July 13, 2011
From Match-3 Puzzlers to Board Game variations to Endless Runners, the App Store is populated with different variations of what essentially are very similar games overall. As far as Dual-Stick Shooters are concerned however, you’d be hard-pressed to find one with a reasonable amount of depth beyond having to build up the highest score possible and unlocking characters and rewards in the process. Pocket RPG, developed by Tasty Poison Games with the help of Crescent Moon Games attempts to raise the bar by taking this dime-a-dozen genre to a deeper, more personal level. How, you ask? Why, by infusing it with RPG elements to deliver a more meaningful gaming experience… naturally!
Pocket RPG, first and foremost… is not a RPG in my opinion. It can best be classified as a rewarding and engaging Dual-Stick Dungeon Crawler which gives you the freedom to play as one of three-different characters, each with his own unique play-style. The Dark Ranger is your long-range archer, replacing what you would find in other games as Guns, with Bows and Arrows. The Battle Warrior puts you toe-to-toe with your adversaries, making you dance up-close with a variety of close-ranged weapons. Finally, the Mage allows you to release the hidden conjurer within you by using a variety of spells at your disposal to take out your enemies.
Seven adventures lie ahead of your chosen avatar, each one chopped up into several individual Levels acting as checkpoints. Each adventure took me between 20-35 minutes to go through, all generally following the same basic concept of fighting an assortment of minions before hunting down the big-bad-boss of the Adventure. Each has its own distinct flair ranging from changing physical environments to the varied hordes of monsters which stand between you and your path to success. Levels are littered with crates, barrels, lamps, furniture, bushes and treasure chests full of items, coins and power-up potions which grant short boosts to your character (Double XP, Double Damage, etc). Instead of starting your character at Level 1 and by the end of the 7th Adventure, ending up at level 40+, your character’s level actually gets reset after every Adventure. WHAT??! You heard it… all of your collected items, weapons and loot get reset; you only keep what skills you chose to upgrade for yourself. While I was initially put off by the idea, it’s actually for the better and adds as a stabilizer for the game not getting too difficult or too easy in between.
While I started off quite slow with the Dark Ranger and Mage as my first two characters, leveling up their skills while progressing through the game granted me the ability to dispatch multiple foes with ease later on. Seeing this progression greatly increased my enjoyment with the game as the initial Levels felt like a grind-fest, forcing me to dispatch one enemy at a time. On the other hand, the Blade Master didn’t have the luxury of taking far-away potshots at his enemies while retaining the majority of his health… he hit the ground running and was able to complete Levels and dispatch enemies at much faster speeds because of his higher damage output and ability to strike multiple foes at the same time. Reliance on health and strategic maneuvering /battle planning is also much higher with the Blade Master but, because progression is much faster, Leveling up is a breeze with him.
Unlike most Role Playing Games out there, Pocket RPG takes the bare essentials required and leaves out all the rest. Character customization is limited to equipping only weapons, one ring and one amulet for your character. Sets of bonus-granting clothes can also be purchased in between your Adventures, though choices are extremely limited. Health potions dropped by enemies cannot be stored for example; they refill your health instantly when you walk over them on the battlefield. The Ankh of Life, found as a drop, allows you a second chance on the Level should you die. Facing defeat without one of these in your inventory will reset your back to Level 1 and put you back at the beginning of the Adventure you died trying to complete. Fortunately, leveling your character in this title is extremely QUICK due to the nature of level-resetting in the game. While I noticed a slight increase in damage each time my character leveled up, the fact that his health bar got replenished was a far greater benefit than anything else due to not being able to store and use potions as needed. There have been countless instances where I was on the verge of death, desperately killing a boss’ minions and waiting to level up just so my health bar would fill right back up.
Audio cues and effects hit the mark but, I felt the background score could have been better. Graphics are colorful and for the most-part, quite polished. I did feel the Dual Sticks were a bit too large for my own tastes and took up more screen-space than required. Options to customize their sizes or opacity/transparency would be welcome additions. Other than this, I noticed too many borders and ‘seaming lines’ across the world I was travelling across in-game. What should have been a continuation of pebbles lining a dungeon floor or snow blanketing a field looked like blocky tiles with faint seems clearly showing. A small nuance but definitely noticeable; this could have been improved to clean up the overall visual presentation. Aside from these hiccups, one of my major annoyances with the title was the inability to manage different characters and/or save slots in the game simultaneously. Starting over with a Battle Mage meant I had to forfeit all progress with my Dark Ranger… not done! Here’s hoping this gets addressed in a future update.
The focus throughout Pocket RPG clearly remains on providing a solid Dual-Stick action experience rather than delving deep into RPG elements and character micro-management. The team at Tasty Poison Games have done a fantastic job of balancing these elements while managing to put emphasis on the action more so than the RPG side of the game. If you enjoy either of these two Genres of games, look no further; Pocket RPG successfully bind RPG elements to a Dual-Stick game to bring a one-of-a-kind experience to the iOS. Highly recommended! AND check out the exclusive set of screenshots below!
Final Rating 4.5/5 Stars
