Oh, man, you guys needed to see QUEST LORD [$1.99], like, yesterday. It's a love letter to old-school, first-person dungeon crawlers that absolutely nails the look, the feel, and the trippy dungeon design sensibility of PC RPGs of yore. It also feels awesome on a phone, as the movement and combat mechanics have been tastefully engineered with touch-screens and gestures in mind. It's a blast, in other words.
In the game, you'll be tasked as either an elf, human, or dwarf with saving the world from a "great evil." In practice, this great task breaks down into searching hours and hours worth of catacombs and forests and mountain passes filled with treasure, secrets, and monsters. Earlier this afternoon, Eli and I spent around 20 minutes in the game in the hope of giving you a taste of all this game has going on.
There's a great story -- perhaps apocryphal -- about Will Wright designing SimCity to reflect his political beliefs. Specifically, the thinking is that Wright designed the trains and buses in that game to run smoothly and efficiently to reflect his own views about the importance of public transportation. I'm not sure how true that is, but it's a great illustration that the games we play -- and how we play them -- says something about us.
Kairosoft's latest, lightweight city management sim Beastie Bay [Free], for example, let me build my own kind of environmentalist utopia. Sure, I could probably attract more tourists (and therefore more money) by building roads through my island, but I'd rather have the beaches and wooded hills and caves -- and the fish, bears, and mecha-chimpanzees that live in them. I have plenty of food and lumber -- resources you'll need for everything from researching electricity to building nests to upgrading weapons -- and my upkeep costs are low enough that I'm not forced to expand faster than I want to. I appreciate that Beastie Bay is flexible enough to allow me that freedom.
Kairosoft is back with a new game on the App Store, and it appears as though the studio is testing the free-to-play model with it. Beastie Bay [Free], as the new game is called, is a cartoony RPG that plays pretty similarly to Pokemon. Its twist is that it's also a city simulation game that tasks you with building structures to support your pocket monster fighting and collecting habit.
To our knowledge, this is the first time Kairosoft has launched a free game on the App Store. At this price, it appears you get access to the entire game. The drawback being you've got to look at ads. With a $4.99 IAP, however, you can remove the ads -- and enable landscape mode.
This is an interesting approach, as Beastie Bay will presumably get in a lot more hands than any other Kairosoft title ever has before. And the model appears to be for users, as there's no commitment upfront if you discover that the simulation isn't exactly clicking with you.
We'll be all over this one in the coming days, so stay tuned for a review.
Magicka proper is Paradox Interactive's most downloaded title to date. If you haven't heard of it, you can check out the web site, which also conveniently features about a million different places you can download it from ranging from Steam to services I didn't even know existed. It's a multiplayer co-op RPG of sorts, and in the not too distant future, will be making the jump to mobile devices in the form of Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet.
Where Magicka "proper" has a bit more serious of an art style and a 3D isometric view, Wizards of the Square Tablet mixes thing up a bit with a almost Castle Crashers-like cartoony vibe and gameplay that could be summed up as Battleheart with multiplayer and friendly fire. Tapping on the screen moves your dude around, and tapping on enemies is how you cast spells. Much like Battleheart, things get hectic quickly as enemies invade from both sides of the screen.
In the world of Magicka, you cast spells by combining elements. For instance, tapping fire, then earth, and your dude hurls a flaming boulder wherever you tap. Life heals you or an ally, and combining life with lightning can jolt someone back to life. The system of spells is just ridiculously complex, especially once you figure out that you can combine up to any four of the seven elements which makes for a ton of possibilities. Discovering new spells is super cool as you're mashing elements, and in the brief time I had with the game I was already discovering new tricks just through trial and error in mixing and matching elements.
You can play the game single player, but it truly shines in the four player cooperative mode. I mentioned how hectic the game is when playing by yourself, but when you add three more people into the mix, it's crazy- Especially so when you consider that most (if not all) of the spells in game have a different blast radius, and everything you cast hits both enemies and your teammates. The mayhem that ensues is hilarious, as the more powerful spells seem to have massive effective radiuses, so while you're spewing your volley of fire and brimstone across half the screen, you're also probably hitting half your team as well.
