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Spaceward Ho! (Ariton) – $4.99

There are some genres that have truly embraced the AppStore, using the iDevice’s unique touch screen capabilities, and basically feeling right at home on the platform. Puzzlers, Racers and Point n’ Click titles really make it feel like the iDevice was made to perfectly suit them. Strategy games are also definitely falling into this grouping of genres, and slowly, but surely, 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) titles are finding their way as well, and these are being sucked up by fans of this niche genre like an addicts choice substance. It also helps when these titles are ports of old-school titles, as a lot of iOS gamers are 30-40 year olds who found out they can fit gaming into their lives again by playing on their phones.
Spaceward Ho!, originally an Amiga and Mac title released in 1990 released by Delta Tao Software, has made its way into the AppStore, accompanying Ascendancy as two of the more notable old-school 4X games that have graced the iDevice, and the two man California based development team, Ariton (who also developed the Spaceward Ho! port for the Palm Pilot), has done a fantastic job transferring the game over to the touch screen.
Spaceward Ho! is not your typical depthy 4X Strategy game. Actually, on the surface, it’s very basic when compared to titles like Master of Orion or Starbase Orion, but underneath the surface, it does have quite a bit of depth. It’s probably better placed next to titles like 9 Colonies and Vincere Totus Astrum, offering up gameplay that can last an hour, or even play through as quick as 10 minutes.
When starting a game, you’re able to decide exactly what kind of game you’ll be playing. You’ll be able to choose what kind of system you’ll be thrown into; Thriving, Abundant, Advanced, Normal, Backward, Barren, or Outpost. How many other empires you want in the star system, choosing between 1 and 8, as well as their IQ, being able to pick between 50 and 200, in increments of 10. The enemies home system, like yours, Thriving, Abundant, ect… but you can also decide to have this be based on their IQ. How many years to advance with every turn, 10, 20, 30 or 50, whether or not to allow Best Buddies, and the Shape, size, and Density of the universe. All but the size influences the difficulty, which you’ll be able to see go up and down based on your choices.
Once you decide the settings, you’re taken to the Galaxy screen. Here, you can see your home planet, as well as all the other planets in the galaxy. To get started, you can double tap on your home planet, and be taken to the ship/satellite creation screen. Here, you can build various ships and satellites, adjusting their Range, Speed, Weapons, Shields, and Mini (amount of material used to build them). As you progress through the game, your researchers will automatically research different technologies, increasing what you can use as stats for your ships.
In the Info section, along the left side of the screen, you can adjust how much money you’ll spend on the different technologies by dragging the gauge’s. In this area, you can also view your entire list of planets that you’ve colonized, adjusting how much money you spend on the planet. You can adjust it so that you spend more on technologies, or put the money back into your savings. At the top of this bar you’ll find your total money and metal (the only resource that you’ll need to worry about in the game). The metal that you collect from around the galaxy is used to build your satellites and ships, so sometimes colonizing a planet just to take the metal from it, and then evacuating is a very good idea. At the bottom of the info section, you’re able to either hide the information or change to view your history, which is a list of every major event that has happened in the game. There is also a little box which tells you who the other players are, and if they’re an enemy or ally.
The game is complete when you either friend or defeat all of the other players. You can keep playing, colonizing the rest of the planets, or seeing how strong you can make your ships until you run out of metal, but it’ll be pretty boring since there won’t be any opponents. If you’re familiar with the original Spaceward Ho! this is basically an exact port. You can not view your technology level vs. the other players, there’s no ‘browse all fleets’ or ‘browse all planets’ and network play has not been implemented yet, but the developers have said that they are working hard on giving us GameCenter Support, Multiplayer features, and an iPhone build of the game. Being priced at $5, it’s a great title to pick up if you’re a fan of the 4X genre. It’s also one of the best 4X games you could pick up if you’re new to the genre. It’s very easy to learn, has a great ‘help’ section, which is also pretty short (unlike some other tutorial or help sections in other 4X games that are 50 pages long, and would take 2 hours to read through) because all of the unnecessary complexity that’s in other 4X games has either been weeded out, or is taken care of automatically. There is also an Auto-Play option, which lets you watch the game take over your decisions, which is a great way to learn how to play the game quickly. The developers are very active on the Touch Arcade Forums, and have an ‘Ask Us’ section on their website dedicated to answering questions. Having such active and supportive developers makes wanting to support them very easy.
[iPad Only]
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April 9, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

‘Retro Racing’ Review



Retro Racing-What’s in a Name? Everything.


Mysteriously, on March 23rd, Retro Racing was randomly pulled from the app store. Now, after a glitch-up on Apple’s side was corrected, it’s back on the app store and available for everyone again. In a nutshell, Retro Racing is, as one could assume from the name, a nostalgia-inducing racing game. Developed by Mr. Qwak, also known as the makers of All Terrain Racing and Nitro, two classic Amiga racers, it brings to the table a nice experience of retro fun, but not without a few flaws.

