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Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery (Free) by Jam City is the hot new mobile Harry Potter RPG that many of us Potterheads have been waiting for. Even though the main Harry Potter series of books and movies is long over, there's the new Fantastic Beasts series of films coming up, but in the meantime, we still need our Potter fix. That's where Hogwarts Mystery comes in.

Throughout my middle and high school years, I was a huge Harry Potter fan. I remember waiting eagerly for each new book release, and then reading the entire thing in a day because that's all I would do. However, I never quite got through the last book, I'm honestly not sure why, and I still haven't finished it to this day. I also only saw the first part of the Deathly Hallows movie, and I'm quite proud of myself for not having the ending of the original Harry Potter series ruined for me to this day. I'll get around to it one of these days (been saying that for years). Still, I'm a big fan of the series as a whole, and get merchandise and other stuff when I can. I've been awaiting a good Harry Potter game to play on-the-go, and Hogwarts Mystery is a good contender, though I'm not big on the freemium aspect.

Free

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

Jam City, Inc.

Visually, Hogwarts Mystery is pretty decent. Everything is rendered in 3D, but it's more like last-gen graphics, similar to what you'd expect from PlayStation 3. The character model renderings look alright with their aesthetics and texture details, but they're a tad more blocky than I'd like. The world of Hogwarts and Diagon Alley are pretty true-to-life with the movies, and overall a nice representation of the Harry Potter world. There is quite a bit of dialogue and text to read through, as you'll be making choices, but the typefaces are easily legible. Animations are smooth and fluid, so there isn't any issue with lag or choppy frame rates on my iPhone 8 Plus. The music is whimsical (as expected) and the sound is pretty spot-on. If you're a Harry Potter fan, then this game does a good job in terms of visual and sound design.

Since Hogwarts Mystery is a role-playing game that takes place before Harry Potter attends Hogwarts, there's a standalone story to go along with the adventure. You are a young witch or wizard who's received their Hogwarts letter to attend the famous school of witchcraft and wizardry. You start out as just any other kid, then you're whisked away to Diagon Alley to get your materials for the school year, and then finally Hogwarts Castle.

Even though this is a role-playing game, it's fairly on-rails. What I mean is the fact that you're guided through a lot of the scenarios, and there's not much free-range exploration to do, as you can quickly jump to where you need to go to advance the story. As you interact with other characters, you'll be asked to make decisions that affect your character's attributes, friendships and rivalries, and the ending. You'll need to be careful about who you build relationships with, since you'll want to work together with your House to earn points for the House Cup.

Speaking of houses, I was a little disappointed with how the Sorting Hat worked here. I was expecting the Hat to ask you questions and then judge your house sorting based on the answers you provide. Instead, the Sorting Hat merely asks you what house you hope for and then you pick the one you want. That's it — the Sorting Hat throws you in to the house you picked and calls it a day. Even though I like that it gives you the freedom to choose your favorite house (Slytherin is best), I thought the process could have been more personalized and true. So I was a tad disappointed with the Sorting Hat.

As you embark on your journey as a student at Hogwarts, you'll go into scenarios that have timers attached to them. These include things like taking classes, learning spells and potions, and getting out of hairy situations. To clear these scenes, you need to earn two stars on them. Each scene features objects in the environment that you can interact with through taps, and it fills up the gauge. However, sometimes these activities require energy for each tap, which I thought was dumb and annoying. You only start out with so much energy, and if you're out, you must purchase more with the purple crystals (premium currency).

Because of this, I'm stuck in a room trapped with Devil's Snare for eight hours because I'm out of energy to perform taps and don't have enough crystals to get more. This is the first paywall and I'm surprised that it came so early on. It's rather annoying, to say the least.

I did enjoy other activities, such as learning spells and making potions. These usually consist of mini-games, like tapping the screen at the right time, or tracing out lines and shapes for spell casting.

In the beginning of the game, you're able to customize the look of your character. If you made a mistake, you can change anything at any time, but you'll also unlock more items as you progress in the game and level up from completing chapters. However, you'll need coins and purple gems to buy the "cooler" looking hairstyles, clothing, and accessories, and they're pretty pricey.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery lets anyone play out their wizarding dreams on-the-go.