Someone almost always is dead, or dying, and playing quickly turns into a battle of not getting killed by your teammates almost as much (if not more so) than not getting killed by enemy monsters. It's not just all silly team kills though, as Magicka actually has a ton of depth via a rock, paper, scissors system of spell damage and debuffs. For instance, an enemy (or player) who is wet will take more damage from electrical spells. So, a viable tactic would be to have one player focusing on spells that involve the water element to get everything wet while the rest of the party goes to town electrocuting everything with lightning spells.
The catch, however, once again is that while you're spraying water everywhere chances are your character will also be wet, and being electrified as well. Cleverly, you "dry" yourself by casting a quick fire spell targeting your wizard. Levels range from typical side scrolling and kill everything arrangements, and there's also boss fights which each seem to have their own unique gimmick to deal with. There's an in-game shop filled with equipment to unlock, each which have various hilarious side effects such as a staff that really soups up your spells, but since it's a spent nuclear fuel rod, you take constant unavoidable damage while holding it.
Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet is "coming soon," and I'm super excited to sit around and play it with my friends. The multiplayer experience almost reminded me of Space Team [Free] in a way, as while success involves teamwork, gameplay will inevitably just devolve into ridiculous bouts of laughter as everyone yells at everyone else regarding which spells to use, who needs heals, and the almost guaranteed moment your party decides to just ignore enemies and kill each other.
If you want to see what the game looks like in motion, check out the following video that Paradox captured for us. Without proper context it's a little difficult to tell what's going on as without all the subsequent shouting Magicka is just an explosion of numbers and spell effects. We'll do a proper TA Plays of the game as soon as we can get our hands on a more finished version of it.
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition [$9.99 (HD)] is a faithful port of the classic AD&D computer game, and that in itself is an impressive thing. Overhaul Games put a lot of work into this one, massaging the antique codebase, agonizing over the implementation, adding a new tutorial and arena-brawling in the Black Pits.
Fans of the original Baldur's Gate have been drooling over this one since it was announced, and we were pretty jazzedas well. When the game hit, players with anything older than a 3rd generation iPad had problems that varied from minor irritations to unplayable crashiness, but the new patch seems to have fixed those issues for nearly all iPad 2 / Mini users, and greatly impoved original iPad performance (results still vary).
Oh, neat: the first two Final Fantasy games are both on sale for the rest of the week in celebration of new language releases. Final Fantasy I [$8.99], which now includes Korean, Thai, and Indonesian language support, has been slashed to $3.99. Final Fantasy II [$8.99], which now includes Korean language support, is also available at $3.99. Both games are typically priced at $8.99, so you'll be saving a couple of hard-earned bones here, no problem.
While definitely old, both of these games are worth your time if you've got an itch that only an ancient JRPG can scratch. That's a pretty specific itch, though, so maybe you should get that checked out, yeah?
Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes [$4.99] is one of those games I just can't get enough of. I've picked it up on three different platforms so far, and through them all there's been one constant: it offers an excellent blend of strategy, puzzles and roleplaying. It's more than worth playing, be it on PSN or XBLA, on Nintendo DS, or on Steam. iPad, too—aside from a few big bugs. iPhone, on the other hand? Not so much. Asynchronous multiplayer is a wonderful addition, but it comes at a cost.
Clash of Heroes takes a touch too much squinting on the small screen, but I could live with that if it weren't for the frustrating controls. This is a game that's likely to make most people feel uncomfortably fat fingered. You can zoom in on the action, which helps, but then you can't see the enemy team. The iPad, even the Mini, fares so much better it may as well be a different game. In fact, it probably ought to be - the iPhone version would benefit from a complete overhaul.
It's that time of week again when the deluge of new releases finally land on the US App Store. It looks like a pretty decent week based on what's in our weekly Coming Tonight post, and all those games are now available with the links provided there. As we usually do, we're highlighting what is the most noteworthy release of the bunch and this week that game is Might & Magic Clash of Heroes [$4.99].
