Ravensword

You can probably count the number of good RPG style games in the App Store on one hand, and now adding to this small number of games is Ravensword: The Fallen King, published by Chillingo.

The hype surrounding this game prior to it’s release was somewhat intense, especially when the app (and many more that used the unity engine) was rejected by Apple. Ravensword was resubmitted swiftly and arrived, rather surprisingly, well before expected. Given that I myself could not wait for this, I thought I’d best give it a thorough play before imparting my impressions on to you.

Right, let’s start at the beginning… the game starts with a short cinematic sequence which ends up with you walking up in a strange bed with an even stranger women looking over you, she explains that you were found at the edge of the forest and brought to town, unfortunately, you have amnesia and know neither who you are, let alone where you are. The strange woman then proceeds to warn you against going near the castle and sends you to see Donald.

Thus, you begin your long quest to recover your identity and find out what the hell is going on. The first quest is a standard training mission where you’re given a club and sent out into the forest with the instruction to return with five rats for which you will be paid. After this, you’re on your own in unwinding this gripping tale. Ravensword provides you with an open world to explore and a whole heap of side quests to accompany the main storyline, it’s said that the main quest will take an estimated 6 – 8 hours, and given that I’ve spent a couple of hours happily killing any creature that crosses my path with no other goal in sight I can imagine that the time you spend in this world will be much greater.

Controls are handled nicely, with a virtual pad for moving forwards, backwards and side to side, whilst moving your finger around anywhere on the screen allows you to look around (anyone who has spent any time playing games on pc or mac with a combination of keyboard and mouse should feel instantly at home with these controls). There’s also the two “action buttons” on the right that handle fighting and jumping. You can alter the transparency of the controls (as shown in the screenshots) although the game currently doesn’t save the change (a minor issue that will be fixed in an update). On a whole I found the controls worked well, my only advice being to adjust the sensitivity in the menu to maximum as this allows you to look about far quicker and makes for an easier gaming experience that you can view from either a third or first person view.

There is only one word that can sum up the graphics in this game… sublime (don’t let the screenshots fool you, the mist had rolled in when I was taking them and the images do no justice to the graphical quality of this game). Along with the music this is by far and away the most immersive game I’ve come across on the iPhone. The game works flawlessly on my 3G iPhone and there is also the option to turn off shadows and foliage for an even smoother frame rate. Even the dialogue is good, and talking to some of the NPC’s wields pure comedy moments that had me laughing out loud (just talk to the guy wielding the hammer in the main town).

On the run up to the release of Ravensword I heard many compare it to longstanding RGP games such as Elder Scrolls and Zelda. Upon playing it, you can see that these comparisons are not unfounded, whilst it may not have the complexity of these other titles, what has been achieved here is amazing and certainly sets the bar for future RPG games on the iDevice, I think I’d even go as far as saying this sets the bar for all iPhone games, period!

That isn’t to say that there aren’t some limitations. Unlike most (if not all) RPG titles you aren’t able to customize your characters abilities as you level up, this is done automatically, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, some of the systems for setting abilities can be downright confusing and ruin an otherwise great game. Slightly more disappointing maybe the lack of magic and the limited number of weapons available, but this is a small detail that doesn’t really detract from the pleasures of this game.

With plans already afoot for an update, or as it’s being referred to , an expansion the few shortcomings may in fact be quite short lived, whether these additions will be free or paid for I don’t quite know, and to be perfectly honest, this is one game where I’d be more than happy to pay for the expansions if it meant they kept coming.

Quite simply, this game is easily the best RGP in the AppStore and deserves a place on everyone’s iDevice. A definite “must own”.

Current Status: Highly Recommended

Reviewed at: v1.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 3.1.2
Download size: 65.6MB
Released on: 17 November 2009
Retails for: £3.99 / $6.99
Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G / iPhone 3GS (Requires OS 2.2.1 or later)