It’s often the case with mobile stores that great indies get swept under the rug in the wave of freemium efforts from AAA developers trying to break the market or the latest release from the big-boys of the mobile space. Fairy Knights is one of those games that’s managed to fall through the cracks for many, but manages to be a creative entry into the Puzzle-based RPG scene.
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The Puzzle Quest series was one of the first titles to mix the match 3 and RPG genres successfully, and Puzzle Quest 1 and 2 are still solid entries into the sub-genre years after their original release (though ‘Puzzle Quest 2’ is notable by its absence in digital stores these days). With the main-line titles spinning off into licensed properties such as ‘Magic: The Gathering Puzzle Quest’ and ‘Marvel Puzzle Quest’, it’s been left to Gems or War to carry the banner for original content in this respected series.
The product of Armour Games Studios, who also brought us ‘Gem Hunters’ and the mobile edition of ‘Sonny‘, Void Tyrant isn’t the first game to fuse deck building and dungeon crawling, but it does manage to do so with a massive amount of charm.
The surprisingly wonderful indie series for mobile is back with its third installment, and like its predecessors, it’s packing a whole lot of content behind its cute exterior. With Witch Spring 4 just announced, let’s take a look at Witch Spring 3 in more detail. Continue reading
Overlong title aside, Dissidia: Opera Omnia is probably the fairest and least gated free to play RPG on the mobile market with one of the highest levels of production quality. Square Enix have has a hit and miss love affair with the mobile space and freemium titles in general for some time now, and whilst titles such as ‘Final Fantasy: Record Keepers’ and ‘Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius’ have been out longer, there’s little doubt that this is the most polished offering they’ve produced.
After three relatively solid entries into the Onimusha series of adventure/horror titles (arguably Action RPGs with their levelling system for weapons) that closed off a tight trilogy in 2003, Capcom started to experiment with the IP. This gave us smash-clone ‘Onimusha: Blade Warriors’, ‘Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams’ the fourth entry into the series, and ‘Onimusha Tactics’ a fully-fledged tactical RPG for the Game Boy Advance.
Produced by Level-5 as their new IP following on from the wonderful ‘Dark Chronicle’ (known as ‘Dark Cloud 2’ in America), and their last game for the aging PlayStation 2 hardware before making the switch to the next console generation, Rogue Galaxy is a strange beast that showcases the very best and at times the worst of Level-5’s unique style. Continue reading
It’s taken a surprising amount of time to get a game that exemplifies what most people would have expected from a Harry Potter title. The pitch practically writes itself in fact; take the setting of Hogwarts school for Witchcraft and Wizardry and allow players to create their own avatar and enjoy a mixture of school sim and original adventure. Set it within a period where enough recognisable faces from the popular novel series are around but not while Harry, Ron or Hermione are in attendance to avoid breaking canon.
Lands of Livia is a title from solo developer Aaron Vernon that attempts to take all of the travel, questing and loot gathering of a large-scale WRPG and create a casual experience that is both relaxing and engaging. Starting out as a free to play model, the game more recently saw a sizable first ‘chapter’ drop that significantly increased content for a small one-off payment.
SquareEnix is fast approaching the point where they will have release more re-release retro content than new games this side of the millennium, but when a company has such a vast and genre-defining back catalog it’s hard to argue against seeing some of their titles getting a lavish remake. Adventures of Mana is in fact the second remake of the originally titled ‘Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden’ (also known as ‘Mystic Quest’ and ‘Final Fantasy Adventure’ outside Japan) after the less than successful ‘Sword of Mana’ version on the Game Boy Advance, and this version easily trumps it’s last-gen equivalent on all fronts by staying closer to the source material.
My Boxed Universe 