Clash of Heroes is a match-3 RPG hybrid in the loosest sense, and is wrapped in a massive single-player story-driven campaign. Typical RPG tropes are at play as you follow along with a ragtag group of young heroes as they try to save the world from certain doom.
Battles are centered around the matching style gameplay, and as we've talked about previously in our preview coverage of Clash of Heroes, this is the game's biggest strength. There are layers upon layers of depth to the fight strategies and mechanics, and while the story and presentation are key components if Clash of Heroes was nothing but battling I wouldn't complain one bit.
That's sort of what the multiplayer is there for, though. You can play against AI opponents, battle real-life friends locally, or take on the competition online in asynchronous bouts. The single-player campaign in Clash of Heroes should keep you busy for quite a long time, but the multiplayer options are what really give it long-term legs.
Might & Magic Clash of Heroes originally launched as a Nintendo DS title back in 2009, and was re-released and enhanced in HD for home consoles in 2011. The iOS game is based on the HD release, and because of that the file is nearly a full 2 gigs, so just a heads up. Other than that it appears to be a fairly decent touchscreen translation of an absolutely phenomenal original game, so check out our forums for more early impressions and watch this space for more on Clash of Heroes in the near future.
When we first heard that Square Enix would be releasing a new retro-based Final Fantasy, I was excited to see if we'd end up with another adventure similar to Final Fantasy: Dimensions [Free]. Unfortunately, Final Fantasy: All the Bravest [$3.99] is as far away from such a title as you  can possibly imagine. Focusing entirely on simplified battles, Final Fantasy: ATB is less of a game and more of a blatant attempt to extort cash from a weary fan base for a brief glimpse of nostalgia.
You'll find no story (other than a generic intro narrative screen), character development or meaningful interaction in All The Bravest. Instead, players bounce from stage to stage set in one-screen locations vaguely reminiscent of overworld locations across various Final Fantasy games. Each stage typically consists of several rounds of enemies also extracted from a wide range of previous games in the series. Players battle those enemies, earn experience, gain party level-ups and also earn gil, although there are no gil-based shops to speak of. While this description alone feels suspect for a Final Fantasy, this is only the tip of the iceberg for ATB's troubles.
So, Final Fantasy: All the Bravest is indeed an actual video game, and it'll hit tonight as international releases continue to worm their way across the globe. In brief, it's a frantic, distilled, and "mobilized" take on the series that eschews pillars like exploration and dungeon crawling and even dialogue in favor of focusing purely on the series' combat and equipment mechanics and systems.
In the game, you can control up to 30 different classical Final Fantasy heroes across series of fights against classical villains. To attack, you tap on a character or, as we've discovered, just swipe up and down on the screen to activate all of them. After each attack, characters are smacked with a cool down timer, which keeps them from being able to attack for a few seconds.
Every enemy kills with one hit, regardless if it's just a basic Final Fantasy goblin or one of the horseman of the apocalypse. In addition to being flimsy, heroes are one note: they attack, that's it. You can't activate special skills, you can't target enemies, and they can't buff each other.
Boil it down, and the strategy revolves around raw numbers. The design reflects that. As you level up, you gain the ability to take more characters into battle. When you find a weapon, it's magically auto-equipped to every character of that can use it. Also, you can recruit new hero types on a regular basis, expanding your roster.
There's an emphasis on speed, too. Get slack with attacks, and enemies will shred you. A weird method we've been using is a constant circular swipe, as it'll activate every hero as soon as his or her timer refills. Pushing the bar further, every three hours you'll be able to activate a "Fever" attack that nukes your cool downs and lets you go nuts for a short, but effective, length of time.
If you haven't caught on, this definitely isn't the Final Fantasy you know, but there's a lot of the series' touches present. The presentation is old-school Final Fantasy. The enemies and heroes are, too. The simple "save the world" narrative hooks are all present and accounted for, as well as the late title card.
