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Legend of the Skyfish ($3.99) by Crescent Moon Games and MGaia is a gorgeous action adventure puzzle game that is akin to the likes of The Legend of Zelda franchise. If you are a fan of other Crescent Moon titles like The Deer God and Almightree: The Last Dreamer, or just enjoy Zelda games, then you’ll get a kick out of Legend of the Skyfish.

For as long as I can remember, the Zelda games have always been around for me as I grew up, though I did not play all of them when I was younger. In fact, I believe I jumped into the Zelda series with Twilight Princess on the original Nintendo Wii and Phantom Hourglass on the Nintendo DS. I picked up a few more Zelda games after that, such as the Ocarina of Time 3DS remake, though I don’t think I’ve beat them yet. Regardless, despite my later start with the Zelda games, I have found them to be enjoyable games (even if it takes me forever), and I always like to see Zelda-inspired titles on iOS, since it’s unlikely we will ever see a real Zelda game on mobile devices. Fortunately, Legend of the Skyfish does not disappoint.

Visually, LotS is beautiful to behold on your Retina screens. The game features hand-painted art so it has a unique style to it, and it shows that the developers put a lot of care into creating the game. Each environment you’ll be coming across with have its own distinctive appearance and tone, and you can see all of the fine textures and small details painted in. Your character, Little Red Hook, and all of the other creatures that you’ll be encountering, have fantastic character models that are bursting with their own special personalities and movements. Plus, with each equipment upgrade, you’ll see the changes reflected on your character model. The colors in LotS are stunning, ranging from the soft and light tones to rich and vibrant hues. Animations are smooth and fluid with no lag on my iPhone 6s Plus, and the sound effects are fun to hear. On top of it all, LotS has an amazing adventurous musical score by Sean Beeson that is atmospheric and fun to listen to, and it truly immerses you in the world of Skyfish. The developers did an excellent job in terms of the audio and visual depeartment with LotS, that’s for sure.

Unlike Zelda games, though, LotS is not an open-world adventure. Instead, players will watch the opening cinematic that kicks off the story, and then you have to go from area-to-area, conquering all of the stages in chronological order. The formula is pretty straightforward: explore the environment, beat up some baddies, solve tricky puzzles, and then face off against a boss at the end before moving on to the next level and doing it all over again. As you make progress, you’ll also find chests that contain powerful upgrades for your hood, fishing rod, and grappling hook that will be permanently unlocked, even if you decide to go back to certain levels. In addition to completing each stage, you can find hidden items scattered around if you look hard enough. This keeps things fresh and interesting, and adds to the replay value if you’re a perfectionist.

The controls in LotS are simple enough: use the virtual joystick in the bottom left (can be changed to a D-Pad) to move Little Red Hook around on the top-down level map. When you go into the next zone of the stage, the screen will scroll to go along with you. Since your weapon of choice will be a fishing rod, you can use it as a grappling hook to get from island-to-island. Just use the button on the right side of the screen to aim your hook, connect it with something that works (like the yellow squares), and then release your finger — your rod connects to the block and you’ll get pulled over to that section of the map. You’ll also use your fishing rod to attack enemies, and that’s done by giving the attack button a tap. You can also push objects around just by walking into them and pushing, which is useful when you need to place a heavy object to hold a switch down. If you have a MFi controller, good news: the game fully supports them for an even better experience.

The game pretty much holds your hands throughout the beginning, since you have a fairy-like creature that gives you hints on what to do. The first part of the game is also a bit slow, because it is teaching the player the basics of the game. The puzzles seem easy at first, but things will pick up quickly as you go, so don’t be fooled. It’s truly Zelda-esque in terms of difficulty.

I’m still pretty early on in the game, but so far I’m enjoying it a lot. LotS looks beautiful, has a delightful and whimsical soundtrack, has great controls and MFi support, and the challenging puzzles will make you think and keep you occupied. It’s a great Zelda-style game for iOS, and one that you shouldn’t miss.

I highly recommend giving Legend of the Skyfish a go if you enjoy action adventure puzzle games like The Legend of Zelda franchise. You can find Legend of the Skyfish on the App Store as a universal app for your iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV for just $3.99. There are no in-app purchases.

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Solitairica ($3.99) by Righteous Hammer Games Inc. is an insanely fun mashup of roguelike RPG and solitaire. If you are a big fan of RPG combat, roguelike progression, and traditional card games, then you are truly in for a treat with Solitairica.

