Orna: A Geo-RPG

It’s surprising that more games haven’t tried to ride the wave of interest that ‘Pokemon GO’ generated in geo-tagging games. To date there have been few serious attempts to do something new with the idea, which has remained largely unchanged since the launch of ‘Ingress’. Orna is a small, Indie team that’s taken on this challenge and for the most part they have risen to it spectacularly, adding some novel concepts that bring a lot of interest to the game. There’s precious little in the way of hand-holding too, with players effectively dropped into the world and given the onus to get on with things one turn-based battle at a time.

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The Legend of Solgard

Once upon a time there was an amazing game called ‘Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes’ that showed the world that match-3 RPGs could not only be good, but they could be exceptional. After seeing an original release on the DS it was given the HD makeover treatment in a lush edition for PlayStation 3 and was subsequently ported to iOS, Android and Steam. Sadly, despite being a paragon of the genre, a sequel was never made. Enter King . . .

Final Fantasy Dimensions II

Final Fantasy Dimensions II is a premium title that started its life as a freemium one. This much is apparent from the get-go and may have pushed a lot of players away when it initially released. Don’t be afraid however, because there are no hidden purchases, stamina bars or other detritus attached to the game to catch you off-guard. Does it merit the price tag of a premium game though?

Sdorica: Sunset

An enjoyable shift in Social RPGs in recent months has been a growing trend in putting the focus on storytelling. Earlier this year we were pleasantly surprised with the amount of inter-character sequences in Dissidia’s mobile outing from Square Enix, Nintendo has managed to finally give ‘Fire Emblem: Heroes’ a compelling arc with its second chapter, and now we have Sdorica Sunset to add to the list of genuinely interesting narratives.

Dragon Sinker: Descendants of Legend

Kemco has developed a reputation for pushing out JRPGs onto mobiles as a schedule to intense that the quality of their games can suffer for it, with many feeling like drab re-treads that use the same system and assets with minimal new elements or gameplay hooks. It’s interesting to see how many of these faults can be forgiven when the game is wrapped in a ‘retro’ presentation.

Galaxy of Pen and Paper

Galaxy of Pen and Paper sees a return to the series by its original development team, Paradox North after briefly handing over the reins of the franchise to Paradox Interactive (who recently made the original free to play) while they made their Power Rangers tribute Tactical RPG ‘Chroma Squad’. You’ll learn that the developers liked Chroma Squad quite a lot throughout Galaxy of Pen and Paper, largely because the characters in the game keep talking about it.

Land of Livia

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.