iPhone Screenshot 1

Controls
In Retro Racing, the controls are fairly simple: tap on the forward arrow to go forward and the sideways ones to go sideways (sometimes called turning.) If when playing this game you can’t understand that, even after the tutorial, and you aren’t a cat, I will personally write a letter of apology to your pride. Anyhow, the controls work alright, but they feel very cramped, mainly on iPhones or iPod Touches (on the iPad it’s much better.) One nice option would be an ‘auto-gas with left and right arrows on the sides’ control scheme or a landscape mode, both of which might help ease the controls’ weaknesses. Still, the current controls just don’t seem good enough most of the time. At times they work decently, but the sensitivity sometimes can be hard to judge even then, leading to crashes in-game. Most of the time though, they work fairly well, but they don’t provide the best possible execution consistently.
3.5/5


iPhone Screenshot 4

Graphics/Gameplay
As the name implies, Retro Racing employs retro-styled graphics. While they’re not stunning, they get the job done perfectly well. It also plays great and is very enjoyable. As you could guess, the goal is to race through each level as fast as you can and to get first place. There are leaderboards for every track, fitting the style and pace of the game. There’s also a nifty two-player mode which pits you against another opponent (one-device only), which works very well and is really fun as well, even on the smaller iPhone. This is available for both iPhone and iPad after the recent update. Each race also has a variety of “power-ups” that boost your stats, plus nitro boosts as well. These make the game fun and fresher at its lower moments. While its still a stereotypical racing game in many aspects, it creates a fun-filled nostalgic game.
4.5/5

iPhone Screenshot 3

Level Design
The highlight of the game, though, lies in its nifty level design. In most racing games, the level’s just the track and where it turns. That’s not the case in ‘Retro Racing’. Each level is packed with a good amount of power-ups, extra paths, and more that make each level fresh and fun. False turns, cones, walls, and other cars all stand in the way of you and the finish line. The most enjoyable part of the game is how much the level design plays a part into the game. A nitro power-up could propel you into first place. Crashing into cones could lose you a position, while turning on a false turn could destroy your shot at taking the checkered flag. The level never feels unjustly made; even the frustrating moments make me want to play more. Each level feels carefully made to be the best it can be, and in turn propels the game
5/5

iPhone Screenshot 5

Balance
The weakest point in the game, however, lies in its balancing. If you ever want to achieve a score anywhere high in the leaderboards you have to purchase an extra $.99 car pack, which unlocks the final three cars, meaning that if you care about that type of thing, you will be wanting to buy the iAP, which seems missing in tact and unfair. The game feels somewhat balanced in its ‘campaign’, with the basic cars (and very rewarding when you win) but would get too easy with the iAP cars since their stats are over twice as high as the best of the basic cars. Plus, all the basic cars are unlocked from the get-go, meaning there’s no sense of progression there, besides levels. Often times that’s simply not enough, which can lead the game down some dire straits.
3/5

Overall:
Retro Racing is a nice game weakened by so-so controls and imperfect balancing. However, if you’re a fan of the ‘retro’ or of the ‘racing’ then these problems are easily overcome by the sweet level design and fun gameplay, providing a very fun approach to the racing genre.

4/5

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March 29, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Grinsia (Kemco) – $8.99

GRINSIA
Kemco
It’s pretty rare to see a development team release high quality RPGs one after the other. Square Enix is definitely in that list, but with iOS titles, Kemco is right on their heals. Releasing Symphony of Eternity, Alphadia, Eve of the Genesis and Fantasy Chronicle all within the last year, Kemco has made their mark on the Turn Based RPG scene, and now we can add Grinsia to that list of top notch titles that they’re building up.
This time around, you’ll start off playing as a 3 member family; Grieg, father, Milka, daughter, and the son, which you’re able to name at the beginning of the game. For those of you who have played Kemco’s other releases, Grinsia might not be as depthy as you might like. The characters HP and MP goes up with each leveling up, which is done with experience gained through battles. You are able to equip your characters with one weapon, one piece of armor, and two accessories. The accessories are all varied from pieces that bring up your defense or attack, to items that can raise the critical hit rate by 10%, or raise a characters speed, luck, or protect against certain magical spells.
Compared to Kemco’s previous releases, Grinsia does not require much, if any at all, grinding, which is a big plus. The game is driven by the story, and, without any side quests, everything that you wind up doing directly effects the progression of the plot. However, in order to progress throughout the game, you will need to do a lot of exploration, and go through a lot of conversation with townsfolk. It’s almost never directly apparent who you’re going to need to talk to, so you will spend quite a bit of time getting to know people in every place that you visit.
There’s also a day and night system for the game. Some sections will be impossible to pass unless it’s nighttime in the game, while others require the sun to be out. You are also given choices with your character, depending on how you’d like to play, being the ‘good’ guy, or the ‘bad’ guy, each having it’s own strengths and weaknesses, effecting what items you get, and how you make it through certain parts of the game. This sometimes can change the outcome of things, like if a certain character joins your party, but no ‘wrong’ answer will ever get you stuck. This definitely adds a great layer of immersion with the gameplay.
As for combat, like other T-B-RPGs, there is an ‘auto’ button, which makes your characters automatically attack the enemies, without using spells, or items. But this time around, if you decide to use the auto button more than a couple times in a row, you’ll end up killing off your characters pretty quickly. The combat isn’t really challenging compared to some other RPGs, but you will need to pay attention, and mix things up in order to make your way from point A to point B.
To make things a little easier while traveling, each town and ‘dungeon’ area has their own portal. Once activated, you can teleport yourself from one place to another in a flash. This makes moving from place to place, and even across continents a breeze. Another big plus for this mechanic is that you really don’t need to grind through battles, so you can’t really use the teleportation too much, as there’s always enough battles to keep your levels high enough to make it through the game.
Like all of Kemco’s other releases, Grinsia’s story, translation, and music are all top notch. The story is very well written, while the translation to English is almost perfect, having only minor mistakes here and there. The music is in the same league as old-school Final Fantasy games, adding to the feeling and immersion that the story and characters build up by themselves.
Graphically, Grinsia isn’t really different from Kemco’s previous efforts, with the retro inspired graphics being very polished, and the character models during dialogue looking great. Grinsia has loads of different environments, including port town, inland towns, castles, dungeons, caves, forests, underground hideaways, temples, and more, giving the game quite a bit of variety with it’s environments.
After the release of Fantasy Chronicle, I didn’t think Kemco would ever be able to out-do themselves. However, Grinsia, while not as depthy with the equip or combat systems, is probably the most polished, and well rounded RPG that they’ve ported over to the English AppStore. Right now, it’s on sale for $4.99, and will soon go up to it’s regular price of a well deserved $8.99. Though there’s really nothing negative that can be said about the game as a whole, it is worth pointing out that I, as well as some other players have experienced lag, and frame rate issues, as well as crashes. Kemco has said that they are working on this as fast as they can, so hopefully we’ll get a fix for whatever is causing this as soon as possible. However, out of everyone I’ve talked to, and out of all of the reviews in the US AppStore, combined, only about 10% of players have experienced problems like these, so there’s a very good chance that most of you have nothing to worry about. Now, like all of Kemco’s past RPG releases, Grinsia is ending up as a highly recommended game, and is being put on my personal ‘Best Games of 2012’ list. If you’re a fan of the genre, it’s definitely a game that you should have on your device.
::After posting this review, a user in the US AppStore posted a fix for the lag and framerate issues. If you enable OpenFeint while playing, you shouldn’t experience any lag at all. Apparently, if you’re not signed into OF, the game keeps trying to access your OF data, which is what is causing the lag and slowdown. I’ve checked this on both a 4th Generation iPod Touch, and an iPad 2, both having no slowdown issues at all with OpenFeint enabled.::