There's some mobile sensibility thrown in for good measure. When a character goes down, a cool down for a replacement starts. At any point, even if you lose your entire party, you can use an hourglass to replace every member. You can buy these in packs of three, if you're into that sort of thing. Also, you can buy classic named heroes via IAP and buy new arenas set in places from old games. Final Fantasy 7's Midgar is one, for example.
Watch the video to see if it clicks. We're still kinda chewing on ATB as a whole, so we don't have a firm opinion on if it's good or not and why. But we do think the game is an interesting one, especially if you've been riding on the Final Fantasy train since the start. There's a lot of like here.
Square Enix has unveiled yet another one of its countdown teaser sites for another Final Fantasy video game, but interestingly this one's going to be an original mobile game. At least, that's the word from several reports based on the site's URL and source code. The URL pegs it as FF ATB, or Final Fantasy: All The Bravest, an unknown title that Square trademarked back in December 2012. The site's source code apparently has an iTunes link baked into it.
As for the image, it seems to show some traditional Final Fantasy sprites getting rowdy with a bad monster thing. In our brains, this seems to position the game as more classical than new age Final Fantasy, but that's just our speculation.
As for when we'll know what this is and where it'll see a release, we'll probably get a heads up on 1.17. Naturally.
Earlier this morning, Eli and I spent some time with Zenonia 5 [Free]. If you've been under a rock, this is the latest iteration in a long-running RPG franchise with a bunch of old-school sensibilities. In the game, you play as a young adventurer charged with saving a kingdom from a vampire-looking dude. Along the way, you'll take a bunch of Collect [X] or Kill [X of X] missions and fiddle around with a complex skill tree full of powers.
We played the first 15 or so minutes of the game together. The footage doesn't really scratch the surface of the scenarios and places you'll see in the game, but we do think it'll give you a good heads up on the general feel of the game. If you've wanted to see more before you jumped in, this might do the trick:
I credit Square Enix's Final Fantasy IV as being the first game to really make me see the wonders of the role-playing genre. Just as FF4 ushered in the golden age of 16-bit RPGs on the SNES, it also began an interest in me that continues to this day. Thus, one could imagine my excitement when we found out a few works ago that Square Enix would be porting over the DS version of Final Fantasy IV to iOS. Just as was the case with Final Fantasy III[$15.99 / $16.99 (HD)]Â when it debuted in 2011, FFIV [$15.99]Â for iOS should be considered the definitive version of a classic title and is a must-have for any RPG aficionados.
Following the trials and tribulations of the Dark Knight Cecil, Final Fantasy IV is the first game of the series heavily driven by narrative. The story is also pretty engaging (for its time) with themes of genocide, betrayal, atonement and sacrifice, along with a few twists. While the game does offer the opportunity to deviate from the storied path set before you with side quests and optional dungeons, those adventures are few and far between. Still, I'm a huge fan of the epic tale weaved in Final Fantasy IV and I'm glad to see it stand the test of time and succeed even on iOS.
Meanwhile, FFIV employs the same, classic turn-based random battle that has been a staple of the series. Rather than the customizable job-based system found in FFIII, each character in FFIV has a pre-defined class that can't be modified. However, characters that come and go from your party can impart augments, items that can bestow that particular character's special ability to another character. While this offers some ability to customize, the augment system in general is rather unnecessary and feels tacked on (which it is, considering augments didn't exist in the original SNES version).
Similar to the iOS port of Final Fantasy III, FFIV enjoys a number of improvements over its DS predecessor. For starters, the visuals are nicely improved, taking advantage of the higher graphical and processing prowess of iOS devices. The music has also been upgraded, with each remixed song of the classic Nobuo Uematsu soundtrack sounding exquisite. The difficulty has also been tweaked, with two difficulty modes available (a pretty unique addition for classic FF games). I'm particularly pleased with the changes to difficulty, as the game seems to require less grinding than previous versions. This change goes hand-in-hand with the ability to auto-map dungeons, a feature sorely missing from the original and a welcome addition to this version.