The Good

Hogwarts Mystery is a decent addition for Harry Potter fans. The graphics look a tad dated, but are fine for a mobile game. Music and sound is well done, and falls in line with expectations. There's a lot of activities to do during your time at Hogwarts, and the interactions with other characters is an important part of the game. The mini-games are not too difficult, and being able to cast spells and partake in duels is what every Potter fan has dreamed of for years.

The Bad

While I want to like Hogwarts Mystery, there are some aspects of it that leave a sour taste in my mouth. For one, the energy system and timers are pretty dumb. I get that it's a free game, but really, a tap costs one energy in certain situations? It's the fastest energy burning time sink I've seen so far, and having to wait to complete a scenario is just annoying. Plus, you can't leave until it's done, so you're stuck waiting around. Another thing that bothered me a bit was how expensive the character customization can be. It's more like nickel-and-diming you for every little thing. Plus, I'm a bit disappointed that I can't just freely roam and explore Hogwarts to my heart's content.

The verdict

As a big Harry Potter fan, I'm still enjoying the fact that Hogwarts Mystery lets me live out my Hogwarts dreams. The visuals are okay, and the sound is great. The on-rails experience means you aren't going to get lost or confused, and always know where to go or what to do next. I like the mini-games for casting spells, making potions, and dueling since they have intuitive controls. Tough choices are going to be made, and I like that it affects the dynamic storyline. I just wish that the timers and energy system weren't the way they are, and that customization options were a bit cheaper.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is available on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for free. There are in-app purchases.

7.9

OVERALL

Replayability 8

Sound/Music 8.5

Gameplay 8

Game Controls 7.5

Graphics 7.5

FREE

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

Jam City, Inc.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews

Sdorica -sunset- (Free) by Rayark is a role-playing game with dashes of strategy and matching-puzzles. If you enjoyed other games like Terra Battle 2or Fire Emblem Heroes, then you'll get a kick out of Sdorica.

When I was in high school, I was introduced to JRPGs by my group of friends and I fell in love. Everything from the anime art styles to the dark and intricate, though usually cliché, stories, to the combat system — I loved it all. I'd end up spending hours playing these games because I had all the time in the world back then, and not many worries. But now I'm an adult with responsibilities, so time is short. While I still love JRPGs, I just don't have as much time for them like I used to. So when there are mobile JRPGs that provide a bite-size experience, I'm down.

Rayark is a fairly popular developer, and they've made some other great games like Cytus (I reviewed the sequel), Implosion – Never Lose Hope, and VOEZ. I've played most of their iOS releases so far, and have thoroughly enjoyed them. They pump out quality games, so when I saw that Sdorica was a role-playing game, I knew I had to check it out. Even though it's a free-to-play title, it does things incredibly well, and the usual annoyances with F2P games is not found here, surprisingly.

Free

Terra Battle 2

MISTWALKER CORPORATION

Free

Fire Emblem Heroes

Nintendo Co., Ltd.

$1.99

Cytus II

Rayark International Limited

$1.99

Cytus

Rayark International Limited

$9.99

Implosion – Never Lose Hope

Rayark International Limited

Visually, Sdorica is one of the most beautiful F2P games I've seen, but I'm not surprised since this is Rayark, after all. Sdorica has a heavily anime-inspired art style that JRPG fans will appreciate. The game is packed with anime cutscenes that reveal the story in each chapter, and the character sprites during gameplay are rather cute and "kawaii," as they say. The character renderings for gacha pulls and portraits are incredibly stylized and detailed, and the game world is stunning, no matter what quest you're doing. Animations are smooth and fluid during scenes and gameplay, and I didn't have many issues with choppy frame rates on my iPhone 8 Plus. However, I did notice that there's a bit of a lag when going through the menus, and there's more loading screens than I'd like.

Aside from art and gameplay, one of the other reasons I enjoyed playing JRPGs back in the day was for the soundtracks. Sdorica has a whimsical and atmospheric soundtrack that fits in with the entire fantasy theme, and helps set up the mood and tone of each story chapter. It's a delightful soundtrack to listen to, so I recommend using earbuds to be fully immersed. Sdorica also features Japanese voice acting for the spoken dialogue, which I enjoyed. All of this put together makes Sdorica feel like a triple-A title, which is surprising since it's free and quite frankly, packed with content.

