9th Dawn II

Here is the deal. If you like old school rpg games, especially with bigger maps and a lot of customization get this game. I’ve been playing it nonstop since I bought it 2 weeks ago. I love that there is no iap once you buy the game. The absolutely only reason this didn’t get a 5 star rating from me is the mini map system. When your above ground you get a world overview that’s grey until you explore it. Awesome. I like it. But as soon as you explore in the caves you get nothing. Like no map whatsoever. This didn’t bother me so much at the beginning of the game because you go off your memory and there where only one or two levels and switches to find. Now I’ve been stuck for days in a cave with at least 10 different stairs, twice that many switches,gates, moving platforms and cable jumps. And it’s a huge map on each level. You don’t need to let us see the map. Make it blacked out until it’s explored. But it’s super difficult to have to activate certain switches on completely opposite sides of a map and not get anything marked in the cave maps. Please fix.

This game seems underrated and to my surprise has likely gotten much less attention than deserved. The graphics are basic rogue-like rpg graphics and the story is set in an enormous world. The game is designed for exploration and free roaming. Tons of items to find, magic to master, and areas to explore. This is a truly rare gem for those who enjoy old school rpg's. The downside- it feels as though many things, such as crafting, are left unfinished and un-implemented. There are items for crafting... but nothing to do with them. It doesn’t seem like there are plans to finally add those things in. Hence... the game feels unfinished.

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This game suffers from something most hardcore games suffer from, which is the development staff supports one or two types of gameplay. Clearly the devs favor range and more specifically magic, which is foolish for a game where 1/3 of the game is melee, and some people really enjoy getting into close fights to get more into the battle instead of shooting from nearly off the screen to kill enemies. If you choose melee in this game you will be fleeing constantly or chasing monsters that just move out of your attacks, which take forever to land with melee. It’s nearly 1 second to attack with melee weapons which seems quick but is way too long when the devs made the enemies flee from you constantly. Again, it comes back to development bias or preference. I’ll roll a range or magic character and will update my review accordingly, but at least two stars get knocked off for poor combat design with close encounters.

Elder Scrolls + Zelda + Paper Mario (?). The depth of this game is surprising, particularly after looking at the map for the first time. I am hopeful for a 3rd edition with more character development/customization. One thing to be said: The game seems to take time (at least on my iPad mini 1) to get to a stable position. It crashed for the first few minutes of gameplay (probably crashed 5-10 times). I turned off weather and did minor movement outside of the first town for a while, and the crashes have completely ceased. This isn't a solution, but perhaps a workaround until a patch comes out.

There are a many games I buy on iOS because they look cool. Some of those I play for a few minutes and never touch again. Others, I play endlessly, and keep finding more amazing things about them each time I play. This game belongs in that latter category. It is one of the best RPG games on the platform, has hundreds of hours of playability, and continues to get new features. In this version I've found zero bugs.