Solitaire is a game that everyone has played numerous times at some point in their life, whether you were just killing time before leaving work or school, or just to give your brain a bit of stimulation. I’ve played solitaire on old PCs whenever I had a chance as a kid, and I just found it satisfying. In recent years, I’ve also developed a fond appreciation of roguelike games because they’re mostly RPGs, which I spent most of my high school years on. So when I first heard of Solitairica about a year ago, I was excited and eager to play it. The game launched on Steam earlier this year, and now it has arrived on iOS. I’ve spent time with the Steam version, as well as an iOS beta for a few weeks, and let me tell you — this is one of my favorite games so far this year, and one you should not miss.

The graphics in Solitairica are beautiful and unique, as everything is done in a rather humorous and cartoonish style. The backgrounds for each environment appear hand drawn and have a nice canvas-like texture, which make the enemy monster avatars and cards look crisper on your Retina screen. All of the enemies have their own distinctive appearance and little details that make them stand out. The colors in the game are bright and vivid, and the dark, gloomy hues on the main map give nice contrast with the card backs and upcoming monsters. The animations are smooth and fluid with no lag on my iPhone 6s Plus. The soundtrack has a rather eerie tone to it, and the sound effects of the cards and monsters are comedic and fun.

In Solitairica, you take on the role of a warrior who is the last chance that the land of Myrroid has to defeat the evil Emperor Stuck and his dark forces and recover all of the stolen hearts. To do this, you’ll have to reach the castle, but there will be a lot of enemies who will make sure that doesn’t happen. You’ll have to engage in turn-based battles through solitaire and collect the four energies (attack, defense, agility, and willpower) to overcome your foes and continue forth to the Castle of Stuck. There are different areas that are represented by the color on the back of the face-down card on the map screen, and you’ll encounter many different types of foes. Each one has their own speciality that you’ll have to strategize and plan ahead for. Each run you go on in Solitairica will be different, and when you die, you’ll have to start over on your journey. But the real fun with roguelikes is watching your progression get better over time and with practice.

So how exactly do you battle in Solitairica? As I mentioned, you and the enemy take turns. On your turns, you will check the current card drawn and then tap on the card stacks that show cards that are one higher or one lower than the drawn card, just as you would in solitaire. Once all cards are eliminated from the board, then you win. If you can no longer make any matches for the card sequence, then you’ll have to draw another one, and then the enemy draws a card from their own stack. But if you look closely at each card, they are each colored differently: orange for attack, blue for defense, green for agility, and purple for willpower. As you successfully stack cards, you’ll collect energy for that attribute, which is shown in the bottom right. When you have enough energy of a certain kind, your equipped spells along the bottom will be available for use, and a tap activates it.

These spells help you get rid of unwanted cards, set up shields to prevent taking damage to your health (once it reaches zero you lose), check the next card, and even heal yourself. After you clear a stage, you’ll earn coins depending on how you did. The coins can be spent in the shop between battles to buy new spells and equippable items (increase energy gained or maximize your health points, for example) that help you in fights. It’s important to read what each spell or item does as well, so you can use it to your full advantage. If you can’t afford a spell or item in the shop, you can also spend 10 coins to hold it for the next visit, since the shop will rotate spells and items after each round. Your character can have up to four items equipped, and have a maximum of six spells in battle. If you have bought more than the allotted amount, you’ll have to pick-and-choose what to take with you before each level.

As you get further in the game and closer to Castle Stuck, you will find tougher enemies, more cards in battle, and much better loot in the shop, though it ends up being more expensive too. You also earn Wildstone after each journey that can be spent to upgrade cards (Ace, King, and Queen boosts) and even purchase new decks that change your play style. Along with the procedurally generated run each time you play and achievements to earn, Solitairica has high replay value.

I’ve been playing Solitairica for a while on Steam, but I’m super happy to see that it’s finally on iOS. The graphics are stunning, sounds and music are delightful, the humor is spot-on, and the mashup gameplay works incredibly well. There is high replay value due to the different decks, card upgrades, spells, items, and randomly generated levels, so it’s a game that one should be spending a long time with. In fact, you will have a very hard time putting this one down. I just wish that it weren’t so expensive to upgrade cards and get new decks, but that adds to the longevity of the game overall.

I highly recommend Solitairica for anyone who enjoys solitaire, roguelikes, and RPGs. Or if you just want an interesting new game that’s unlike anything you’ve tried before, this is it. Solitairica can be found on the App Store as a universal app for your iPhone and iPad for $3.99. There are no in-app purchases. The Steam version is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and SteamPlay for $11.99.

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