Agricola [Playdek + Look Out Games] - $6.99

If you’re a fan of board or card games, there’s really nothing like playing them on the touch screen. Having everything organized perfectly, wonderful interface, no mess to set up or clean up and, sometimes, even some enhancements to the original games. There are a couple of fantastic development teams creating some wonderful card game experiences on the iOS, but one of our favorites here at The App Shack is Playdek. Their previous titles; Nightfall, Summoner Wars, Fluxx and others are games that will never leave our iDevices. Most recently, working with Look Out Games, they’ve expanded on the card game formula to bring us an interesting and addictive new game; Agricola. 

The background for the gameplay is this: Europe is trying to recover from hard times and you’re placed in the middle of a farming community with your wife. You’ve got to try and build up your land to make a productive farm by growing and harvesting crops, breeding livestock and helping your family to grow. You’re given 14 stages to build up your house, crops, livestock and family as much as you can, earning points for each. While the game sounds pretty simple, there is quite a bit of depth in the gameplay. Starting off with the incredibly well done tutorial is highly recommended. 

First off, the number of actions you’re given in each round is dependant on how many family members you have, so it’s always a good idea to try and grow your family right off the bat. To do this, you’ll need to collect the materials required to build another room onto your farmhouse. To acquiring wood, you’ll need to assign one family member to pick up wood from in town. You’ll also need reed to build your room, so using another family member to pick that up from town, you’ll have enough resources to build a room by the end of your second turn. To finally build the room, you’ll need to use a family member to select the ‘Build Room’ option in town. From here, you can get that room build and ready for another family member. However, you should keep in mind that the more family members you have, the more food you’ll need to feed them, but the resources in town also stack upon one another, so say you don’t select an extra food option for a couple of rounds, you’ll be able to select it and receive 2, 3, or more rounds worth of extra food to help you out. 

Also, more food can be cooked/produced by upgrading your fireplaces and stoves, as well as other features in your house. The same goes for other aspects of your home, which you’ll get into while going through the tutorial and just experimenting while playing the game. While it all might sound a bit confusing, the tutorial being split up into different sections makes it very easy to go back and revisit some of the more complicated mechanics in the game, and once you play a couple games you’ll have a pretty decent handle on what’s going on. 

The user interface for Agricola is very easy to use and is surprisingly accurate, even on the smaller iPhone/iPod screens. While it can be kind of hard to see exactly what you’re hovering over in town when trying to place a family member on a resource, you can always use the question mark in the top left corner to show you what each resource is, making the selection process a whole lot easier. Graphically, Agricola is pretty basic, though with a card/resource game like this being able to clearly see what you’re doing and what different stats and cards do is of utmost importance, and Playdek has nailed it here. Graphics are crisp, clean and clear and text is very easy to read. 

As for gameplay modes, you can either play a single player game or play on one device with up to 5 players. You are able to change each of the other 4 players to either an actual person or the game’s AI. Alongside this, you’re also able to play online, through Playdek’s servers, choosing either a Quick Match, where you can select the gameplay settings you’d like and be notified when another player joins, Create Game, where you can invite a friend to play or join up in one of the already created games on the server. This expanded amount of gameplay options gives players quite a bit to explore and will hopefully keep the online gameplay active for some time. 

With Agricola priced at $6.99, it might be a bit steep for the casual iOS gamer, but those who know the depth of mechanics and great support that comes along with any Playdek title or know how much an online component can add to a card/resource game like Agricola, know that the price is beyond justified. GameCenter is also supported with 11 achievements helping to push the gameplay along and give players more than just points to aim for. And while some gamers might not see it, we here at The App Shack can’t help but love this game so much that the chances of it winding up on our end of the year GOTY list are fairly high. We really can not recommend this one enough. 

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Symphony Of The Origin [Kemco + WorldWideSoftware] - $10.99

As you probably already know if you’re even an occasional reader here at The App Shack, one of our favorite iOS RPG publishers is Kemco. The previous releases of Alphadia 1+2, Dark Gate, Grinsia, Aeon Avenger, Eve of the Genesis and Fantasy Chronicle are some of our top favorites within the Turn-Based RPG genre. But the game that got all of our love started, Symphony of Eternity, has finally gotten a sequel. Well, prequel if you want to get technical. Symphony of the Origin went live in English language AppStores last week and after spending about 7 hours with it I can easily say that SotO is my second favorite Kemco title, right after Dark Gate. 

