I picked it up when it was on sale a couple of weeks ago, played a bit, and was kind of disappointed. If all you’re looking for is a portable version of Bard’s Tale, it might do the trick, but to me it felt too much like a pale copy with no identity of its own.
Everything from the classes, spells, and mechanics to the screen layout and interface seems to be lifted directly from Bard’s Tale. This leads to a very awkward and wasteful use of screen space that does almost nothing to adapt it to a touchscreen system. Irritations like:
-having to toggle on and off the too-small directional arrows for movement rather than having them be a core part of the interface.
-the constant need to click [continue] to cycle through different displays in the the tiny text window rather than using the whole screen when it would be helpful.
-the way all combat commands are in the text buffer rather than buttons, so they’re both small enough to easily misclick and constantly moving their location depending on the active character’s name length and list of available commands.
-the way an entire half of the screen is a party lineup whose main purpose (displaying HP, MP, and status effects) could be done in a tiny fraction of the space, and in fact has been in many subsequent games in the genre.
I have enough fondness for the whole first-person party-based dungeon crawler subgenre that I plan to give it some more time and see if the content is good enough to outweigh the annoyances. But really, what I was hoping for was a game that retained the spirit and positive qualities of those games while still establishing a unique identity of its own and not completely ignoring every idea to occur in the last quarter-century.
It’s a similar reaction to what I had to Pocket Heroes 2, come to think of it. Probably a variation of the uncanny valley – I would happily play a “real” iOS port of HoMM or Bard’s Tale, and I would happily play a game in their genres that is inspired by them but still does its own thing in some ways, but a simple slavish imitation with the serial numbers filed off rubs me the wrong way.
And Kevin, thanks for stopping by, and I hope you stick around. It’s always fun to be able to talk to the people behind games, and I’m glad to hear about all the updates coming.
