Chaos Rings is a good game but it only took me 6 hours to play through the game as Escher and Musiea for me so the previous poster wasn't to far off. As far as playing through as the different set of characters it only adds little to replayability because nothing is different but the characters and the two starting skills. Crimson Gem Saga most definitely has more content by far but I am not sure how I am going to download it with no broadband connection. Here is a good review of the PSP version: http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/Crimson_Gem_Saga/index.html/ @Chespace It is not really a port, the game is just emulated through Sega's official emulator. The game is runs full speed for me on iPod Touch 2G and the only slow down on my iPhone 3G is when rotating the orientation of the game,of which it recovers as soon as rotation is done. The controls don't have a negative impact like they do on some of the other emulated games because of the slower pacing and actually work pretty well. The only thing that is weird is the 'new game' and 'continue' options from the emulation menu which should be something like start game,used to start a new game or continue, and suspended data.
Game Impressions Okay, so far so good. I haven't played every RPG known to man so I haven't seen this kind of story before, and I'm finding it very interesting. The menus aren't that bad if you're gentle with them, but the floating d-pad is a mess. It was clearly added in as an after thought, and I doubt they gave it much testing. The fixed d-pad is much easier to use. And while the voice acting is well done and adds a lot of personality to the characters, I have to agree with some of the comments here - only playing the last bit of dialog in some parts does through you off a bit, especially if you're reading along. But overall, I can't complain too much. It's a fun and engaging game, and it's nice to finally see another iPhone RPG with more than 2 frames of animation put into the characters. No lag on an iPod touch 2G, but the game does initially load a little slow.
Myself I know some Atlus games on DS (mainly as editor), nothing totally wrong, but nothing amazing and some I consider largely over-evaluated ie Etrian Odyssey series. I also know Deep Labyrinth, Contact, Luminous Arc, Legacy of Ys, Izuna. None of them are bad but also none of them are better than Undercroft which has a gameplay quite longer than 20h and price of $.99. And I also consider Underworlds worth most of those games. From Atlus the only I know a bit, played only the beginning, and consider it is most probably better is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. Another problem I have with this game at this price is that there's no demo. Isn't the x-box live have demo for the games? I have the same complain for Chaos Ring, if it is that good, why no demo?
So far, i'm absolutely loving this game. First RPG that i've played on my iphone/iPad that didn't feel like a mobile rpg. (yes, yes, I haven't played Chaos Ring yet. Waiting on the HD) my only issue is the controls. Picking an item or skill during combat is painful. Also trying to upgrade skills is a mess. It took me a while just to figure out that I had to click on the character icon to get to their skills. Then another 5 minutes to figure out how to go through them. The reverse swipe is retarded. Luckily these should be an easy update fix. Also I don't have any issue with graphics. Yes there's a few places where a few pixels are off (i'm using an iPad). But it's so minor and doesn't effect the game play that I could care less. Do I regret buying this, Hell no. I spent 3 hours after work yesterday playing and i'm jump back in when I get home tonight. You just have to get used to the menu controls.
It also happens only with the bronze medallion. Silver and platinum worked without a hitch. To those who have yet to play the game, the medallions are items that are used to upgrade skills. The bug we're talking about makes it so that once you select the bronze medallion (to go from level 1 to level 2 skill), you have to use all the bronze medallions you have, one after the other (on one or multiple characters). Since there's no reason not to upgrade your skills (it's permanent, after all), the bug is really just an inconvenience.
The controlls and buggs with this game are ****ing dire. They reck the whole experience. The port is just plane sloppy and lazy, it makes me angry that obviosly no care has been taken in porting this.
The controls are perfectly playable, and I have yet to encounter any of the so called "bugs" that you speak of...
Im i the only one who has a problem that the equipment that you buy doesnt always show up in the inventory?
I personally can't speak of any bugs per se - it's just bad port design choices, and sloppy OpenGL port. As far as bugs go? I haven't had any crashes or freezes or anything of the sort. As I said previously, the game underneath the terrible port appears to be terribly solid.
In a way there's a link, if you are unsure of the quality of your game, the demo is perhaps a wrong step, otherwise not doing one is unfair for players. When you are glued by some constraints coming from the device I can understand but that's not a problem here. EDIT: If I stop buy almost any DS game that's because I couldn't try them before.
I think I might have found a slight 'work-around' of sorts for the scrolling issue with the menus until an update/fix is released. The scrolling itself is over-sensitive in menus, but only when you hold your finger down on the screen. If you 'swipe' with your finger (i.e. only have your finger touch the screen momentarily) it will only move one space in the menu, much like pressing an 'up/down' button, no matter how hard you swipe. So basically, if you want to scroll down lots of spaces, keep your finger held down, but if you want to select more precisely, do the swiping thing. Hope this helps.
Let me expand: There are some small bugs such as the speaking bug these are not the main problem. Going through the menu's is realy difficult, it takes me like 15 mins to sell or buy items because it keeps going back. Secoundly the skill tree menu is very difficult to navigate around through. Thirdly you have to keep manuel saving or you can loose 30 mins save data just because of a menu bug or a death. Anouther main controll floor is the virtual d-stick Instead of sticking to the part of the screen where you press it follows you're finger making it very difficult to move with any accuracy. Finaly there is no help menu or tutorials. If you think this port is terribly solid you are terribly blind.
I've been playing for a few hours now and I haven't seen any bugs. There are some graphical seams but that's not a fault of the port it's more likely just things that weren't seen on the psp's lower ppi screen. As for the controls I haven't had any issues with them other than not liking how the flexible d-pad resets it's position. It's a bit confusing to navigate sometimes but thats because this version has no manual. I haven't seen a bad design choice but some things could be improved. Example: in battle you have a pop up to let you choose if you want to attack, escape, defend, etc. The square around that dialog is clearly the area for touch input. I'd prefer the box be at least more rectangular so I'm not covering the choices but it's fine as is. This game was made for a larger screen, a screen with a lower resolution, and controlled exclusively by buttons. Expecting perfection on the first go is crazy but I haven't seen a single damning quality in this game. It's FANTASTIC
There's nothing terrible about the port. I've already put in 6 1/2 hours into it, and have run exactly into 1 minor bug (the bronze medallion thing). The game runs at a steady 60 FPS (or so) with no hiccups, the fixed d-pad controls work well, and it has not crashed once on me (not a single time). The graphical glitches mentioned are so minor as to be noticeable only if you're looking for them (perhaps they're more obvious on an iPad, though). The one issue is the menu control system, which some people seem to be having trouble with -- that's a design choice, with the purpose of reducing the clutter of buttons on the screen and allowing for "power" swipes to get quicker at items deeper in the menu tree. In comparison the game-ending and character-killing bugs in Zenonia 2, Crimson Gem Saga is technically pretty darn clean port. And the underlying game, is better than Zenonia, Inotia, etc by an order of magnitude.