**THANKS TO ENDEMION IN THE US APPSTORE FOR POSTING THIS!!**


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March 25, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Flick Rocket (Binary Square)

FLICK ROCKET
Binary Square
Retro arcade games have always remained fairly popular with old-school gamers throughout the years. But since the AppStore launched, it seems like they’re making a pretty big come-back. Most likely it’s because of the cheap prices iOS games have, but it’s also because there’s a lot of 20 and 30 year olds who are getting back into gaming because they can now fit in time to play games by having a phone/portable device that’s able to always be with them. Binary Square is definitely a development group that’s taking advantage of this, and giving iOS gamers high quality old-school-like arcade games. Flick Rocket fits right into that category.
The goal in Flick Rocket is to protect your city from the onslaught of aliens by flicking your rockets up at their ships and projectiles. Once they blow up all of the buildings in the city you’re defending, it’s game over. Sounds simple enough, eh? And it is, really just that simple, and it’s in this simplicity that the game shines. It‘s addictive old-school arcade gameplay that’s easy to understand, and takes a while to really master. Knowing where and when exactly to send your rockets will take practice, but once you finally get it, it just clicks, and feels great.
There’s also some great power-ups which really help out once you get to know what does what. There’s a shield which protects your buildings, a time-stopper, which freezes everything on the screen, extra buildings, and rockets that bounce off the edges of the screen. Along with this, some enemy ships also drop letters. If you collect them all, spelling out EXTRA, you’ll be able to play through a bonus stage.
Now, all of this is great, and fits right in with the old-school type of arcade gameplay. But the simplicity could also turn some people off. You do swipe, and a lot, over and over again, and with gamers being flooded with fully immersive deepthy games, there are some people who are sure to get bored with it fairly quickly.
There’s two modes in Flick Rocket, Arcade and Campaign. Right now, there’s only 3 different cities that you can try and defend, with 7 more ‘in development’. In Campaign Mode, you’re able to pick which city you’d like to defend, and play through wave after wave until all 10 buildings are destroyed. Each city has it’s own type of enemy. With Tokyo, you’re put up against Space Invaders type enemies, with line after line needing to be destroyed. Paris has you go up against a centipede type enemy, which breaks in half, and turns into more enemies every time you hit it with a rocket, and LA has you destroying asteroids before they hit your buildings, with each asteroid breaking into smaller asteroids. In Arcade Mode you’ll go from town to town, destroying all the enemies you can, and keeping as many buildings protected as you can, until all your buildings are gone, feeling pretty much like a survival mode.
It’s supported by GameCenter, having leaderboards for all 3 Campaign cities, and another for Arcade Mode, but there are no achievements. If you’re looking for something with lots of depth, or are sick of games that have a bunch of ‘coming soon’ levels, or just plain don’t like old-school arcade gameplay, you’d be better off skipping this one. But with Flick Rockets being Universal, priced at $0.99, having a pretty nice scoring system with great power-ups, offering a lot of challenge, and replay value with GC leaderboards, it’s a fantastic retro title that’ll give you the same feelings you use to have while going down to the arcade or bowling ally back in the 80’s or early 90’s, wasting time away quarter after quarter.
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March 20, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Neoteria – 1.99 (OrangePixel)


