Retro RPG ‘Vay’ Arrives for the iPhone
posted July 17th, 2008 11:09 AM EDT by blakespot in $4.99, Featured, Retro, Reviews, Role-Playing, iPhone games, iPod touch gamesA title that is a bit of a curiosity recently appeared in the iTunes App Store. SoMoGa’s Vay is a hefty download, weighing in at 50MB. That’s no surprise, really, given that Vay is an iPhone port of a highly acclaimed SegaCD (CD-ROM meets the Mega Drive/Genesis) role playing game released in 1994.
MobyGames gives a synopsis of Vay in a review of the SegaCD original.
“Long Ago In A Forgotten Corner Of The Universe….”-Opening Narration, Vay- In Vay, the player assumes the role of Sandor, Prince of Lorath. The game begins on Sandor’s wedding day. He is going to wed the lady Elin. The beautiful and mysterious woman that ended up in Lorath, it truly was love at first sight. (RPG veterans may recall a similar plot in Phantasy Star III, not that that’s a bad thing.-MM-) Sandor and Elin are about to exchange vows when, Lorath is suddenly attacked. Large mechs rain destruction down from the heavens. Most of Lorath is destroyed, many lie dead or dying. And it seems than the goal of the attack was the abduction of the Lady Elin.
From here Sandor, decides to go after Elin, rescue his love, and avenge the people of Lorath. It turns out the only way to defeat the might of the Danek Empire, and their awesome technology, is to claim the legendary armor of Vay. The very same armor that, nearly destroyed the world a millenia ago. (What a twist!-MM-) As per RPG tradition there are many twists and turns, monsters to slay, deaths to avenge, and good old fashioned saving the world. Thankfully the lengthy story is well written. (As we have come to expect from a Working Designs translation.-MM-) And filled with interesting characters. Speaking of characters.
“Port” might not be just the right word, actually. Vay may more accurarately be describe as an iPhone “adaptation.” That’s because Vay for the iPhone appears to use exactly the same character and world graphics as the 14 year old SegaCD original. Even the extensive, animated cut-scenes are taken directly from the original version. The game plays in landscape mode with a 320-pixel wide world/map window next to a 160-pixel wide character status display. The battle screen is a full 480-pixels wide and features much more detailed graphics than the main world/map screens. SoMoGa has replaced the ornate in-game menu system with one comprised of standard iPhone interface elements. Even so, the title has a very pronounced retro feel.
I am a huge fan of pretty much all things retro, but am a bit surprised that SoMoGa did not upgrade the character / world graphics of this iPhone outing to something a bit more in-line with the quality we’ve seen the iPhone to be capable of, given that many will surely be turned off by the title’s pixellated graphics.
Battle screen
Gameplay in Vay is fairly straightforward and consistent with the typical top-down RPG of old. The game involves trekking about a vast world consisting of castles, towns, caverns, and most every sort of terrain. Several other characters found in the game world can join Heibelger (as he’s known in the iPhone version) on his quest and aid him in battle. And battles, there are many. Character leveling is achieved through victory in the game’s turn-based battle system in which characters can attack with weapons and spells or protect themselves with shields. At times it seems that the hero’s party is attacked every five paces. While I find this to be a bit excessive, character leveling is important when it comes time to battle the various bosses encountered in the game world. Die-hard RPG hounds, however, may take the frequent skirmishes as par for the course.
The various towns strewn about the land are full of characters who can be engaged in conversation in which helpful information may be found to aid Heibelger in his quest. Weapons, armor, and other items may be purchased with gold found in treasure chests or obtained in battle. The high level of character-to-character dialog ads a nice degree of depth to the game.
One of the particularly nice points of this title is its soundtrack. The music is wonderful. Every setting seems to have its own score and the sound quality is superb, thanks to the original title featuring CD-based audio tracks. The music adds a great deal of atmosphere to the overall Vay gameplay experience.
Vay likely offers the most play time of any title on the iTunes App Store; the original offered around 40 or 50 hours of play. Not the typical iPhone target play scenario. So, who is this game for? Anyone who is an RPG fan who is not put off by the game’s highly retro graphics will likely find Vay to be quite a value at only $4.99 on the App Store.
