After spying its release on our app this morning, Eli and I jumped into Total Recall. In brief, Total Recall [99¢] is a rail shooter that has you, as some guy, shooting other guys for some reason that we can’t puzzle out, even though there’s story bits before every level. On the technical front it operates just fine, but it’s just not a very engaging game. It has some questionable level design, as well as some pretty weak AI and scenario design.
Perhaps more questionable is its IAP functionality. The game has two currencies, one of which you can’t earn by playing the game. In order to buy the guns that it suggests you use during levels, you need to use this unobtainable currency. It comes off as kind of weak, considering you have to pay for this game straight-up.
So, right, Total Recall. It’s a video game. We played it, and welcome you to watch us play it right below:
"This departure from black and white storytelling is refreshing" I think the refreshing thing is that there is storytelling in an ios game ..even if it is from a port of a psp game. >.>
This is a really good review that also addresses what quite a few of us wanted to know: Is this a good port?
I bought it before the TA review. I can highly recommend it. Having not played the psp original, I can't tell you whether it's a good port. I can say that for someone fresh to the game, the user interface was confusing. Yet, having played the first few chapters, I know what I'm doing. The touch controls are solid and intuitive, for sure.
My only gripes are I don't know what to do next sometimes, and the storytelling from multiple angles - whilst novel and welcome - leaves the player in a state of "huh?".
The game's not cheap for a iOS game but it's well worth it if this is your kind of game. Two thumbs up from me.
For $14, I hope there is no additional IAP in this game. How are controls compared to Final Fantasy tactics? Right now I'm hooked on Rainbow Moon (PS3) which barely had a story but gameplay is VERY addicting. I'm hoping the same for Spectral Souls.
I have this on psp, and it is a solid game. The psp version suffered horrid load times at first, running on umd on the original psp. This was much better playing on a slim, and playing it off the memory stick rather than umd. I'm going to try this out, and as long as the load issue is fine I'd say go for it. I assume it isn't an issue, or it would surely have been in the review. It made the ff tactics slowdown look slick and the pax version of ff6 seem playable in comparison! Now if Squenix would put out Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre...
Just to add, I paid $40 for this on psp. So ask yourself, if you were tracking down a used umd or this showed up say on the compatible PSN list on vita, $10-20 would probably be the fair asking price, right? I hope no one thinks it should be a buck. It isn't a freemium-powered time waster. It isn't a throwback RPG that clocks in at 5-6 hrs with dlc chapters maybe later. It is a full length console quality RPG.
Would it be so hard for TA to throw in the name of the Game studio/producer up there with the review?
The game was inevitably compared to Final Fantasy Tactics (as most SRPGs are) and my question to anyone out there is this: If I didn't enjoy FFT (the PSX version, I LOVED the GBA and NDS versions for whatever reason) will I hate this as well? It looks like an amazing time-sink that I would thoroughly enjoy dropping hours into but I worry that it'll be too much like the iOS FFT and I'll regret my purchase... Anyone have any thoughts on that?
Give the free trial a shot. It compares to FFT, especially on ios, from a genre standpoint. But mileage can vary even within a series (I like ff6 but not so much 5, I like smt 1 more than 2, hate phantasy star 2 but love 4, etc).
Short answer: Give it a shot! I didn't enjoy FFT on the iPhone, but I love Spectral souls on the iPhone! So far I've spent almost all of my gaming time on SS instead of other high end console/PC games.
FFT is a great game, but the graphic and interface really isn't cutting it for me at this day.
About time a good recent iOS game comes out. Still waiting for Street fighter X tekken etc this game will hold me down.
I bought this game on my old android last year for fifteen bucks. It was worth every cent. The game is epic. I put over 100 hours into it and still never beat it.
Thank you for the nice review and for all your comments :)
This review fails to mention one glaring omission: Quick Save. Sorry,but if i'm going to play a game where some missions can take well over 30-40 minutes to complete on a mobile phone,i'd like at least the option to quick save.
That's aside from the game's horrible difficulty,but that's not a problem specific to the ios port...
double post.
WARNING: There is no autosave nor quick save during a battle. I've had to restart 30min battles after taking a call, multitasking on my iphone, etc. This game crashes easily if you tab out the game and start using some other tab.
The game itself is AMAZING. Being a huge SRPG fan, I am very pleased with its gameplay. I've been waiting for such game to land iOS forever! However, it is not a good MOBILE PORT. At this age, you'd think be able to quick save during a 20-40 min.long battle it's a given on a mobile device.
Bottom line: if you do not use your iphone as a DEDICATED gaming device, don't buy it until the developer incorporate quick save function. Or just buy it on the PSP. After all, it is an amazing game.
Cocosoy : The version 1.2 we recently released should fix the crash that occured after receiving a phone call. We know there is still an issue when you keep the game inactive in tab for a long time, this will be fixed in the next update which is already on its way.
Regarding the quick save function, we are currently working on it to see if there is something we can do.
By the way, I wouldn't recommend the PSP version for its extremely long loading times ;)
Glad that the dev. is working on the crashes and quick save. Quick save will make life a lot easier.
I just finished my first run (without doing the post game content). This game really gives FFT a run for its money. The combat, skill and equipment optimization is ridiculously fun and well done. After beat the game once, I feel that I barely scratched the surface. Going new game + :)