In addition, FFIV also employs the same touch-based revamp of the menu system found in FFIII, allowing for much easier touch-based navigation. Despite these improvements, menu navigation can still be a bit cumbersome, especially during battles with characters that have a large amount of spells. Still, the inclusion of an 'Auto-battle' mode (along with some simple command customization) alleviates most of the annoyance.
While we've mostly focused on what has and hasn't changed in this port, what's more important is the simple fact that Final Fantasy IV is still an amazing game to play. The overall story, character development and pacing are excellent. The modifications to the core gameplay, whether they were changed from the US SNES version to the DS version or created exclusively for the iOS port, make the game more accessible to a wider audience. While the 3D visuals don't illicit the same feel as the original sprites of the SNES version, they still do a great job preserving the look and feel of the overarching tale (iffy voice acting notwithstanding). With so many RPGs feeling unfinished or superficial on iOS it's nice to actually play one that hits all the notes and demonstrates why it was, and still is, a classic. Sure, there's a lot of nostalgia in play here, but there's a reason why Final Fantasy IV is so memorable. I'd suggest checking it out to see why.
The first time Lost Treasures of Infocom [Free] hit the scene it was 1991. The treasures weren't actually all that lost at the time —all the games had been published in the '80s and Activision had only dissolved Infocom two years earlier. Now, over twenty years on, it seems a bit more reasonable to call them lost.
"Treasures" isn't much of a stretch either. Interactive fiction is still chugging along nicely in some of the quieter corners of the gaming world, but there's no doubting that the text adventure was in its heyday in the 80s. Zork, Trinity, A Mind Forever Voyaging—Infocom's games defined a genre. If you've ever typed your way through a game you're probably playing something inspired by Infocom's parser, if not its games. From standing in an open field west of a white house all the way to depths of cyberspace, Infocom explored the universe.
Mike Singleton's The Lords of Midnight [$4.99] was originally released for the ZX Spectrum in 1984, on magnetic cassette tape. It was quite possibly the most ambitious game of its time, and you can see the roots of the modern open-world RPG in it as well as its influence on later strategy games and the development of the graphical adventure game. The iOS port is by Chris Wild, and his devotion to the game, and its sequel, Doomdark's Revenge is obvious.
The first thing that will strike most players is the unique look of Lords of Midnight. Rather than embrace the "pixelated" look of most classic and retro games, Singleton and Wild decided to keep the aesthetic of the original, with its bright, crisp primary colors, while sharpening the images to the resolution of modern devices. The result is distinctive and perfectly lucid in its presentation of meaningful information, but it does take a little getting used to – at first, the game looks like a construction-paper version of Lord of the Rings.
Certainly Lords of Midnight is deeply and unabashedly indebted to Tolkien. The scenario is familiar: on the night of the winter solstice, the Witchking Doomdark invades the lands of the free. Disunited human lords, fey creatures of the forest, and tower-dwelling wizards must be united to fight him even as one unique individual, Morkin the half-Fey, sets out into the heart of the enemy's territory in a perilous quest to destroy the Ice Crown, the focus of Doomdark's power. There's even a wretched Gollum-like creature, Fawkrin, who may play a crucial role in the story.
Unlike its inspiration, however, Lords of Midnight includes contingencies. To win, either the armies of Luxor the Moonprince must conquer Doomdark's citadel of Ushgarak, or the Ice Crown must be destroyed. The game is lost only if Morkin is killed and the armies of the free are defeated. Moreover, there are are at least two ways to destroy the Ice Crown, but I'll say no more of that...
Lords of Midnight bills itself as "epic" and still feels epic today, even thought the world is smaller and can be explored much faster than in a modern RPG. This is partially due to a remarkably clever multiple first-person perspective system and a turn-based mechanic in which each of your characters can use up the hours of the day independently, and then Doomdark's forces move by night.
