Sorting through the zillions of apps on the App Store to find the best downloads for your iPhone or iPod Touch is time consuming and fraught with the risk of dropping good money on a bad purchase. Because even though most apps cost just a few dollars or Euros, that still was your hard-earned coin. So, IGN is creating a series of Top 5s for various genres and categories in the App Store to help you make the best download decisions. If you're new to the App Store, we hope to make the discovery of new apps and games more fun. And if you've had an iPhone for years, perhaps you'll find something new. Because that's what makes the App Store such an exciting place: there is always something new behind each click.
Some gamers deride the iPhone as a buttonless handheld unable to play anything but basic puzzle games. Those gamers are wrong. This device can handle hardcore games, too. Role-playing games have long been a staple of the hardcore, offering adventures that stretch across hundreds of virtual miles and can take dozens of hours to finish. Between here and there, you slay monsters, collect loot, and explore dangerous worlds. If this sounds like fun to you, then you just might be an RPG fan. We've collected five of the best RPGs on the iPhone to make it easy for you to find one that's a good fit for you.
Publisher: Square Enix
Price: $12.99
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Chaos Rings is not an amazing adventure game for the iPhone. It is an amazing adventure game – period. This battle-heavy RPG is loaded with dozens of hours of play across four sets of heroes. The narrative is excellent, as is the character development. It is easy to control in both exploration and battle scenes thanks to clean, smart virtual controls. There is real depth to the battle system, too, as you weigh the risks of solo or pair attacks versus exposure to enemy blows, and how this can affect the flow of the fight. My big complaint is the out-of-place series of puzzle rooms that just slow things down. Otherwise, this is a wonderful RPG that any Square fan or adventure gamer would be crazy to miss.
Publisher: Gamevil
Price: $2.99
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Though Zenonia 2 is already out, the original remains special. This action-RPG is built in the vein of 16-bit classics like The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. It's hard to take your eyes off the art style – handsome sprites painted with bright colors. But more than being a pretty picture, Zenonia is a great play. The adventure is massive, as you push across the overworld battling monsters with cool weapons, spells, and skills. There is a ton of customization, a big plus for RPG fans, as you accumulate loot from fallen foes. Right now, Zenonia is just $2.99 – that's a tremendous bargain for the amount of game you're getting in this single download. I seriously recommend Zenonia for both retrogamers and adventure fans.
Publisher: FDG Entertainment
Price: $5.99
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I praised Zenonia's 16-bit aesthetic and so I must also heap similar kudos on Across Age: this really does look like the retro faves of the Super NES era. However, instead of reminding me of Zelda, Across Age brought back memories of the classic Ys games where instead of actually swinging a sword (or taking turns), you touch enemies where you sword extends. It's an easy combat system that anybody can understand within seconds, unlike the slightly headier The Quest or Chaos Rings. Time travel figures heavily in Across Age, as your heroes – Ceska and Ales – must shift the sands of the hourglass to see the world at different periods and eventually triumph over a growing evil. With lots of cool items to find or monsters to slay, Across Age will keep you busy (and smiling) for a long time.
Publisher: Chillingo
Price: $4.99
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The Quest is not an attractive game. In fact, unless you have a certain appreciation for its 1990s RPG aesthetic (first-person, clunky sprites), you might find it so downright ungainly that you have a hard time playing it. Of course, that means you miss an incredible, lengthy adventure that spans not just an epic main quest, but also a host of side quests – and if you still cannot get enough, The Quest has DLC packs that bolt additional things to do to the adventure. But it's not just the size of the adventure and the ease of playing that makes The Quest a popular RPG pick. The excellent writing and great music round out the package.
Publisher: Fargoal LLC
Price: $3.99
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If you fancy yourself a retrogamer, you might recognize the name Fargoal. Originally an adventure for the Commodore PET (and later updated for the C64), Sword of Fargoal is a classic push-back-the-darkness dungeon crawler. As you poke around the dungeon in search of the titular sword, you must beat down monsters and collect scrolls. Once you have the sword, you need to get back to the surface before time runs out. Now, the iPhone version has been considerably upgraded from the 1980 original. The visuals have been completely refreshed, although it maintains some of the static charms of the classic (there's not a lot of animation here). What hasn't changed, though, is the difficulty. This is an easy game to start, but if you plan to beat it, you need serious skills.
Have you tried any of these RPGs for the iDevices? Do you have a fave that other iPhone gamers need to know about? Hit the comments and let us know.
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