Square Enix keeps pushing out mobile titles packed with free-to-play mechanics but rarely seems to hit the nail on the head. Here in the west we’ve seen only a limited few based on the Dragon Quest series, but to the east they have already seen a slew, and with two more promising titles on the horizon (a Tactics RPG and a Geo Quest title to compete with ‘Fire Emblem Heroes’ and ‘Pokemon Go’ respectively), is Dragon Quest of the Stars worth playing?
A quirky little dungeon crawl with some excellent artwork, Green Skin Dungeon Master is one of those rare titles that swaps the traditional fantasy perspective of Humans vs Orcs and instead places you in the shoes of one of the titular Green Skins. Continue reading
On paper, Monolisk is a perfect fit for mobile, with endless user-created dungeons that can keep you dungeon crawling for years to come. In practice it’s a little bit of a shallow experience that may have mistaken ‘streamlined’ for ‘dull’.
Phantasy Star III is often viewed as the black sheep of the series, and it’s a fair standpoint. In terms of world setting, gameplay and characterisation there’s a definite disconnect from the other titles in the series and many of the further-reaching or impactful elements are tied in retrospectively by the games successor instead of directly in the game at hand. Still, does that necessarily make it a bad game? Continue reading
Famously the last game to be translated and released for the Sega Saturn, the CLAMP property ‘Magic Knights Rayearth’ also saw release on the SNES in the form of a more traditional JRPG.
The official sequel game to Record of Agarest War turns in the old engine and builds a whole new game from scratch. One that whilst claiming to be a Tactical RPG has more in common with a conventional Turn Based system.
Divisive no matter the format, Agarest has seen release on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, a PC port over steam and mobile devices and has either been hailed as wonderful or horrible depending on the player’s standpoint on its design decisions. Regardless, it stands as the first part in a trilogy of games that takes the formula first seen in ‘Phantasy Star III’ and turns it from a novel innovation into a central mechanic.
Sometimes Steam is an interesting place to find RPGs that might not have found an audience elsewhere. Its Greenlight service appears to be a treasure trove for the genre, though the quality can be variable. Tiny Assosiates Brand have managed to lever Greenlight to get their love-letter to the lighter side of the RPG market out to the masses.
Young Adult fiction has become considerably more acceptable to adults over the last few years, with the line often blurring between adult and teen fiction and authors writing stories based on their own merits instead of pandering down to children. One of the best authors leading this charge is Rick Riordan, a man who many have termed the ‘Myth Master’ and it’s a title he’s earned. With two high-budget film adaptions of his first two novels in the Percy Jackson series, it was inevitable that there would be a at least one video game tie-in.
The curious element of mobile gaming lies in its ability to strip down a genre to a single element and put a unique focus on it. In the case of RPGs this is normally grinding and levelling through combat, as seen in ‘Avengers Alliance’ and other popular titles. Where Rune Raider is different is in that it takes the concept of moving through a dungeon corridor to the exit and turns this into the whole game.