Neoteria
OrangePixel has proven, with their mobile game releases, that they are kings of the retro gaming world. Their lineup of Meganoid, Stardash, INC, Super Drill Panic and more now have another title that’ll eat up gamers lives; Neoteria, an arcade inspired retro shoot-em-up with the difficulty level fans of OrangePixel have come to love and respect. And really, OrangePixel development merged with shmup gameplay… a pretty hardcore fan of both couldn’t ask for more.
Gameplay: 4/5
In the game, you’ll start off with only Easy Mode selectable. As you progress through the first world, you’ll unlock Normal Mode, and once you complete the first world on Normal, you unlock Hard Mode, which, if you’re familiar with OrangePixel’s games, is basically where the hardcore gamers will spend most of their time. You’re given little snippets of the story as you make your way from world to world. The outer mining settlement is under alien attack, and it’s up to you to stop them.
There are checkpoints throughout each world, set up kind of like levels. Each has 3 stars which you can earn by playing on all 3 difficulties. The first star is for beating the level on Easy, second star for Normal, and third for Hard. There are different paths which you can play through on your way through each world, with each path leading to the same end boss. You are able to go back and replay previously beaten stages if you’d like to power-up your weapon, which you do by collecting the blue crystals that enemies leave behind, or if you’d like to try and travel through all the paths in each world.
Graphics: 4/5
As with other OrangePixel games, Neoteria is done in a retro style that looks fantastic. However, there is one little drawback. On the iPad, the graphics have a little blur behind them whenever objects are moving. This includes the backgrounds, environments, player ship, enemies, and projectiles. It’s not too much of an issue, because most of the time, you’ll be focusing on the crazy amount of enemies coming at you, and trying to survive, but it is there. I’m not sure if it’s there on the iPod, because of the smaller screen, but if it is, it’s not noticeable.
Controls: 4/5
The controls for Neoteria aren’t really what you would expect from a shooter like this, and it’s where the arcade inspiration really becomes apparent. On the left side of the screen, you’re given two buttons for movement of your ship up and down, and on the right side, there’s a fire button, but you can tap anywhere on the right side of the screen to fire. There is no auto-fire, so you’ll constantly be tapping on the right side of the screen to shoot. Here’s where those quick tapping abilities all you old-school gamers should still have come in handy.
In the Controls Menu, you’re able to move the buttons around as you see fit, which definitely comes in handy if you’re playing on an iPad. However, the touch detection area is pretty small, and does not go outside of the buttons at all. This can result in your ship not going up or down because your thumb is the slightest little bit off. This is understandable, since you are able to move the buttons around, and could potentially have the up button pretty much touching the down button, and you wouldn’t want the detection area to overlap. Being able to make the buttons bigger would be a nice way of fixing this, especially since they go invisible after a short time, and obscuring the gameplay area wouldn’t really be an issue with it.
To top it off, it’s also iCade and Joypad supported!
Content + Replayability : 4/5
Neoteria does not really have a whole lot of content, especially when compared to the insane amount of levels in OrangePixel‘s other titles. 3 worlds, each with 8 pretty short levels in them. I’m hoping that like their other games, Neoteria will get some nice content updates in the future. But like other shmups, the value is really in the replay value, not necessarily in the content, and Neoteria has it in spades. Yes, there are only 24 short levels in the game, but you’ll be able to play through them with each of the 3 characters, and finding out how to make it into the hidden paths could take a while.
There’s also the scoring system. At the end of each level, your score is based on the percentage of the level’s enemies that you wiped out, your shot accuracy, and the score you built up while playing through the level. This does add an extra level of replay value, as the first couple times you play through the game, you’ll probably be pounding away on the fire button, and then start trying to increase your score by getting higher accuracy percentages.
Neoteria is also supported by OpenFeint and GameCenter, with 12 achievements, and 3 leaderboards, one for each character (difficulty). So if you’re a high-score chaser, battling for a higher position on the leaderboards is sure to keep you busy for some time. Getting all of the achievements should also take a while, as a lot of them are for finding the secret paths, and 100% completing each difficulty.
Overall: 4/5
Granted, Neoteria isn’t OrangePixel’s best release to date, but I’m ecstatic that one of my favorite development teams released a shmup, one of my favorite type of games (yeah, I’m a platformer/shmup/strategy fanatic). The developers have said that they’re working on another control scheme, as a few players aren’t really comfortable with the current set-up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it got a few content updates as well. OrangePixel’s other titles have also been known to get very fleshed out/extremely polished based on player feedback, so the distortion with the graphics, touchy controls, and any other issues that there might be, have a very good chance of being dealt with.
At $1.99, being Universal, having iCade and Joypad compatibility, as well as the crazy high replay value that comes along with shmups and games having GameCenter and OpenFeint support, not to mention, it’s ORANGEPIXEL, it’s a great buy.
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February 25, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

‘Bean’s Quest’ Review

Bean’s Quest
In ‘Bean’s Quest’, a delightful platformer by Kumobius, you play as Emilio, who has been transformed into a Mexican Jumping Bean and his girlfriend and pets taken away by a dark wizard. The game was originally released in mid-July with just eight levels, but has since been continuously updated by the developers to now include fifty levels. The latest update added 23 new levels and finished the story. Bean’s Quest mixes around between traditional platforming elements and a truly unique and creative execution.
 iPhone Screenshot 1
Gameplay/Controls: 4.5/5
The controls are very simple in ‘Bean’s Quest’: touch the left side of the screen to move left and the right side to go right. This is combined with the fact that you are constantly jumping, so you have to time your movements accordingly. The controls work flawlessly, though for those heavily accustomed to normal platformers, the jumping mechanic will take time to get used to. The gameplay and controls work perfectly together in creating a truly unique experience. Different gameplay elements, like enemies, giant wheel-like objects, and tiny blocks help you along the way, even causing some levels to feel like a mix between physics puzzlers and platformers. ‘Bean’s Quest’ is a very fun and enjoyable game, bringing wildly new elements to a somewhat-standardized genre.

