Aside from a single adventure game release in 1982 by Sierra, the unique world setting of Jim Henson’s film ‘The Dark Crystal’ has been curiously unexplored in video game form. Though it’s always been a cult classic, a recent resurgence in interest led by a series of young adult novels and comics cumulated in Netflix commissioning a prequel series subtitled ‘Age of Resistance’ that also came with its own Tactics RPG tie-in.
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.
If there was ever a poster-child for the table top wargaming experience on mobile devices it would be the original Demon’s Rise, a game that saw a slew of post-release content that quickly fleshed it out into one of the more satisfying and varied tactical experiences of its generation. Now, Wave Light Games Inc. are seeking to better it with a sequel.
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.
Almost a year after the plug got pulled on ‘Avengers Alliance’, a true contender for its title of ‘best turn based combat system on mobile’ finally steps up to the plate, and it comes from an unexpected pedigree.
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.
Warlords is in many ways a good example of how far mobile games have come. A hex-based Strategy game with RPG elements that would once have been small a sprite-based 2D title that in the modern market is a huge, sprawling 3D feast for the eyes.
Nippon Ichi had thrown the kitchen sink at the original Disgaea game and when it came time to produce a sequel it was going to be hard to find ways in which to further innovate the game. Instead a new-found focus on storytelling and a few lighter modifications to an already great system make Disgaea 2 something of a love or hate it sequel.
Nippon Ichi’s ‘Disgaea’ series hasn’t seen release on iOS as of 2015, with no announced intention to do so in the near future. This is a great shame because the current phones on the market are more than capable of running the DS or PSP ports of the original game and its sequel. Perhaps the people at Nippon Ichi are afraid they’d break the app-store, with nobody ever having to buy another tactics game with 9999 character levels to achieve and generated levels outside the campaign to give infinite variety? It’s into this vacant spot that Fantasy War Tactics slides, a freemium game that boasts some extremely high production values.