Right off the bat, there are some things that stand out; Symphony of the Origin, like Kemco’s last release Aeon Avengers, is Universal. It also supports the new hardware’s 4 inch widescreen. Now, it’s not too apparent by looking at the screenshots in iTunes, but SotO also has some of the best graphics for a Kemco title to date, that combined with the depth of the equip system, all make this stand out as a step closer for Kemco being on the same level as Square in the RPG world.

The equip/item system is definitely one of the many highlights here. Instead of going from town to town purchasing stronger weapons, you’re given the option to upgrade your current weapons. You can also purchase new weapons and trade them out, but skills are locked to them until you reach a 100% mastered portion, at which time the skill be then be available no matter what weapon you have equipped. There are also 3 parts to every weapon; The main weapon (sword, hammer, bow, ect), hilt/arrows and grip/string/guard, each having different perks and stats and with the ability to interchange them all with one another so long as your character uses that type of weapon (for instance, you can not equip a bow string to a sword or hammer, or a sword guard or hilt to a bow, for obvious reasons). 

Another aspect of the game that stands out are the voice samples. During battles, your characters will spit out exclamations as they fight, and a phrase at the end of each battle. For some, this might become annoying, and there is an option to adjust the music, fx and voice volumes individually if that’s the case, but personally, I think it adds to the whole aesthetic of the game. 

Last thing, before we get into more of the gameplay; SOP Currency. SOP Currency can be purchased through IAPs. It is not required to purchase items, as all shop items can be purchased with the gold that you’ll earn from battles and treasure chests, but instead, is used as a sort of ‘cheat’ currency. With SOP, you’re able to purchase useful quest items like gold in clumps of 10,000, special herbs, potions, gems, elixirs and more that can all be used to cure and strengthen your team, as well as damage enemies. There are also special locations on the map which you can unlock with SOP Currency, giving you access to a sorcerer’s house who helps you master all of the finishing moves you have yet to learn, and 3 separate dungeon areas, each with their own boss. You can also purchase some special training and characters. In the game, two characters will join up with you for short periods of time. You can unlock them and have them available to you at any point in the game if you purchase them with SOP. You can also get special training and boost up your Merit Points max level limit. We’ll get into what more of this means as we get further on in the review, but the thing that is most important is that you do not need to spend another dime after the original purchase of the game in order to complete it. In fact, as you complete battles, you can convert those won battles to SOP Currency. By the end of the game, even without grinding, you should have enough battles won to convert to SOP Currency to unlock some of the cooler areas and ‘cheats’, which also carry over to a New Game+ if you decide to play through the game a second time. 

Now, starting off the game, you’ll be able to choose between Normal and Hard Difficulties. If you’re familiar with RPG titles, I’d recommend just going head in on the Hard Difficulty, as ‘Normal’ is more for new-comers to the genre. There’s an NPC in one of the early towns that will let you change from Hard Difficulty to Normal if you’re finding the game too hard. But you can not change from Normal to Hard, so keep that in mind going in to the game. 

Story-wise, the game is about humans, elves and dwarves, all living on Earth together, though still separated by geography because of their skills and habits. Humans on the plains, elves in the forests and dwarves in the mountains. Still, their lives are peaceful, and there is no war between the races. Inhuman creatures called ‘Evils of the Earth-depths’, as they reside in the bowels of the Earth, have attacked, trying to take over the Earth’s surface. Your main character, Ryle, is a young knight in training at the time that the human’s castle is attacked. During the attack, Ryle falls through the floor and into a secret area of the castle where a golem is hidden. Once coming within range of the golem, it is activated. Since no one knows exactly why the golem is activated by Ryle, the king decides to keep the two paired together, and sends them to the other races to show the human made golem to them, in search of answers. As you start your journey, more members will join your team while you look for information and try to find out why the evils are attacking and try to force them back into the depths of Earth. 