iPhone Screenshot 5

Graphics/Music: 4.5/5

 The graphics feel very fitting as well, with a nifty semi-pixelized look. It feels like the perfect blend between retro and modernized graphics. The game looks how you’d want it to by playing it: retro streaked with a cool, new-age flair to it. Different worlds have different looks, giving a nice change-of-pace between them.  The music feels as great as I could imagine, with a chiptune-like soundtrack mixed with the Spanish flair fitting of a Mexican Jumping Bean. Each world also has a separate music number. As a whole, ‘Bean’s Quest’ presents itself in a method pleasing to both the eyes and ears.

iPhone Screenshot 2

Content/Variety: 5/5
 If I were reviewing this game before any updates, the game would definitely be lacking in this category. But thanks to major updates, it’s grown in size to become a powerhouse in terms of content. Each level has three very difficult goals: collect all the gems, find your pet Axolotl, and try to do it within the par jump, bouncing as few times as possible. Each of these will take you several tries to achieve, adding a lot of replay value to the mix. Plus there are Game Center Leaderboards for each world as well as 33 achievements to collect. To complete the game alone will take awhile, but to accomplish all three goals for every level will last you a long time in terms of playing time. There’s also a lot of variety, with five definedly different worlds and an epic boss battle finale. Worlds feel a lot different too, with different enemies, obstacles, and more in each world. As far as content and variety goes, ‘Bean’s Quest’ brings you a lot of both, giving a game one could play for hours and not get bored with.
Overall: 4.5/5
 Grab your sombrero and start jumping, because this platformer is definitely one of the most creative takes on virtual controls. Hop to it and buy this wonderful gem.

Bean’s Quest (is currently on sale from $2.99 to $0.99 in celebration of its most recent, content doubling update)

Download from the App Store

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February 15, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Fantasy Chronicle – 2.99 (Kemco)

