Kongregate has given us some really interesting titles over the last couple of years, both through their official website and on mobile. Bit Heroes is their first major stab at bringing a social MMORPG to life after a slew of other genre types, and Juppiomenz has done an excellent job producing a workable model for mobile.
Heroes of Atlan isn’t a new game on the mobile scene, but it’s one of those titles that’s built on solid gameplay and continues to draw in new players whilst holding a firm grip on the game charts.
As if sensing the gap in the mobile market left by the tragic loss of ‘Avengers Alliance’ and its sequel, DC Legends springs onto the scene offering bite-sized super-heroics set within an alternate take on the DC Universe.
Moji Quest is something of an odd duck, the first real RPG to take advantage of the new iOS in-message app feature, it’s visual style and sense of party-based fun will either be embraced or shunned by players in equal measures.
Social RPGs don’t get any more social than Unison League. It’s one step away from being an MMORPG in many ways. Developed by the studio Perfect Game, it’s an extremely streamlined game of battling, loot collection and playing dress up with your avatar.
Pokemon GO started life as a well thought out and genuinely funny April fool’s joke on the part of Google, in which it suggested that they’d partnered with Nintendo and Game Freak to bring a plugin to Google Maps that allowed people to travel to locations and capture Pokemon onto their mobiles from their natural habitats. It’s been quite a while since that video did the rounds, and now Niantic Inc, makers of ‘Ingress’, have attempted to bring that video into reality.
Having already released a slew of third-party Social RPGs using their IP, ranging from the surprisingly good ‘Kingdom Hearts: Unchained X’ to the horrible cash grab that was ‘Final Fantasy: all the Bravest’, it would seem that Square Enix has finally struck on a formula that works. Despite mixed feelings on ‘Final Fantasy: Record Keepers’, it does raise the question of if the mobile market audience support so many games running simultaneously? Evidently Square thinks it can.
Kingdom Hearts is no stranger to the mobile scene, having had ‘Kingdom Hearts: Coded’ and ‘Kingdom Hearts: Mobile’ lay the groundwork for what does and doesn’t work on a touchscreen. Kingdom Hearts Unchained is the latest canonical entry into the ever-growing lore of the series that blends Disney and Square properties in a near-seamless manner.
The Tales series of JRPGs consists of 16 main-line entries at the time of this review, reaching from ‘Tales of Phantasia’ on the SNES all of the way to ‘Tales of Berseira’ on the PlayStation 4. Tales of Link is the series first serious foray into mobile gaming, and in the spirit of the ‘Tales of the World’ series it’s bringing the full heritage of its line to bear on this initial world-wide outing.
Here’s a thought – what if ‘Wizardry’ was given the Social RPG treatment? It would still retain the first person dungeon crawling perspective and problem solving but would now include easier battles and a monster fusion system akin to ‘Puzzles and Dragons’. The offspring of such a fusion would be Dungeon Monsters.