It’s not too original in terms of the plot, but like Kemco’s other published titles, Symphony of the Origin is very well written and translated. There are a few grammatical errors, but you’ll never be stuck wondering what is actually going on within the game. But, like their previous releases, the plot and writing is also one of the biggest things that holds it back from being on the same level as Square’s Final Fantasy, or any of their other RPG, titles. Personally, I love Kemco’s stories, and feel that they are very well written. But I will also admit that they’re lacking when compared to Square’s writing. This shouldn’t deter you from purchasing this wonderful title, but if you go into the game expecting it to match up to the level of FF titles, you might very well be disappointed. 

It’s still very clear that a lot of time, effort, love and care has gone into creating the world for Symphony of the Origin. And it’s definitely worth it’s original asking price of $10.99 (though it is on sale ATM for $3.99). SotO is also the second Kemco title that’s Universal, and the third that supports the 5th Generation’s wider screens. With the jump up in quality all around, it’s incredibly easy to recommend this title to RPG fans, especially fans of old-school RPGs. If you’re a new-comer to the Kemco world, Symphony of the Origin just might be the perfect title to start out with. It definitely has secured it’s place on our list of favorite Turn-Based RPG titles on the iOS, and comes with a heavy recommendation. As always, we can’t wait to see what Kemco releases next. 

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Aeon Avenger [Kemco + World Wide Software] - $8.99

A couple weeks ago one of our favorite Turn-Based RPG publishers, Kemco, released a new title in the English AppStore. Ever since we got our hands on Symphony Of Eternity, we’ve been hooked on Kemco’s releases, and even though they all look like very well made retro-RPG games done  with something like RPG Maker, there’s no way we can overlook the crazy amount of work, effort and love thrown into each and every title that Kemco has published. This time, WorldWide Software has brought us the awesome Chrono Trigger-esque title, Aeon Avenger. 

Aeon Avenger follows the story of Lake, a young, jobless slacker type who’s more obsessed with gunism than anything else. At the beginning of the game, Lake’s entire town, as well as his family, is killed by a mysterious man in black. This drives Lake to seek revenge. As his journey becomes more and more ‘complicated’ (as Lake likes to say), a woman named Rean who has the power to travel through time joins him in a quest to stop the man in black by going into the past and changing the sequence of events that led to the destruction of Lake’s village. Other party members also join up for short periods of time helping Lake and Rean figure out a way to stop the man in black from ever possessing the power to control monsters by going back in time and finding out how the monsters are able to be controlled. Toss in some Gods, a secret War and quite a bit of time travel in order to progress through certain areas of the story, and it does get a little ‘complicated’. 

Probably the biggest thing that fans of Kemco, and RPG gamers in general, are wondering about is the game’s equipment, leveling up and battle mechanics, as these are different in each and every one of Kemco’s titles (minus Alphadia and Alphadia 2). First off, there are 8 different weapons (Gun, Rod, Bow, Knuckles, Sword, Staff, Flail and a Whip) that you can choose from and each character, though proficient in one weapon, is able to equip them all. You can also equip clothing/armor with some able to be equipped with every character, while others are only for male or female characters. Along with your weapon and armor, you’re also able to equip two accessories. These range from slight perks, like a bump in stats, HP or MP, to preventing the wearer from suffering from various magical effects like confusion, sleep, poison and more. Now, most likely the biggest thing you’ll be worried about are bits. Bits are gems which you can attach to weapons adding on special perks, stats, spells and attacks. This is how your character uses skills and spells. Each weapon has a certain number of bit slots which you can equip bits into. These bits can also evolve, which we’ll talk about in a second, but how many slots a bit takes up is dependant on it’s strength. Unfortunately, you are not able to learn spells or skills, which means that you will not be able to use things like ‘Heal’ unless you have the bit that allows for the healing spell equipped on your current weapon. Because of this, switching out bits and finding out which ones are best against what monsters and bosses will be something you’ll be doing fairly often. This isn’t so much of a hassle, as in most weapon shops, there’s usually another NPC that will let you know what weapons are best for the monsters that can be found in the next dungeon area. 

Another mechanic that’s definitely worth bringing up is the time travel aspect of the game. A lot like Chrono Trigger, Aeon Avenger will have you traveling from the present back to the past and into the future, all to learn more about the world around you, solve puzzles, open areas and generally just progress through the story. One of the features that takes advantage of the time traveling mechanic, making it more than just a nifty part of the story and progression, is that you can evolve bits by placing them in a special area in the past, along with a magic evolution stone, and then traveling to the future to retrieve and equip them. Not all bits can be evolved, but most of the ones that can will play a huge roll in how you battle enemies. 