Kemco, a Japanese development company specializing in Turn Based RPGs, has just released their newest iOS port, Fantasy Chronicle. If you’re familiar with Kemco’s last releases, Symphony of Eternity, Alphadia and Eve of the Genesis, you probably already know that Kemco is right up there with Square Enix when it comes to the quality of their stories, combat mechanics, depthy equip+upgrade systems, the music used in their titles, and, of course, the gameplay. Fantasy Chronicle is no exception, and, in fact, is their most polished, and well thought out English translated iOS release to date.
Story: 5/5
Fantasy Chronicle tells the story of 8 characters; The main character, Light, his foster sister, Fina, their ‘Grandma’, Ohma, Alterbo, a sargent in the army, Holos Over, a young girl, Corona, a magical rabbit, Mr. Poo, a girl who looks a lot like Fina, Retea, and Ray, a woman from the Dark Clans. There are other minor characters which you’ll come into contact with throughout the game, but these are the 8 that play a major roll throughout the majority of the game. I don’t want to give too much away, because like Kemco’s previous releases, the story is a huge part of the game. However, in Fantasy Chronicle, the story is a bigger part of the game than any of their previous English iOS ports. There’s a lot more going on with the characters, a lot more growth with each of them, as well as more twists, turns, drama, conflict, obsession, revenge, and everything that makes fantastic dramatic writing. The translation is also superb, as we have come to expect from Kemco. No Google Translations here. There are a couple of words that shouldn’t have been capitalized, and maybe a comma missing here and there, but aside from that, the story, and everything every single one of the characters within the game says is understandable, and grammatically correct.
Light, the main character that you will start off playing with first, is an orphan, being raised by a woman named Ohma. Living with Light and Ohma, is a young woman named Fina, who is about Light’s age. Light, wanting to follow in the footsteps of Alberto, a friend of the family, and presumably someone whom Ohma has also raised, joins the volunteer army known as Holos Over. After a couple days of training, the village in which Light has grown up in, Selka, is destroyed, with no trace of Ohma or Fina left behind, and all that’s certain is that whoever destroyed Selka is the same person or group who destroyed another village because of the symbol found amongst the ruins. You’ll go on Light’s journey to find out what happened to Fina and Ohma, and discover the truth behind who’s at fault for the destruction of his village, as well as the destruction of other villages throughout the land.
Gameplay, Controls & Music: 5/5
The gameplay in Fantasy Chronicle is typical of Turn-Based RPGs, in that you’ll be able to wonder around in towns, and other areas, as well as having a world map. You’ll start off being able to visit your hometown, and then as you explore through forests, and go down other paths, you’ll start to unlock and open up other areas within the world map that you’ll be able to jump to. Each town has a handful of places which you can visit, the Inn, Item Shop, Workshop, Town Square, Guild, Private House, Church, ect. But you will spend most of your time within the Workshop and Guild, as this is where you’ll get your missions, and upgrade equipment. Most of the time, the game plays like older Final Fantasy games, with your characters needing to speak to certain individuals in order to progress through the story, so you will also be spending a lot of time talking to the people in each of the towns, learning about the world, and triggering more story sequences.
There are some areas which do have quite a bit of grinding, but as you’ll quickly learn, what grinding there is is heavily rewarded with the story sequences that break it up. In relation to Kemco’s previous releases, the grinding is not as heavy as it is in Alphadia, but it is there. Good thing about it, though, is that with the extremely well designed combat system, the grinding could actually be considered a welcome addition, with the game having very few battles that can be won by pressing the ‘auto’ button. As for the controls, you can choose between using the touch controls, or having a virtual button set-up on the screen. There is a quick button change between the two in the lower right corner of the screen. This control set-up is great, and should really be used more in iOS games, as there are certain sections which feel better with the touch controls, and others that are better with the virtual buttons. For instance, the virtual buttons are great for exploration, and moving throughout the menus, as well as jumping from place to place on the world map, where as the touch screen controls are fantastic for the combat, upgrade, shop, and mission screens, and being able to switch between the two just by touching the lower right corner makes deciding what controls you would prefer for different sections extremely easy. The music is exceptional, and fits with the game to a “T”. There is not one section of the game where the music does not fit the mood for what’s happening. Numerous times multiple musical selections are used for one dialogue sequence, changing as the mood does.
Graphics: 4.5/5
The graphics are typical of your usual retro looking RPG. In fact, you could say it looks extremely generic. However, the up-close character images during dialogue, and their models, as well as every single one of the enemy sprites/models, is done exceptionally well, adding a lot to the feel of the game. Each of the environments that you’ll traverse through are put together extremely well. With some places given a nighttime look, and others being underground, it really would have been nice to see some lighting effects used, even if in a 2D fashion. However, what the classics have shown us is that graphics are a very small part of the genre as a whole, and even though showing off some new insane graphical style would have added to the game in a cosmetic sense, it’s really the story, combat, upgrades, equips, and music that make an RPG game great, though graphics are a big cherry on top, they are not required. Don’t get me wrong, Fantasy Chronicle does, in no way, have bad graphics, in fact, I think almost all of the enemy’s models, as well as the characters hand drawn images all look fantastic and add a lot to the feeling of the game, but if you’re tired of the typical 2D “retro” RPG look, Fantasy Chronicle will in no way impress you.
Combat, Upgrade & Equip System: 5/5
This is where Fantasy Chronicle really shines. The combat, upgrade, and equip systems and mechanics. With the combat, you’re able to choose 3 characters from your party to fight, with each of the three characters able to have with them, a guardian beast. These beasts grow stronger, accumulate experience with each of the characters, and also grow a bond with the characters which you pair them up with. The longer you have a beast and character paired up, the stronger the bond between the two. This bond is used in combat, as you can set each of the guardian beasts to attack, share the damage from enemies, or focus on healing. You are also able to pair up characters, having them join special attacks for a set amount of SP (magical power), increasing the attack that you can use. With the upgrade system, you are able to collect minerals from each of the areas that you’ll explore, from both exploring, as well as from defeating monsters. After you open up a little bit of the game in the beginning, you’ll also be able to use more characters in the Workshops to go and mine for minerals while you’re out exploring, fighting, and in general, progressing throughout the game, and be able to collect it when you come back to the Workshop in each of the visited towns.
Using these minerals, you’ll be able to upgrade items. There are also books scattered throughout the world of Fantasy Chronicle, which you’ll be able to collect, and use to turn current items into different, more powerful items. Along with the minerals, you’ll be able to find swords and armor scattered throughout the world, which you can then bring back to the Workshops, and have them disassembled so that you can gain materials that way too. With the upgrade system, your characters, as well as guardian beasts, become stronger with each level, as well as learn certain spells as they level up. The bond you create with the characters and the guardian beasts also grows, making the extra skills your guardians have stronger as well. Once you start experimenting with the whole combat and equipping systems, you’ll learn how deep they really are, giving you a lot of control over what happens in battle, and what items you equip your characters with. Planning within each of the areas for what types of enemies you’ll face and what elements they might have will also become a big part of what you use to upgrade your equipment, and what equipment you take along with you into battle.
Overall: 5/5
Kemco has shown that they know and have what it takes to compete with the best of the best within the Turn-Based RPG genre, and Fantasy Chronicle is probably their best release to date, being the most polished, well-presented, title they’ve ported to the iOS as of yet. Right now, with it’s price at $2.99, it’s a must buy for RPG fans. The combat system is one of the best I’ve seen, the story is amazingly well written, extremely engaging, and well translated with characters that you’ll become very attached to. Once you start playing, don’t be surprised if you find it hard to start up any other games on your device until you reach the end. Kemco has shown what they’re made of with their previous English iOS releases, but with Fantasy Chronicle, they’ve managed to set a new standard; not only for what fans of the genre should expect from other companies, but for what Kemco can truly bring to the table.

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January 25, 2012 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Terra Noctis – 2.99 (Bulkypix + FireFruitForge)

If you’re a regular reader of TheAppShack, you probably know by now that my favorite genre of video games is platformers. Especially exploratory platformers. As I’ve said a few times, Metroid II – Return of Samus is my favorite video game of ALL TIME. These days, my iPod is my main gaming console, and yes, I know how weird that is, and that I am in a very small group of people here, but anyway, I have been hoping that Metroidvania titles would become more frequent in the AppStore. Phoenix Spirit and Grokion seemed to be the only titles within this genre for quite some time, but over the last year or so, Metroidvania fans have grown, or, more likely, have gotten iDevices, and releases like Elemental Rage, Miss Claire Garden, Cordy, Glowfish, Emberwind, BlibBlob, Shantae, SpyCorp, and a few more have added loads of fuel to the fire. Granted, not all of these are TRUE Metroidvania titles, but they do incorporate quite a bit of exploration, and for die-hard fans of the genre, that’s usually enough. So now, when a platformer comes along that has “exploration” mentioned within 5 feet of it, I’m usually one of the first people to jump all over it.

