong time can leave you open for attack for the entire duration of the swing animation. It all works incredibly well, and is just ridiculously cool once you begin to grasp these kind of nuances.
Once you successfully progress through the castle, which will likely only take you around a half hour of solid play, you'll be face to face with the God King again. It seems like with perfect technique, beating the God King might be possible on your first play through, but it seems far outside my ability. Inevitably, you will die, which just like the beginning of the game leads to your essence being sucked out. Thankfully, the God King is a good sport, and seemingly allows your next of kin to retrieve your corpse, all your gear, and any experience you've accumulated.
After that, the next bloodline begins, with the successor of the previous victim of the God King overlooking the castle ready to try again. Why the God King keeps giving your loot to your predecessor and why your family doesn't just decide that killing God Kings just isn't for them isn't ever explained. If you don't kill the God King, you can send generation after generation of your bloodline to their death. Maybe I'm too much of a pacifist, but if I had heard that my great grandpa, my grandpa, and my Dad were all killed by the same God King, I'd explore a career in something other than revenge, but I digress.
The way the equipment, experience, and magic system works in Infinity Blade is awesome. You earn experience through items, and as you fight, items are filled with experience until they're mastered. For example, you buy a new sword from the in-game store with your gold coins that looks really cool. That sword has its own experience bar, and it gains a bit of experience after each battle. Any experience it earns, you also earn, and your character also has his own experience bar for leveling up. Once you fight enough with that sword to fill its experience bar, you master it. Mastered items provide an additional bonus, with the drawback that you can no longer gain experience through that item.
This requires you to balance your equipment load-out based on several factors. Obviously, experience is required to level up your character. Using all mastered items, or more than a few, flat-out stops or greatly reduces the amount of experience you're able to earn. If you've got a difficult battle coming up, you could equip all your mastered items to be more effective, but you'd be sacrificing all the experience you'd earn from the fight. Additionally, items have elemental properties to them for casting magic spells such as a fire spell, a lightning spell, and more. These are executed by tapping an icon when it's ready in the top right corner of the screen, then drawing the spell's gesture on the screen.
The equipment system adds a really great element of replay value to the game. While the looping nature of the game is a little silly, the RPG-loving experience bar filling side of me absolutely loves how you're constantly cycling new gear, leveling that gear up, and equipping something new. With each play through as your strength increases, so do the enemies you're fighting, and the rewards you're given.
If you were expecting Infinity Blade to be some massive open-world RPG and any number of other things I've seen people on our forums suggesting, you're going to be sorely disappointed. If all you were looking for is a fighting game with a really cool input method that fits perfectly with iOS devices, you're going to be in for a treat. The RPG elements are very light, but the fighting is solid, and the graphics are the best we've seen so far on the App Store. Infinity Blade is universal, and seems to play equally well on both the small screen of the iPhone and the big screen of the iPad. I cannot stress enough just how great the graphics in this game are. The bar has been raised, and anyone with a device capable of running the game needs to download Infinity Blade to see what the iOS platform is capable of.
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‘Puzzle Quest 2′ Review – A Great Quest, Involving Puzzles Too
Iteration is hard. In games, you can either tack on more mechanics on top of the original's foundation or you can choose to take it apart, brick by brick, and rebuild it into something familiar, but better. Most studios choose the former. Some choose the latter. And others choose to do a mix of the two.
Puzzle Quest 2 [$9.99] is a title that features a mix. It retains what made the original oh-so-good, but also boasts fresh ideas. New glove gems let you use weapons in battle and a more personal isometric viewpoint makes you feel like you're an active participant in both the game world and a narrative that would have Tolkien rolling in his grave.
That's rather broad, so let's dive into the basics. Puzzle Quest 2 is a match-3 title drenched in RPG trappings. You'll start the game by picking from a crop of traditional fantasy classes, each with their own abilities, and then be thrust into a medieval world with a lot of problems. People will want you to fetch them items, explore places, or kill monsters.
You can level up, equip weapons and items, craft even more, and navigate dungeons one grid at a time. Like in the previous Puzzle Quest, movement is restricted to following a developer-created path. You do not have complete control of your dude. But, really, that never matters. This is a game about killing, not meandering.
Most of the RPG stuff is tied to the battle system. Battle is where you'll spend most of your time and the most meaningful place where the match-3 ties component ties in. When you initiate battle with a foe, you'll be blasted to an interface filled with multi-colored gems, skulls, and gloves. Lining up three or more skulls does damage to your foe, while simple gem matches act as fuel for magical feats.
Battle is turn-based, so there's no time crunch. You act and then the goblin, yeti, tiger-man, or whatever acts. But the fact that there isn't a timer is important; it gives you time to line up bonuses. If you match three or more of something, you get another turn. Start a cascade of several matches and get another turn.
RPG overlaps here. You can equip weapons and defensive items or even items that have an affect on how many gems you can collect. You also level up, so your HP, strength, and defensive prowess can change between battles. These elements act as a carrot, sure, but they're also crucial in keeping the match-3 play interesting, deep, and above all, entertaining.
The AI, to some degree, is balanced appropriately for battle. However, there are some humdingers that you'll need to grind out levels in order to beat. Puzzle Quest 2 is smart in that it has a one-off "Quick Battle" mode that allows to just fight, without the dungeon, in order to get precious experience points.
The majority of the time these systems play nice with each other, but every once in awhile you'll hit a vicious snag. Some AI monsters are poorly balanced. They'll either destroy you in just a matter of turns or frequently rip off brutal combinations. You can also see the virtual dice rolls favoring the AI in these conflicts.
I also think Puzzle Quest 2 suffers from system overload. There's just too many dice rolling at once, be it from the game negotiating your level, a critical hit, a defend, a combination, or whatever. It kills the simplicity of the play and often prolongs even the simplest battle for far too long.
And while we're talking about systems, I'll add that there are new mini-games in Puzzle Quest 2, all designed to make a simple task much harder. For example, in order to get loot, you'll have to earn it via a match-3 mini-game. The same goes for bashing in closed doors or disarming traps. I can appreciate the attempt here, as it does offer a chance of pace from monster conflicts, but these mini-games pop up much too often.
If you haven't caught on by now, I'll make it plain. Puzzle Quest 2 for iOS appears to be a picture perfect port of the console and handheld versions of the game, which hit digital and brick-and-mortar shelves earlier this year. It's also optimized for iOS, offering simple to use and intuitive touch controls. On my iPad, it's a brilliant game and it does hold up on an iPhone 4 as well.
This is in start contrast to the first game, Puzzle Quest Chapter 1 and 2 [$6.49 / Lite] which initially served as a shining example as a terrible iOS port. It got better over a series of updates, but even now it's a little rough around the edges.
Let's just forget that game ever happened because Puzzle Quest 2 is a superior product in every imaginable way and a great game all on its lonesome. Sure, it can get repetitious and, yeah, sure, it has its issues, but it's still an entertaining game and a full-featured one on iOS. Give it a shot.
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First Impressions of 3D RPG ‘Eternal Legacy’ from Gameloft
By now, most App Store gamers shouldn't really be surprised by Gameloft's method of operation. Basically, they “borrow heavily” from a popular style of console game and come up with their own version of it. Opinions are mixed on whether this is right, wrong, good, or bad. But regardless of your feelings towards Gameloft, it's hard to argue with some of the compelling gameplay experiences that they've brought to iOS that we might not otherwise have. One of the newest offerings from them is called Eternal Legacy [$6.99], released earlier today, and is a riff of the most recent Final Fantasy console games.
I've spent a bit of time with Eternal Legacy today, and like most of Gameloft's other titles, it's not bad, and offers a comparable experience to the game that they draw inspiration from. For what is supposed to be a story-driven game, the borderline laughable voice acting detracts from the experience some. But the story itself is fairly engaging, and the turn-based battle sequences are a lot of fun. Plus, it has feminine male characters that carry huge swords, so really, what more could you want?
Enemies roam around the 3D environments in Eternal Legacy, so you have an idea of when you'll be engaging in battle. There can be up to 3 members in your party, but you'll only have full control over the main character by default, though you can change this in the options. You can choose from a number of different attacks, skills, or items to use during battle. Up to 3 of these can be queued up and a small timer gauge denotes when each move will be executed. The secondary characters in your party will perform moves on their own, but you can choose the demeanor of those moves, such as if they should attack enemies or focus on healing your party.
You will also have full control over equipping each character in your party, and there are a ton of equipment and weapon options. Also, you can collect rare fragments that can be fused with your equipment to add special properties to them, like fire damage or healing. There's quite a lot going on in Eternal Legacy, and the game does an excellent job at walking you through the process each time you do something new. The menus are all clean and easy to navigate, and the default setup of the gameplay is very conducive to gaming on the go.
For anybody who has been looking for a fully 3D RPG experience that is similar to a contemporary Final Fantasy game, Eternal Legacy should quell that desire pretty well. The battling is entertaining, with plenty of weapons and gear to equip, the magical skill attacks have over-the-top animations and graphical effects, and there appears to be a sufficiently interesting storyline if you can look past some of the terrible voice acting (or better yet, turn it off altogether in the options screen). The environments are pretty linear, but look nice visually and still contain a good amount of areas to explore and secrets to discover.
If you're looking for some more information or further impressions on Eternal Legacy, check out which has been abuzz with activity regarding the game all day long.
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