Graphically, Aeon Avenger looks like your typical retro RPG that Kemco has become known for publishing. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, unless you’re just sick to death of the style. Growing up exposed to the NES, SNES and SEGA, I personally love ‘retro’ graphics. Also, after spending hours upon hours messing around with RPG Maker, I have a newfound respect for how much work actually does go into the making of an RPG, even when given pre-rendered assets (which I’m not saying is what has been done here, as far as I know, World Wide Software placed every single pixel within the game themselves), it’s one hell of a task to take on. Along with the retro graphics, the animations are smooth, and the BGM adds to the retro feeling of the game as well. 

The user interface is reminiscent of Eve of the Genesis, which is no surprise considering EotG was developed by WWS as well. You’re given a menu button in the top left of the gameplay screen which will take you to a menu where you can access your tools (inventory), skills, status (equipment), map, help, settings, title, save and guide. All of the interaction with the menus is pretty straight-forward. It’s not cluttered, and is very easy to navigate. In the settings menu, you’re able to adjust the sound, battle rendering speed, movement speed, text speed, turn the mini map on or off and adjust the virtual control settings. You aren’t able to move the controls anywhere on the screen, but you are able to move them from the bottom corners to the middle of the screen. 

Now, not only are we incredibly excited that we have another Kemco title to add to our collection, but also, this is the first Kemco title that has been released as a Universal app. That’s right, no more 2X mode on the iPad! Along with being Universal, Aeon Avenger also supports the iPhone 5’s widescreen (even though it is not stated as optimized for the iPhone 5 in the game‘s description on iTunes). Priced at $8.99, it’s another great Final Fantasy-esque retro Turn-Based RPG at a fraction of the price of Square’s FF titles. If you’re a fan of the genre, Kemco’s releases are definitely worth checking out and we can’t wait until their next publication hits the AppStore. 

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Review Rewind: Fantasy Chronicle

If you haven't guessed it yet, Kemco is one of our favorite RPG publishers here at TAS. With titles like Alphadia, Symphony Of Eternity, Grinsia, Dark Gate and others, they've secured their spot in our hearts right next to the old-school Square titles like Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger, Secret Of Evermore and others. However, there are certain titles from Kemco that definitely stand out above the rest, and Hit-Point's Fantasy Chronicle is easily one of those titles. With it's depthy equip and skill systems along with it's well thought out and incredibly charming and immersive story, Fantasy Chronicle is one Kemco title that will never leave our devices. This is a rare thing, especially in the RPG genre, but personally, I've played through FC 3 times now, and have every intention of playing through it again in a couple more months. It's just one of those games that reminds you why the iOS gaming platform is so great, and how lucky we are to actually have developers that treat the platform with the utmost respect. If you have yet to check out Fantasy Chronicle, we highly recommend you do so as soon as possible. It's one Turn-Based RPG that every fan of the genre should experience. 

**Note; This review was written after playing through Version 1.1.0

Kemco, a Japanese development company specializing in Turn Based RPGs, has just released their newest iOS port, Fantasy Chronicle. If you’re familiar with Kemco’s last releases, Symphony of Eternity, Alphadia and Eve of the Genesis, you probably already know that Kemco is right up there with Square Enix when it comes to the quality of their stories, combat mechanics, depthy equip+upgrade systems, the music used in their titles, and, of course, the gameplay. Fantasy Chronicle is no exception, and, in fact, is their most polished, and well thought out English translated iOS release to date.

STORY: 5/5

Fantasy Chronicle tells the story of 8 characters; The main character, Light, his foster sister, Fina, their ‘Grandma’, Ohma, Alterbo, a sargent in the army, Holos Over, a young girl, Corona, a magical rabbit, Mr. Poo, a girl who looks a lot like Fina, Retea, and Ray, a woman from the Dark Clans. There are other minor characters which you’ll come into contact with throughout the game, but these are the 8 that play a major roll throughout the majority of the game. I don’t want to give too much away, because like Kemco’s previous releases, the story is a huge part of the game. However, in Fantasy Chronicle, the story is a bigger part of the game than any of their previous English iOS ports. There’s a lot more going on with the characters, a lot more growth with each of them, as well as more twists, turns, drama, conflict, obsession, revenge, and everything that makes fantastic dramatic writing. The translation is also superb, as we have come to expect from Kemco. No Google Translations here. There are a couple of words that shouldn’t have been capitalized, and maybe a comma missing here and there, but aside from that, the story, and everything every single one of the characters within the game says is understandable, and grammatically correct.

