Tag: Old school RPG »

Ash was one of the first RPGs I downloaded when I was a new initiate to the wonders of iOS gaming. I recall being thoroughly impressed by the quality. Well, that quality just got a boost. The original game was released with graphics licensed from RPG Maker, but SRRN Games has replaced all of it with totally original artwork. The new style shares a few basic similarities with the older one, but overall it's a huge visual change. Especially the character portraits.

Another less obvious but still notable change has to do with the random encounters. One of the game's initial shortcomings was that there were just so freaking many of them it kind of made getting from point A to point B a pain. This has been rebalanced, so now random encounters are a bit less frequent. They'll still happen, and they're still essential to not being caught in a boss battle with one's pants down, but the decrease will go a long way to making the game more accessible and overall more fun.

Last and most important, Ash is getting an 80% prince drop for the holidays. What was once a great RPG that could be had for $4.99 is now a great RPG made slightly greater and available for a buck. One dollar. $0.99. I'd gladly recommend this game to any RPG fans at $5, but $1? That's, like, "don't even think about it just buy it" pricing. So yeah; don't even think about it, just buy it.

When you see an RPG from Com2uS, you have to expect a certain amount of quality and addictiveness. The Inotia series in particular has been wildly successful on the iOS platform because the developers really understand the platform. People want simple controls, gameplay that can easily be picked up and put down, and enough depth to give people their moneys worth.

Inotia 3, when you boil away all the little quirks and nuances, is a simple little RPG game. You walk around going from quest to quest completing all sorts of little side quests along the way. This isn't a Zelda game with little puzzles in each cave, Inotia 3 is extremely straightforward with its flow. The game even goes as far as highlighting where you need to go next on maps, just to make sure that you are not confused. Characters level up and gain all sorts of weapons and items, and all you have to do is make sure you know where all the buttons are.

The story in Inotia, like the rest of the game, flows in such a way that you would like to know what happens next, but not quite enough to meander off and perform all the side quests available in every city. Adding weapons and items, as well as getting fun level ups that let you boost your magic/skill tree is really the driving force here, and will certainly suck in any fan of birds-eye RPG's.

In making Inotia 3 fun for a mobile audience and easy to pick up and play, though, I think that they removed a bit too much of the challenge. Maybe my countless hours playing iPhone games has made me a grizzled adventurer, or maybe it's the fact that I did every side quest along the way, but I never really worried about dying in Inotia 3. I had to make sure that my health potions were stocked up and that I had at least one person with healing powers in my party (you can have up to three people in your party at a time, plus a summonable golem if you are a mage), but dying seemed like only a minor concern. It's hard to say whether this is a bad thing or not, because the ever-progressing nature of the game (needing to reload is extremely rare) never let me get bored. I could just happily play all day and forget to do all sorts of real-world things, like eating and sleeping.

If you like old school RPG's and don't need flashy 3D effects or mind-numbing puzzles, Inotia 3 is just the game for you. It won't challenge you too much, but you'll be entertained by Inotia 3 far longer than the vast majority of the other games on the platform.

Note: The video below was made by Com2uS for Inotia 3. And yes, the high res music video shots do look silly next to the SNES quality graphics. Enjoy!