Features as listed by SoMoGa:
- User selectable difficulty makes this title great for both beginners and RPG veterans
- Compelling and engrossing story
- Nearly ten minutes of animated cutscenes
- Auto-save feature allows you to play in small increments
- Over 100 enemies and a dozen challenging bosses
- Over 90 expansive areas to explore
Game Details
Name: Vay
Developer: SoMoGa
App Store Link: Buy
Price: $4.99
Compatibility: iPhone and iPod Touch
July 17th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Oh man, where’s Sewer Shark now????
July 17th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Typical, yet another app that is not available in the UK
July 17th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Um, that is exactly what a port entails - recompiling for a new system and adjusting the interface as appropriate, rather than remaking it entirely.
I might pick this one up. It’s been a while since I’ve played a good CRPG.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
And not available in Sweden either…
Could anyone explain this to me? Is it actually the developers choosing to only distribute the apps in the USA? And what is the point of that? Or is there any other reason I can’t buy this game?
Or is world-wide distribution only delayed perhaps? Could I look forward to this title anytime soon?
July 17th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
@Richard This was presumably licensed from another company, so they may have restricted it to U.S. I’m guessing these larger ports tend to be licensed specifically for regions. Vs. individual publishers who own their intellectual property.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Anyone else notice the battery life remaining from the screen shots? Kind of useless having these apps if they drain your battery, you lose your ipod, your apps, your camera……and your holy grail iphone.
July 17th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Come od developers! Just bring us SCUMM to iPhone and we’re done for months of FUN!
July 17th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
@ Johnny
It wasn’t necessarily the game that drained the battery. the game could have been started up to take the screen shot when the battery was already almost dead
July 17th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
@CoSTa: http://toucharcade.com/2008/04/08/adventure-gaming-excellents-lands-on-the-iphone/
@Johnny: The battery was low when I started the captures. And more intensive, 3D games would drain the battery far more than something like Vay.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
yeah man, bring on the sewer shark. me and commissioner stenchler have some unfinished business….
July 17th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Night Trap, Pocket Edition !
July 17th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Oy!
July 17th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Hmm. Just bought it, it’s fun but really buggy. It keeps closing on me. Sometimes it can be hard to control the character… its a good start. Like I said, its definitely fun. Minus the sudden shut downs, and the random freezing and we’d be set! Not sure its worth the $5 at this point… maybe when aforementioned bugs are fixed.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I’d love to see The Immortal ported to the iPhone. Another one by Will Harvey. I’ve already pleaded for a port of his Zany Golf, tho…
July 17th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
I’ve been playing this game since last night. It’s very good. Love playing rpg’s on my touch. Graphics are old school but has been updated for the touch/phone. The battles are fun and it’s not hard to play. The movement is a little hard to control but doesn’t spoil the fun. I’ve had not crashes or lockups. I’m looking forward to playing more rpg’s on the touch. If u like rpg’s it’s a must buy. It’s not FF11 but it’s a lot better then most of the full priced rpg games I’ve played on the DS. For a gaming system that is 5 days old it’s amazing.
Jase - wrote on an itouch
July 18th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
A common misconception some people are having, is they think this is the working designs version. It’s not. It was completely retranslated with newer humor, new dubs, new menus and sprites, etc.
It’s a great game.
July 18th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
I bought this game last night and have been playing all day today. I have not had it crash once or have found any “bugs”. It’s very fun and is worth the $5. To address the battery concerns above, I played this game for a little over 3 hours straight today, and still had about 25% battery life left (the warning for 20% battery life left never appeared) before I put it on the charger. So I am very pleased with the battery life while playing as opposed to other games out, such as SMB. good buy.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:12 am
I have been getting quite a few lockups since the 2.0 upgrade on my touch.
I suspect it has nothing to do with the application. Just power off and back on.
It’s not a good sign for apple though….UNIX systems shouldn’t lock up.
Bug in 2.0 or the SDK?
July 19th, 2008 at 1:05 am
@chris:
Lockups on a per-application basis do not reflect the system’s stability. An aplication hang is different than a system failure. The thing about the iDevice is that force-quitting is dificult. Many times the UNIX system continues to function perfectly even though layers above it, like the UI, have failed.
That said, give it some time. The devs are working with a brand new platform with very little memory compared to your usual computer platform.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:35 am
@jake. you may know this, but you can force quit an app on the iPhone by holding the home button down for a while.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:29 am
I’m stuck in the stupid castle in the beginning of the game. Would be fun if I could actually get out.
July 21st, 2008 at 4:05 pm
@ balagan
Keep going down, “through” the wall to the door. The perspective makes it a bit awkward, but here’s a YouTube video that should help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aX7uGv_IRk
July 21st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
@balagan: I was stuck in the castle for an extraordinary amount of time.
But…what polyplay said…
July 21st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Very nice game. Definetely a new (updated) translation, nicely done. There are some gameplay differences from the Sega version, so the old walkthroughs on the net are of limited use (just an FYI). The old reviews don’t apply either, as they talk about how difficult and frusterating the game is and this version has been made easier (less frustrating) to address that problem (you can change it to be “harder” in the settings, if you like that kind of thing - I have still been killed 3 times by bosses, so it is hard enough). The gameplay is fun, movement takes a bit to get used to (tap vs double tap) and can be finiky if you are real close to where you want to go, but overall really fun. You can go into the settings and change it so you hear your own (ipod) music whan you tire of the in-game music, a nice touch. You can save anywhere at almost anytime (so save before any big battle - and they game kind of “hints” where is a good place often - like when a character says “I don’t like the looks of this”, SAVE). I have had no crashes or lockups in about 8 hours of gameplay. Very nice game, great value for $5.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:36 am
This is just the sort of game I’ve been waiting for on the iphone - and it’s not available in the Netherlands. Bah!
I tried to request it but it’s only possible to request music, videos, podcasts & audiobooks - they haven’t added apps to the request yet.
ARGH!
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:13 am
Great game, i find it quite frustrating that there’s no way to tell what each item does. Does anyone know of a guide or anything out there that breaks this down? I.e., Bronze Helmet is +10 defense, or Power Ring does… what?
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:47 am
mupupu: I agree, I was disapointed to findout there is no instructions or item guides. With iPod games, in iTunes it has the game manual if you click on the game. But no such thing with iPhone/Touch apps?
July 24th, 2008 at 2:01 am
@mupupu: Game FAQ is always a good place to try. Of course it’s for the Sega version, but should give you some help with items: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/segacd/game/588009.html
July 24th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
ok i entered into Kirzania and i have no clue were to go from there. Can someone please help me?
July 25th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
It is amazing how quickly developers can get a game up and running on the phone - one of the NPCs made a snide comment about a US Supreme Court decsion that was made on June 26th! And the delelopers were able to get that in the game before July 17th - very different from the lead time for the console games.
@Rhea - if you get stuck in an area, you can get an overview from the FAQ listed in the comment from abbad0n (right above yours) - while the game is not identical to the Sega version (and names/dialog/items have changed), it still will piont you in the right direction. Or just talk to everyone and then hunt around - nothing is very hidden, the game is pretty straightforward.
July 27th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Looks great, but please please please bring this out in the UK
July 27th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Please bring this out in the UK
July 31st, 2008 at 12:12 pm
it’s be so cool if the golden series was out for the ipod/phone.
they are the best RPGs ever and I certainly think the graphics can follow up!
August 3rd, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I just want to mention that I purchased this a few weeks ago in response to this review. The game is really exactly what I was hoping for. Old style RPG. It took me back the the very old Legacy of the Ancients.
I absolutely love it. So does my 4 year old son. The only thing is he keeps wanting to play it.
It’s a wonderful way to waste $5 and a whole bunch of time.
Ah…how about populous, civ, a decent risk, and maybe Axis and Allies. Yeah. That’s the ticket.
-Chris
August 4th, 2008 at 5:02 am
I have played it for 8 hours or so with no problems and lots of fun. Similar to the Ultima series I played when I first got into computers 20 years ago. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do but overall the frustration factor is minimal for a retro RPG. It’s very cute and the script is well written with quite a few post millennium jokes. I would say go for it at this price!
August 20th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I’m stuck on Mount Wolesse. I walk in the room with the flattenend soldiers, but then nothing happens. Is there something you have to do to trigger the boss battle?
TIA.
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Hey,
Just like justin, I am stuck on Mount Wolesse. I am in the room with the flattened soldiers too but can’t get the boss battle to start. There is some mound of crap blocking the door at the far end too.
:/
ps: Totally brings me back to the Phantasy Star days.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:16 am
On Mt. Wolesse, just ‘talk’ to the giant mud man near the door, and that should trigger the boss fight.
I’ve played the Sega-CD version, and this game is an improvement, especially in terms of gameplay balance.
Now if they would just port more Sega-CD games like Lunar, I’d be impressed.