Light, the main character that you will start off playing with first, is an orphan, being raised by a woman named Ohma. Living with Light and Ohma, is a young woman named Fina, who is about Light’s age. Light, wanting to follow in the footsteps of Alberto, a friend of the family, and presumably someone whom Ohma has also raised, joins the volunteer army known as Holos Over. After a couple days of training, the village in which Light has grown up in, Selka, is destroyed, with no trace of Ohma or Fina left behind, and all that’s certain is that whoever destroyed Selka is the same person or group who destroyed another village because of the symbol found amongst the ruins. You’ll go on Light’s journey to find out what happened to Fina and Ohma, and discover the truth behind who’s at fault for the destruction of his village, as well as the destruction of other villages throughout the land.

Gameplay, Controls & Music: 5/5

The gameplay in Fantasy Chronicle is typical of Turn-Based RPGs, in that you’ll be able to wonder around in towns, and other areas, as well as having a world map. You’ll start off being able to visit your hometown, and then as you explore through forests, and go down other paths, you’ll start to unlock and open up other areas within the world map that you’ll be able to jump to. Each town has a handful of places which you can visit, the Inn, Item Shop, Workshop, Town Square, Guild, Private House, Church, ect. But you will spend most of your time within the Workshop and Guild, as this is where you’ll get your missions, and upgrade equipment. Most of the time, the game plays like older Final Fantasy games, with your characters needing to speak to certain individuals in order to progress through the story, so you will also be spending a lot of time talking to the people in each of the towns, learning about the world, and triggering more story sequences.

There are some areas which do have quite a bit of grinding, but as you’ll quickly learn, what grinding there is is heavily rewarded with the story sequences that break it up. In relation to Kemco’s previous releases, the grinding is not as heavy as it is in Alphadia, but it is there. Good thing about it, though, is that with the extremely well designed combat system, the grinding could actually be considered a welcome addition, with the game having very few battles that can be won by pressing the ‘auto’ button. As for the controls, you can choose between using the touch controls, or having a virtual button set-up on the screen. There is a quick button change between the two in the lower right corner of the screen. This control set-up is great, and should really be used more in iOS games, as there are certain sections which feel better with the touch controls, and others that are better with the virtual buttons. For instance, the virtual buttons are great for exploration, and moving throughout the menus, as well as jumping from place to place on the world map, where as the touch screen controls are fantastic for the combat, upgrade, shop, and mission screens, and being able to switch between the two just by touching the lower right corner makes deciding what controls you would prefer for different sections extremely easy. The music is exceptional, and fits with the game to a “T”. There is not one section of the game where the music does not fit the mood for what’s happening. Numerous times multiple musical selections are used for one dialogue sequence, changing as the mood does.

Graphics: 4.5/5

The graphics are typical of your usual retro looking RPG. In fact, you could say it looks extremely generic. However, the up-close character images during dialogue, and their models, as well as every single one of the enemy sprites/models, is done exceptionally well, adding a lot to the feel of the game. Each of the environments that you’ll traverse through are put together extremely well. With some places given a nighttime look, and others being underground, it really would have been nice to see some lighting effects used, even if in a 2D fashion. However, what the classics have shown us is that graphics are a very small part of the genre as a whole, and even though showing off some new insane graphical style would have added to the game in a cosmetic sense, it’s really the story, combat, upgrades, equips, and music that make an RPG game great, though graphics are a big cherry on top, they are not required. Don’t get me wrong, Fantasy Chronicle does, in no way, have bad graphics, in fact, I think almost all of the enemy’s models, as well as the characters hand drawn images all look fantastic and add a lot to the feeling of the game, but if you’re tired of the typical 2D “retro” RPG look, Fantasy Chronicle will in no way impress you.

Combat, Upgrade & Equip System: 5/5

This is where Fantasy Chronicle really shines. The combat, upgrade, and equip systems and mechanics. With the combat, you’re able to choose 3 characters from your party to fight, with each of the three characters able to have with them, a guardian beast. These beasts grow stronger, accumulate experience with each of the characters, and also grow a bond with the characters which you pair them up with. The longer you have a beast and character paired up, the stronger the bond between the two. This bond is used in combat, as you can set each of the guardian beasts to attack, share the damage from enemies, or focus on healing. You are also able to pair up characters, having them join special attacks for a set amount of SP (magical power), increasing the attack that you can use. With the upgrade system, you are able to collect minerals from each of the areas that you’ll explore, from both exploring, as well as from defeating monsters. After you open up a little bit of the game in the beginning, you’ll also be able to use more characters in the Workshops to go and mine for minerals while you’re out exploring, fighting, and in general, progressing throughout the game, and be able to collect it when you come back to the Workshop in each of the visited towns.

Using these minerals, you’ll be able to upgrade items. There are also books scattered throughout the world of Fantasy Chronicle, which you’ll be able to collect, and use to turn current items into different, more powerful items. Along with the minerals, you’ll be able to find swords and armor scattered throughout the world, which you can then bring back to the Workshops, and have them disassembled so that you can gain materials that way too. With the upgrade system, your characters, as well as guardian beasts, become stronger with each level, as well as learn certain spells as they level up. The bond you create with the characters and the guardian beasts also grows, making the extra skills your guardians have stronger as well. Once you start experimenting with the whole combat and equipping systems, you’ll learn how deep they really are, giving you a lot of control over what happens in battle, and what items you equip your characters with. Planning within each of the areas for what types of enemies you’ll face and what elements they might have will also become a big part of what you use to upgrade your equipment, and what equipment you take along with you into battle.

Overall: 5/5

Kemco has shown that they know and have what it takes to compete with the best of the best within the Turn-Based RPG genre, and Fantasy Chronicle is probably their best release to date, being the most polished, well-presented, title they’ve ported to the iOS as of yet. Right now, with it’s price at $2.99, it’s a must buy for RPG fans. The combat system is one of the best I’ve seen, the story is amazingly well written, extremely engaging, and well translated with characters that you’ll become very attached to. Once you start playing, don’t be surprised if you find it hard to start up any other games on your device until you reach the end. Kemco has shown what they’re made of with their previous English iOS releases, but with Fantasy Chronicle, they’ve managed to set a new standard; not only for what fans of the genre should expect from other companies, but for what Kemco can truly bring to the table.

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Alphadia 2 [Kemco & EXE Create] - $6.99

Well, it’s time once again; Kemco has released yet another top-of-the-pack Turn-Based RPG in the AppStore. Fans of Kemco know that just about every RPG that this studio has published carries with it some fantastic old-school gameplay, rivaled only by a few select developers, and able to hold their own up against the monster that is Final Fantasy. So, what has Kemco brought to the table this time around? How about a sequel to one of their previous games, the EXE-Create developed title; Alphadia 2. 

Alphadia 2, as you surely must have expected, jumps into the world of the original Alphadia, only 200 years after the events in the original. If you’re familiar with the original, you will be running into some familiar faces, as some of the characters from the original were designed clones, they are still around 200 years later. The Schwarzschild Empire is also still playing a roll and the Lightning Guild an even bigger one, and Energi is still a force that drives battles, assassination plots and wars. 

This time around, you’ll be following the story of Leon, a young Energi Guild member, Milfy, a researcher for The Guild who’s also connected to Leon’s past, Enah, who’s from the first Alphadia title, and Guildmistress along with others who will join your party along the way. 

All available members of your unit will always follow along with you, but you are only able to have a party of 4 enter battles. However, since other members follow along, you’re also able to switch out members for others if you so desire. Alphadia 2’s customization is almost exactly like the originals. Each of your characters will have a main element in which they’re proficient in, but you’re also able to level up other elements by equipping your characters with rings which you’re able to attach elements to. Once you equip your character with an elemental ring, they will start learning skills based in that element. Aside from that, Weapons and Armor are the only other items that you’ll have control over, and stats are increased on their own by leveling up your characters. 

If you remember playing through the original Alphadia, one of things that probably stuck out above everything else was the amount of battles you encountered. Thankfully, the grind has been lowered in the sequel, and progression through the story flows a lot quicker because of this. Also, leveling up of characters and skills has also been tweaked so that you’re not required to enter as many battles as you were in the original in order to gain skills and become stronger. However, gaining of currency is something that you might find yourself needing to grind for if you’re interested in always having the strongest gear, though this is by no means necessary in order to play through the game. 

Graphically, Alphadia 2 follows the same look as the original, but adds a bit of polish on top of it. It still retains it’s retro feeling throughout, and environments are again maze-like in structure. Though, as mentioned, with the number of random battles that you’ll be thrown into, getting through buildings, castles and dungeons is done at a much quicker pace. 

The menus are fairly different than the original’s, with more polish and easier navigation. The battles are also easier to get through since you’re able to use the d-pad and action button to select actions instead of having to reach up into the screen to tap on the action you want to perform. Along with the Auto battle option, Alphadia 2’s user interface has been restructured to allow for quicker and easier selection throughout the game, which is a great inclusion, and pretty much takes care of what you would expect a sequel to take care of.

Like all other Kemco titles, the translation is near perfect, with only minor grammatical errors here and there, allowing for players to fully understand the story and plot. This also helps players to become fully immersed in the story and characters, who, like previous titles, will grow on you fairly quickly. 

With Alphadia 2 launching at a special price of $2.99 instead of it’s original $6.99, it’s a great RPG to pick up for fans of the genre. If you’ve yet to be exposed to Kemco, Alphadia 2 would be a great jumping off point, and one that you don’t need to know the ins and outs of the previous Alphadia in order to fully enjoy. The only negative thing I can say about Alphadia 2 is that the game is not Universal, which means that iPad owners will have to play in 2X, but with the iPad 3 and 4’s ability to smooth out the graphics of 2X gameplay, this is becoming less and less of an issue. Alphadia 2 is optimized for the widescreen of the iPhone/iPod 5 as well. Kemco has proven, once again, that they are capable of being named along with Square Enix , Quest, Beam and others in the old-school RPG category. 

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Dark Gate [Kemco/Hit-Point] - $6.99

Kemco is very easily one of our favorite RPG developers/publishers here at The App Shack. Their previous games; Symphony of Eternity, Alphadia, Eve of the Genesis, Fantasy Chronicle and Grinsia have all received glowing 5 star reviews. So you can imagine our excitement when we got an e-mail earlier in the week letting us know that their newest English translated title had hit the US AppStore; Dark Gate. Not only did it have the potential for fantastic translation, an incredibly immersive storyline, lovable characters and depthy gameplay, but, because it’s from Hit-Point, the studio that brought us Fantasy Chronicle, arguably one of the best classic Turn-Based RPGs available in the AppStore, also had the potential to completely blow us away. 

Now, before we get knee deep in gameplay mechanics; the story. Dark Gate tells the story of Leo, a young man who’s been chosen to lead a group of warriors, from high ranking generals kin down to old drunks, on a mission to find and destroy the Dark Gates, and find out why they‘re popping up, as they’re the cause of the onslaught of monsters appearing throughout the land. 

There is a pretty large cast of characters to be found in Dark Gate, and you‘re able to switch these characters out at the Guild‘s HQ in Polaris, the land‘s centermost city. The story unfolds and expands depending on who you’ve got in your 4 member group. You’re also able to choose, level up, and master over 70 different job classes. Along with the job classes, you’re given equipable perks which allow you to have one job class, but use skills that you’ve learned while leveling up another. In essence, you could be a warrior, but be able to cast ice, wind and fire magic, so long as you’ve leveled up those job classes and have those perks equipped. This makes for an incredibly deep customization system that doesn’t only result in sword wielding magicians. You can also level up jobs for other warrior types, and have a spear warrior that’s proficient with using bows, and large shields, or a healer that’s skilled with hand to hand combat. 

On top of this, there are spell orbs that fill up during battle, with each character able to have 3 orbs full at one time. These orbs are used to cast spells and, if you have more than one orb full and have a character that’s learned two different elemental skills, you can combine these spells in one attack. For instance, if a character has 2 spell orbs filled, and has wind and ice spells active, you can cast an ice attack, and then tap on a wind spell, merging the two, and using up your two spell orbs for one incredibly strong attack. The same applies for warrior skills as well, merging a fire spell with a special sword attack will combine the two and give you an incredibly strong, fire-based elemental sword attack. 