FireFruitForge has been working on a little game that’s going by the name Terra Noctis (originally named After Dark, if any readers out there heard of it a while back, but they decided to change the name so as not to run into any legal issues). It’s a retro inspired platformer, with influences from Super Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, and has quite a bit of exploration thrown in as well. There are 3 difficulty levels, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare, with the harder difficulties having more enemies, more traps, and less platforms.
There are 40 levels spread across 4 different worlds. Each level has a 100% completion rate available for it; to get a 100% completion, you’ve got to find all 15 of the red fairies scattered throughout the level, the large gold coin, usually hidden in a harder to reach area of the level, and grab 5 orbs, each with a letter in them, spelling out S-C-A-R-E. There are also blue fairies in each level, which you can collect, and use to buy items in the game’s shop. In the shop, you’re able to buy extra lives, as well as power-ups that you can equip and use as many times as you like until you loose a life, or complete a level. All of the items in the shop are very reasonably priced, all between 80 and 150 fairies. If you explore a little bit in each level, you can usually get around 200-350+ fairies in each level. All of the levels are also re-playable after you beat them, so if you get stuck, you can go back and play some previously completed levels, and buy some items to help you.
The controls for Terra Noctis are set-up like most platformer games on the iOS. You’ve got your left/right arrows in the bottom left corner, and then your bottom right corner has your duck/smash/option button, and your jump button. While standing on the ground, your duck/smash/option button is used to duck, while in the air, it can be used to make your character, Allen, curl his legs up, and smash down into the ground, which can break certain blocks, and be used as an attack, and when in front of a cave entrance, can be used to enter the cave. Your jump button is pretty self-explanatory, and you are able to double-jump, or fall off of a cliff, and use your 2nd jump while falling, which does come in handy quite a bit. You are able to throw projectiles as well, and this is done by tapping and holding on the play area, and then dragging your finger to aim where you want to throw your projectile, having it fly in the direction chosen when you lift your finger. Tapping on the play area while you‘re in the air will allow Allen to throw a projectile straight forward, which works perfectly for taking out enemies on higher up platforms. The controls are tight, and very responsive. Actually, they’re probably some of the most responsive controls for a non-speed run platformer within the AppStore. The movement arrows could go to be a tad bit smaller, but they are very transparent, so they don’t really get in the way. Would just be nice to have it look a little slicker.
Now, once you start up the game, choose a difficulty, enter the first level, and start making your way to the end of the level, you’ll notice immediately that the level design is very well thought out. You’ll have quite a bit to look forward to as you make your way through the game, because it only gets better as you progress. The level design throughout the game is actually some of the best I’ve ever experienced. The amount of time and thought that must have gone into the design is apparent pretty much every step you make. Not to mention how much time must have gone into testing the levels to make sure jumps were just right, and everything got lined up perfectly.
Another aspect of the game that jumps right out at you once you first start playing are the graphics. The colors that have been chosen, the details that have been included, the backgrounds, objects throughout the levels that you can interact with, and objects that you can’t, there is not one thing that looks like it doesn‘t belong. The entire Terra Noctis world is mind-blowing. Smooth, modern graphics and textures that still hold a retro feeling within them, making it feel old-school while still being graphically impressive by the standards of today’s iOS games. This, along with the awesome back-ground-music, and smooth as butter animations for everything from walking and flying, to the fairies life like movement and particles of dust traveling through the air comes together to create one hell of an immersive environment.
On top of everything else, the amount of enemies you’ll face while making your way through the game is just perfect. Once you get through the first world, and start on the second, you might start to wonder if you’ve seen all the enemies there is to see, and then one will pop up that you haven’t run into previously. Then another, and another. To make things even more impressive, all of the enemy designs are incredibly well done, and fit perfectly within the game. There are also bosses at the end of each world, all of which are amazingly well done, with battles that change up the gameplay quite a bit, and throw an extremely high scoring situation at the player.
It’s clear, after playing the game, that Terra Noctis is very deserving of it’s $2.99 price-tag, if not more. Being Universal, including iCade support, the amount of content, especially for 100% completionist fanatics, and the OpenFeint leaderboards, 24 hard to snag achievements, as well as top scores for each level that are shown at the level select screen, should keep any gamer, even platformer fanatics, busy for quite some time. It’s easily one of the best platform games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing, and the amount of work, time, effort, and testing that has gone into Terra Noctis, shines through with every single frame of the game. After being able to play this for the last two weeks, I can very confidently say that it is my #3 favorite game of 2011, right under Space Tripper and Anomaly Warzone Earth. With Normal difficulty very reminiscent of the difficulty in old-school Mario games, Terra Noctis is great for all gamers, and is HIGHLY recommended. FireFruitForge has given iOS gamers a phenomenal piece of art all wrapped up in a tightly controlled, highly enjoyable, modern/old-school mesh of a video game. Everyone with an iDevice should grab it as soon as possible
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December 20, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Bulkypix and FireFruitForge’s retro platformer, Terra Noctis hits the AppStore tonight!

