Romance of Rome Review

Hidden object games are quite compelling. They're ridiculously simple of course. Really, it's akin to a puzzle book conundrum: all you have to do is survey a scene and find the many objects listed in order to go onto the next section. It's not taxing but it is quite often satisfying. It makes for the perfect genre for iOS devices too, especially as you can just use your finger to select something instead of a cursor. Romance of Rome delivers admirably when it comes to such expectations, but here's to hoping it could be a little less expensive.

There are 30 levels in all on offer here. Each of them are appealing to look at with some great Roman style scenes to explore. There's a plethora of logical and some less logical items to look out for, as well as some few bonus things such as collecting money to buy items with. Not all scenes are easily solved as you often have to leap to a different scene to collect an item which can then be used to solve the former scene. It's a little predictable but at least it makes things feel less linear. There's a loose story about a boy called Marcus who heads to Rome for fame and glory. It's introduced via a comic strip of sorts but you'll probably find yourself skipping through these more often than not.

Some of the objects are difficult to find, hiding away in the scenery, but the hints system helps the impatient or lazy out. There's a zoom function, too, which is fairly vital to success. Pinching the scene zooms and while it's a little fiddly to zoom back out, it works fairly well.

Besides the object searching side of things, you can also buy items in order to acquire more fame in Rome. Indeed this becomes increasingly important to progress through the game and it does make a nice bonus feature.

I had a lot of fun with Romance of Rome but I do wish it was a bit longer. Despite the promise of so much to do, I felt the game ended sooner than I'd have liked for a $5 game. Despite this though, it's worth a look, but it'd be even easier to recommend if it was at a lower price.