Gamevil has put out some of my favorite iOS games over the last couple of years. Zenonia, Hybrid, Baseball Superstars, Illusia, and loads more. This time around, they’ve published Knetp’s Legend of Master 3, an Action RPG which, unfortunately, does not take care of the issues presented in Legend of Master 2. Hopefully being published by Gamevil will help to get the game more attention, and have a couple of these issues fixed.
At first, the movement of the screen when you move your character around can be pretty frustrating. The screen seems to want to jump all over the place. But after you play the game a bit, it does get a bit less annoying, but there’s still always that little jerk on the screen when you move that takes away from the immersion of the gameplay. There are also some issues with the frame-rate, but nothing that distracts as much as the jerkiness of the screen. The directional joystick moves your character in 8 directions, which isn’t bad, but after playing CrimsonHeart, this is always something that’s noticeable.
Aside from these slight issues, Legend Of Master 3 is a competent Action RPG title, with a fairly large variety of classes all having their own unique skill trees and weapon options. Each of the 6 classes has the same story and plot; 400 years ago, an evil sorceress B’Kar turned Cain’s family to stone. Knowing that he couldn’t defeat B’Kar then, Cain split his soul into 7 pieces, scattering them across the lands with the hope that once all of the pieces of his soul were retrieved, he would have the skills needed to defeat B’Kar once and for all. Now, in the present, Cain is awakened inside the body of William, an heir to the throne who had just watched his younger brother die in front of his eyes. While learning about the futuristic world Cain now resides in, he must find the 7 pieces of his soul, and defeat B’Kar, avenging his family and loved ones.
From the story, it’s pretty easy to tell that this isn’t your typical younger naive children learning how to be adults while going on an adventure to help save a little town, cheesy type RPG plot. The graphics also mirror this with fantastic character and enemy models/sprites. The camera is panned out a little more than most RPG titles on the iOS, which does make it a little bit harder to make out the characters details, but in 2X mode on the iPad, it’s fairly clear, and surprisingly not pixilated, which is a huge plus. The animations are also fantastically done, but as you can probably imagine, with the frame-rate and screen movement issues, don’t seem as smooth as they should be.
The environments are, for the most part, dark and uninviting, and combined with the music, makes for an uneasy feeling. Making it even more uneasy are the environmental objects, most of which are fairly highly detailed, adding quite a bit of immersion to the game. Even though this immersion is lowered by the screen shaking.
Other than that, the bulk of the game is like almost all other Action RPG titles available in the AppStore. Visiting towns exposes you to other characters who need various tasks completed to help them out in their daily lives, like collecting X amount of some herb or material, or killing X amount of a certain type of enemy.
Crafting is included, but could use some tweaking as the amount of items you need to make potions is pretty high, and the difference between a slight increase in potion strength is even higher. For instance, making a 25% HP recovery potion costs you 8 Blooms, while a 35% potion costs 12 Blooms AND 12 Bones. But luckily, you’re able to disassemble items that you don’t need anymore straight from your inventory, without needing to go to a merchant, which lets you build up your gold pretty quickly, so just out-right purchasing potions is your best bet when you’re first starting out. However, crafting isn’t totally useless in the beginning. You’re able to craft Stones which you can use to upgrade your weapons, which really helps out in the beginning portions of the game, and crafting stones isn’t nearly as resource consuming as potions is, with each stone requiring only 6 items, 2 of three different ore’s which you’ll be able to pick up while making your way through the game. Upgrading your equipment is done through the blacksmith, picking an equipable item and combining it with stones. You’re also able to upgrade other stats of your items with stones in the blacksmith. Needless to say, crafting a bunch of stones, and upgrading your equipment is another big part of the game.
With Legend Of Master 3 priced at $5, and not being Universal or including GameCenter achievements, and having a few issues with frame-rate and the camera, it’s a bit on the high end of the pricing spectrum. But when comparing it to other titles, it’s a lot more mature, staying away from the cutsey graphics and story lines of most RPGs. Hardcore fans of the genre will enjoy the deep skill trees, 6 different classes, and huge selection of weapons, along with the upgrading and crafting. The graphics and animations are also top-notch, however marred by the camera issues, which is only such a big deal because of how beautiful the graphics truly are, and the desire to see them as clearly as they deserve to be shown. On the other hand, if you’re looking for something to match the depth, and smoothness of CrimsonHeart, you might want to wait and see if some of these issues are fixed in future updates. Considering the game is the 3rd in the series, and published by Gamevil, there’s a fairly high chance that they will be tackled. Legend Of Master 3 does have it’s faults, but they are easily overlooked once you get deep into the game, and get sucked into the story and combat. It’s definitely a title you should keep your eyes on.