 All of this did throw me for a loop when I first started the game, and if you’re not consistently leveling up job classes, and fleshing out the members of your team, chances are you won’t get very far, and a lot of enemies, even enemies in the beginning of the game, will be able to cause one hit kills and will take no damage. Learning what elemental types the enemies are in each area is essential, and if you’re having problems with a certain monster, you can almost always find something out if you exit the area (which can be done very quickly in the pause menu so long as you‘re not in battle, which is great if you‘re in real trouble) and go back into town, stopping in at bars and civilian houses. 

With all of this depth in skills and job classes, it is pretty surprising that each of the 4 areas you’ll be making your way through all have the same set of quests; Defeat X number of a specific enemy, take lunch to the soldier, deliver this weapon to a soldier, collect X number of coins, destroy the dark gate, ect. This is really my only complaint. I will say that a deeper help section would have been great, but it’s not required, and the quest variety is really the only aspect of the game that seems to be lacking. 

The graphics and animations are all very familiar, and there’s a good reason why. Dark Gate was developed by Hit-Point, the developers who also created Fantasy Chronicle. The extremely polished and old-school graphics have been carried over to Dark Gate while still having their own flavor and look. Each area is designed very well, with winding pathways, dead ends and semi-hidden areas all with the classic top-down viewpoint. Towns, on the other hand, are set up horizontally, like a side-scroller, with the Inn to the far left, followed by the towns Guild, Weapon+Armor shop, Potion shop, bar, Guild leader’s home and then two civilian homes. Moving throughout the town is done by tapping on the building you want to move to, and then tapping again once you reach it. It does take a little time to get comfortable with and there are some times you’ll want to exit the town, which is right next to the Inn, and instead, be asked if you want to stay at the Inn, but it does help to distinguish the game apart from Fantasy Chronicle even more. 

Like Kemco’s other releases, you are able to have these touch to move controls in areas/dungeons as well, but can also select to use virtual controls if you’re more familiar with that set-up. The touch to move controls do a very good job of pathfinding, and avoiding objects within the world, which is essential for making the control scheme comfortable.

The dialogue is, as you would expect if you’re familiar with Kemco’s previous releases, very well done, with only minor grammatical errors throughout the game. The words are also never cut off, or wrapped around to another line, so understanding what’s going on is never a problem. I know that this may sound trivial, but after you’ve played RPG after RPG with words that are cut in half, or wrapped around to another line or dialogue bar, you really do notice when it’s done right, and have a hard time taking it for granted. 

Now, there is a new addition to Dark Gate, something that’s never been added to a Kemco game in the past, and that I was actually very surprised to see. IAPs. That’s right, premium currency, known as Dark Gate Points. There is a premium shop in Polaris that lets you purchase and spend these points for premium items like increased experience gain, increase job point gain, gold gain, heightened item drop percentage, movement speed increase, hard difficulty, and more, including quite a few premium weapons and armor items. Dark Gate Points can not be earned in-game, so the only way to get these is to shell out some extra cash. The items in the premium shop are priced reasonably when compared to how many DGP you get should you decide to purchase any (400 for $0.99, 1250 for $2.99, 2100 for $4.99, 4500 for $9.99), but none of them are required to progress through the game. With the IAPs, it seems that Kemco has gone ahead and lowered the original pricing for Dark Gate as well. Instead of being priced at $8.99 like their other titles, Dark Gate’s original price will be set at $6.99.

You can pick up Dark Gate now for $0.99, as it’s on sale for launch. Unfortunately, like all Kemco titles, it’s not Universal, so if you’re a graphics fanatic, you might be disappointed, but when it comes to old-school influenced RPGs, graphics aren’t really too important. Dark Gate is easily the deepest Kemco title released to date, and if you’re looking for an RPG with an incredible amount of customization and variety with perks and skills, Dark Gate should be right up your ally. There is a pretty steep learning curve, and if you don’t go into the game knowing that constantly upgrading jobs and switching perks are critical in progressing, you’ll have a hard road ahead of you, and might even become frustrated enough to quit the game. But if you’re ready for a challenge, and willing to take the time to learn, experiment and are not opposed to teaching your sword master how to cast fire spells, it’s well worth the purchase, effort and time, giving you one of the deepest RPG games available for the iOS. 

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