One of the cool things about following iOS gaming is that you never completely know what each week will bring. Every Thursday, there are a few surprises even for the staff of TouchArcade, and then there are the odd out-of-nowhere launches on other days of the week, too. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the sequel to Dragon Fantasy ($7.99), Muteki Corporation’s love letter to classic JRPGs, released out of nowhere today. Dragon Fantasy: The Black Tome Of Ice ($9.99) will carry a regular price of $9.99, but will be on sale for the first week for just $4.99.

Originally titled Dragon Fantasy: Book II when it released on Sony’s PSN just over two years ago, the game follows the further adventures of the middle-aged warrior Ogden and his companions. While the original game was an homage to 8-bit JRPGs, The Black Tome Of Ice is more heavily inspired by 16-bit JRPGs like Square’s Chrono Trigger ($9.99). The first game was pretty well-regarded around TouchArcade. I liked it well enough to write an RPG Reload feature on it, and I know Jared is a big fan of the game, as well. The members of our forum also appreciated it quite a bit.

The reviews of the PSN version of the second game were decidedly mixed, however. With that in mind, the folks at Muteki went back to the game after some time had passed and saw a lot of ways they could improve it, which I suppose is the one big benefit to iOS gamers having to wait so long. There’s a new difficulty slider, with an adjusted default difficulty setting that should provide a bit more challenge. They’ve also added a new boss fight and a bestiary, which should come in handy given the game’s strong monster-catching component. Finally, they’ve made a number of changes to the story flow to ensure the characters come across the way they were meant to. And of course, since this isn’t their first rodeo on iOS, they’ve got all the important platform-specific boxes checked off. Game Center achievements, iCloud saving, and even Apple TV support are all in.

It’s been a really long wait for dedicated iOS fans who were probably hoping to pick up Ogden’s adventures a bit sooner, but now that it’s over, it’s just good to have another installment in a series that has always been a work of heart for the developers. We’ll have a full review of Dragon Fantasy: The Black Tome Of Ice as soon as we can.