–=TERRA NOCTIS=–
Last week, we posted an announcement for developer, FireFruitForge’s title, Terra Noctis (being published by Bulkypix). If you didn’t have a chance to read the announcement, you can here. Terra Noctis is a retro-inspired platformer, influenced by the likes of Super Mario Brothers, and Donkey Kong, and has quite a bit of exploration tossed in, which expands the gameplay and level design quite a bit. Well, after obsessing over the game for the last couple of weeks, we’ll finally be able to gush over the game with everyone else.
40 levels spread across 4 worlds, each having 100% completion available. To get it, you’ll need to grab 15 red fairies, which are scattered throughout the levels, the large gold coin, which is almost always hidden in a harder to reach area, and 5 orbs with letters in them, spelling out S-C-A-R-E. You can also track your stats, like how many gold coins you’ve collected, how many enemies you’ve killed, how many fairies you’ve collected, your total distance ran, fallen, and more.
The controls, graphics, physics, animations, level designs, gameplay mechanics, they are all top notch and extremely professional. The story in Terra Noctis is also a high point within the game. The main character, a little nightmare creature named Allen, is attending the local Nightmare School, but with the teachings, he’s still not quite scary enough. Then, after failing a test, he reads a local legend that says “Eat the heart of the scariest nightmare and become a scary nightmare, too.” Here is where his journey begins to become the scariest nightmare in the land.
Terra Noctis will be available tonight at 11PM, EST, and 8PM PST, in the US. It is a Universal app, and is also supported by OpenFeint, as well as having iCade computability. It’s easily one of the best platformers in the AppStore, if not the best, and ranks up there among the best platformers released on all consoles/platforms over the last 25+ years. FireFruitForge has definitely given gamers an exploratory platformer that hits all the right gaming nerves in our little video game obsessed brains. If you’re a fan of the genre, DO NOT let yourself miss out on this amazing game. Even if you’re not a fan of the genre, you should pick this one up, it might just make you a platformer freak.
You can also expect to see The App Shack’s review posted up tomorrow, if you’d like to wait and read some more in-depth information about the game.
You can also get some more info about the game on the FireFruitForge website;
on the Touch Arcade’s Upcoming Games Thread;
TA’s Main Game Thread;
and –
The Bulkypix Webiste;
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December 19, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >

Super Bit Dash – 0.99 (FakePup)

Endless Runners seem to be perfect for mobile gaming. They’re good for quick little spurts of playing, as well as long gaming sessions, and there’s an endless supply of them to top it off. Seems there’s a huge selection depending on what type of endless runner you’ve come to like, casual, hardcore, level based, hectic, relaxing, and within all of those styles, there’s always certain titles that stick out above all the others because of their controls, gameplay, and style. Super Bit Dash by FakePup seems to cover all of those preferences, as well as raising above the average title, and being a game that’s more addictive, more polished, and more entertaining than most.

In Super Bit Dash, you’ll guide your character through either a short 5 minute checkpoint based run with multiple lives, earned by collecting coins, with two difficulties, as well as an endless run with one life that also has two different difficulty settings. To control the character, you’ll need to collect coins which fill up a bar that gives you the ability to swipe on the screen, and dash up, down or forward, as well as being able to tap on the screen to do a regular jump, or swipe backwards to slow down, both of which do not require coins to do. The catch is that you’ll only be able to have 4 coins at a time in your dash gauge, meaning that if you pick a path that doesn’t have many coins, or none at all, you could get stuck without a dash when you really need one.
To make things more interesting, the whole game is randomized, but in a very neatly put together way. At the beginning Classic Mode, the game will pick 20 different “rooms” at random and put them together with checkpoints at the beginning of each room. There are two different settings within Classic Mode, Easy, which will present a little bit of a challenge, and Hard, which will take most people more than a couple plays to finish. At the beginning of Endless Mode, the game will put together an endless string of these rooms based on what speed you pick, slow, or fast, which doesn’t really effect what rooms you see, but, you guessed it, the speed at which you’ll need to make it through them.
The graphics, and sounds all resemble old-school NES/SNES era games, while the animations for dashing and breaking through some walls are done in a more stylish way. There are various obstacles and hazards you’ll need to avoid, like spikes, lasers, green walls that you can dash to break through, and some spots where you will need to dash into coins in order to not fall to your death because there is no platform to walk on at the bottom of the screen. All of this is put together randomly, so you could run into any of these things right when you start out the game, or almost at the end of a long run, you’ll just never know. Once you get to know some of the more popular rooms, you’ll be getting better at the game, and if you take on the endless mode, you’ll end up finally seeing rooms that you probably wouldn’t have while playing in the Classic Mode. This big mix of rooms adds quite a bit to the difficulty, as you never know what’s coming up next, or what hazards you’ll need to have enough coins in your dash gauge to be prepared for.
Super Bit Dash is supported by OpenFeint, with leader boards for each mode, as well as each difficulty setting in those two modes, and then leader boards for the best overall Classic and best overall Endless scores. There’s also 10 achievements, most of which should take even hardcore gamers a while to complete. Tough it would be nice to see GameCenter support in the future, as there are plenty of gamers that don’t use OpenFeint anymore. It would also be nice to see some power-ups in the future, like invincibility, or a speed up and slow down pick-ups, as well as a pick up that lets you have unlimited dashes for a short period of time would be a very welcome addition. But for an endless runner, it’s a great deal at $0.99, providing plenty of content, as well as endless replay ability, and even more on the way. Platformer and Endless Runner fans alike will both enjoy the gameplay that provides both casual and hardcore gamers plenty of challenge.
Super Bit Dash gets a score of 8 out of 10.
Links;
Version Reviewed; Version 1.0.0
Reviewed On; 4th Generation iPod Touch – iOS 4.3.3

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October 6, 2011 Uncategorized 0 Read more >