I keep comparing Lords of Midnight to the modern RPG, but the developers describe it as an "Adventure Strategy game." There are no levels to gain, or skills to learn in Lords of Midnight. Inventory plays a nominal role and is managed automatically, and combat is resolved instantaneously and without explanation. The look and feel, however, is much closer to Wizardry (1981) than Kings Quest (1984), and Morkin's quest feels more like the sneaking about that Frodo and Samwise do than the object-use puzzles of text and graphic adventure games.
I think modern players will find the Strategy component of the game more familiar, as it plays a bit like an ancestor of King's Bounty (1990) and especially the subsequent Heroes of Might and Magic games. You recruit the diverse Lords of Midnight to your cause, and they in turn recruit infantry and horsemen at fortifications. Armies only travel with a hero/lord, and they can meet other armies on open ground or lay siege to the enemy's keeps and citadels.
Heroes without armies can fight Doomdark's scattered minions (Wolves, Skulkrin, Trolls, and Dragons), but have no chance against an organized army. The difficulty curve is surprisingly flat for these lesser battles, and hard to predict unless your hero has one of the "-slayer"swords, which seem to give a 100% success rate against the specified enemy type.
In my first game, Mokin encountered wolves on the first turn. Figuring he could take a few wolves, I told him to fight, and then he was (permanently) dead. That's it. One entire path to victory foreclosed before turn 2. In another case, I had a different hero fight dragons without an army or Dragonslayer sword on the first turn, and he slaughtered them.
This is one of the legacies of game design of the period that may make it hard for some fans of modern games to get into Lords of Midnight. Another is that not only do clashes between armies happen between turns, but there's no combat report: to find out how many soldiers each side lost, you have to go to the Lord(s) in question (assuming any of your heroes still live).
Clues that are strategically helpful and/or relevant to Morkin's quest can be garnered at towers and occasionally elsewhere, but the process is tedious and the average answer is useless, something like "the Lord of Utarg can be found at the keep of Utarg." It seems like the best strategy is to play a couple of games just to gather information (the game is not randomized in this way), and then play to win. On a related note, the in-game tutorial tells you that you don't have to read the included novella, but if you don't, you are likely to waste time trying strategies that are intended to be impossible, like trying to confront Doomdark's armies head-on on the plains of Blood.
The game's interface is well-designed for touch, and is easy to navigate and use with one significant caveat. At least on my 4th gen iPod Touch, I had to aim low on or even below the smaller icons in order to select them. This sometimes caused problems with the pop-up tutorials, where missing the small book icon could cause the selected character to move forward one "space."
I mentioned the lucidity of the game's art before: this is one of its greatest strengths. Unlike in most modern overrendered games, you always know what you're looking at in Lords of Midnight. If there's an army far off on the plain, you can see their banners but not make out their numbers. When seeking a magical "henge" or one of the towers of the Wise, you will be able to see it in the first-person view before it shows up on the automap (unless something tall, like a citadel or mountain range, is directly in the way).
Once you get used to the game's combat mechanics and the touch sensitivity, this clarity of vision makes it easy to avoid "stupid" mistakes. The way you can play a couple of minutes at a time with no worries about losing your progress and little concern over forgetting where you were shows both that the original game is suited to mobile play and that the adaptation plays to that strength.
If you're interested in classic games, especially fantasy and/or strategy games, Lords of Midnight is a must-have. On the other hand, if you are an action gamer whose idea of "old school" is Goldeneye 64, you'll want to give this one a pass.
Mike Singleton died this past fall, and with him any possibility of a long-intended final game rounding out the trilogy. Wild's release of the iOS version on December 21st, 2012, the winter solstice and the night the world was "supposed to" end but did not, is a fitting tribute.
Oh, man, you guys needed to see QUEST LORD [$1.99], like, yesterday. It's a love letter to old-school, first-person dungeon crawlers that absolutely nails the look, the feel, and the trippy dungeon design sensibility of PC RPGs of yore. It also feels awesome on a phone, as the movement and combat mechanics have been tastefully engineered with touch-screens and gestures in mind. It's a blast, in other words.