When you start up Sdorica, you may have to download some game data before you're able to dive in. This can take a few minutes depending on your connection speed, but it's well worth it. Sdorica features a tutorial in the beginning that walks you through the ropes of how the game works, and new element menus, but once you get started, it's hard to stop. Plus, that game data download is pretty large because there's a ton of content available from the get-go, and the best part is that there is no energy system. Yes, you can play this game as much as you want during each session without having to worry about running out of energy and timers. For a free-to-play game, that's pretty much unheard of.

Most of your time will probably be spent in Sdorica's story mode, but there are special events, abiiity and training quests, and region exploration missions. However, regardless of which mode you play, the setup is still the same. You pick your team from your available roster (characters can be unlocked through the story or earned from gacha pulls), and then head into battle. Each stage consists of about three waves of enemies that you must defeat before the stage is cleared. While it sounds easy, Sdorica's unique gameplay mechanic breathes some fresh life into the tried-and-true turn-based formula.

Each character in your roster may only be assigned to one of three positions in battle. When you tap on the spot you want to fill, it shows you which characters can go there. Sometimes though, like in certain story and event missions, certain characters must take part, so that slot becomes locked. But if there's no lock, then you're free to choose who you like.

Sdorica's roster is a mix of magic users, damage dealers, and tanks. So ideally, the magic users go in the back, the damage dealers in the middle, and the tanks up in the front lines. You can even have up to two advisors, which are extra slots for a character but they just have unique advisor abilities, rather than take part in the battles themselves.

Battle in Sdorica is an interesting mashup of turn-based RPG combat and match-three puzzle. At the bottom of the screen will be two rows of colored orbs (white, purple, and orange). You can tap on a single orb or gather up two or four (in a square formation) with a swiping gesture to have one of your team members perform an action. The action depends on who you're using, but actions are always a melee or magic attack, support moves, or healing. Before you make a match, the game tells you who will do the action and what they'll be doing.

Enemies have number counters on them — this is the number of moves you can make before they attack. Sometimes they'll also have unique traits or abilities, and you can view this information by long-pressing on them. If an ally falls in battle, don't worry — you can still resurrect them by getting enough resurrection orbs. But you won't lose them permanently, thankfully, and they still get experience if you win.

Once you clear out all of the waves, then that quest is cleared and you'll get your loot. Each completed stage nets experience for your team members, as well as your own Watcher level. There may be other rewards, such as character minerals for evolving them, crystals (premium currency), or soul energy.

The Soul Energy is what you need to "invest" in your roster, raising their level up to become more potent in battle. If you have all of the required materials, you're able to "resonate" them, which means evolving into their next form. The crystals are used for the "infuse" section, where you can take a chance with character pulls or get materials.

Sdorica -sunset- is an insanely good JRPG that's full of quality.

The Good

Sdorica is an excellent mobile JRPG that is rich in story and has unique gameplay. The graphics are also beautiful, insanely detailed, and character designs are amazing to look at. The music is well done, and the voice acting is just icing on the cake. Even though this is a free game, there are no ads, no limitations on how long you can play, and there's ample opportunity to get the premium currency without paying a dime. It's also jam packed with content, so I can safely say that this is one game that I will be playing for some time.

The Bad

There's a lot of good stuff to be found in Sdorica, but I found the slight delay between menu selections and loading times to be a tad annoying. Sometimes I think the game froze, but it's just taking it's time with my selection is all. Hopefully this slight delay is fixed in future updates to be more responsive. Still, it's a small nitpick I have with the game, but it's tolerable considering how good it is.

The verdict

While I'm not usually a fan of free-to-play RPGs, I think Sdorica is one of the exceptions. Rayark did a fantastic job with this one, from the visual art style and sound to the interesting battle mechanic and tons of content for free, no strings attached. They also give you a ton of goals to complete for free premium currency, so the in-app purchases for more are more like a way to say thanks to the developers for making such a good game. It's completely optional and not necessary to play the game, but I can see myself spending a few bucks in the future to just support Sdorica. I highly recommend giving this game a chance if you're a fan of JRPGs.

You can find Sdorica -sunset- on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for free. There are in-app purchases.

5.0

OVERALL

Replayability 5

Game Controls 5

Graphics 5

Sound/Music 5

Gameplay 5

FREE

Sdorica -sunset-

Rayark International Limited

Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews