AppReviewToday- AppReviews

  • Roia review

    Roia is a game about connecting with nature and–quite literally–molding it so that it can flourish. It's also a puzzle game of sorts, but that almost feels beside the point. Playing Roia feels more like a relaxing journey than a “game” in the more traditional sense, and that's good, except for the rare occasions where the experience tries to be a bit more game-like.

    Go with the flow

    In Roia, you can sculpt landscapes to your liking using simple taps and drags that can change direction between going up or down via a switch in the lower corner of the screen. Your goal in manipulating terrain is to guide a flow of water that is somewhat determined by the game environment and further directed by a bird companion that will sit and perch at places you should have water flow to.

    At first, the environments your in are complete blank canvases that you can manipulate as much as you like, though as you guide your river further and further down the mountain you start to encounter fields, wildlife, and other obstacles that you may need to flow around or under to progress. The game is divided into chapters that revolves around these changing environments, though the entire experience flows between them just as smoothly as the water you are manipulating.

    Uncharted waters

    Most of the progression inRoia seems geared toward challenging your land-sculpting abilities in increasingly intricate ways. All of this feels natural, though, as the obstacles or complications in directing your flow of water all feel entirely natural. I'm being intentionally cagey about what the obstacles are, because a lot of my enjoyment in Roia stemmed from coming across these things entirely by surprise.

    I won't say that I enjoyed every minute of the challenges thatRoia put in my way. In fact, the tail end of the game can feel a little onerous just because some of your landscaping can get obscured by environmental features and make it difficult to see or control things behind them. Perhaps some additional layer controls or something could help alleviate this issue. Or, you could just press on through it.

    Rushing waters

    Even with the less pleasant challenges hindering my progress,Roia did not take all that long to work through. After just a few sittings I hit then end, which was both a surprise and a bit of a relief. Roia decides to end right about at the time that its welcome wears out, and does so in a way that is pleasant.

    For anyone who really fancies the landscape manipulation mechanics,Roia also sprinkles little side puzzles and secrets all throughout the game. Just know that if you beat the game, there's no easy way to go back to these challenges without just starting from the beginning.

    The bottom line

    Roia is at its best when you're just chilling out to its wonderful soundtrack and in a flow of land sculpting. There are moments in the game that intentionally disrupt this to provide some challenge, create some surprise, and add some contextual storytelling which feel necessary to make it a full experience as opposed to a toy. Some of these segments could potentially use some refinement, but overall Roia is still enjoyable for what it is as it is.

    Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/roia-review/

  • Loop Hero review

    I have some complicated feelings about Loop Hero. I remember is as one of the big games culture phenoms under the height of COVID (along with Among Us), and it is an enjoyable upgrade treadmill that is fun as long as its systems are playing nicely together. Sometimes they aren't, as there are a ton of disparate things at play in the game, but the fact that any of it works is rather impressive, and even moreso seeing it tied so well together by its surprisingly cool art and worldbuilding. On iOS, you'd think it's kind of the perfect game to dink around with, and it is fully capable of sucking you in, but I'm not sure it has aged all that well since its initial release.

    Loot loop

    In the event that you haven't played Loop Hero, some explanation for how it works is required. This game borrows from a lot of other places, but as far as I know there aren't really games like it. You play as a hero who is trying to build up some semblance of civilization at the end of the world, and you do this by going on adventures where your character automatically moves around a track to fight monsters, secure supplies, level up, and find gear that will help you fight even more powerful monsters.

    Your role as the player controlling this revolves somewhat around switching up gear to make your hero as strong as possible, but the main focus is actually on building up the land features on and around the track (via cards) to try and make things as hard as possible while still being able to survive so you can score the most chances at getting powerful loot to take down and end boss for big resource rewards and some story payoff.

    Repeating randomness

    As you advance in Loop Hero, you build up a village in between runs and the structures you build grant bonuses, add new cards to play with, and even unlock additional classes with their own gear and special combat abilities. The core of what you do in each subsequent run remains largely the same, though: kill, loot, die/retreat, repeat.

    There are times where this formula is totally engrossing. It can be incredibly satisfying to happen upon a build that lets your hero go the distance to fell a boss or find special items like trophies to tip your battlefield builds in certain directions. There are plenty of other times, though, where things like this simply do not come together, and either you die or you retreat just to venture out again and see if things shake out better next time. As a game that you could basically let idle in the background of your PC while you do other things, this is mostly fine, but in other formats, not so much.

    Meager on mobile

    Speaking of format, this mobile version of Loop Hero is serviceable, though some of its ideas to make it more mobile-friendly are a bit odd. Perhaps the nicest thing about this port is that Loop Hero has flawless iCloud sync, allowing you to continue progress between devices, or even tie up a device to allow for some idle play if you so choose.

    Beyond that, Loop Hero has added some options to try and make its smallish visuals a bit more readable, but it's all via an awkward magifying feature that didn't quite feel right in all of the configurations offered. Luckily, I found it easy enough to see and read everything on screen when playing on my iPad, though on my phone it was a little more difficult, to the point that I considered turning on high-resolution fonts on the game. I didn't, though, because it kind of ruins the aesthetic of Loop Hero, which I may have only mentioned in the intro but it's cool as hell and goes a long way to make its idle/looping gameplay more appealing.

    The bottom line

    Loop Hero hasn't suddenly turned into a different game in the years since its release, but you can also see why there haven't been any splashy games like it since. At times, the game feels like lightning in a bottle. At others, it gives the feel of countless other games that are just random systems slurries. When you could play it somewhat idly (and when folks had a lot more idle time), I imagine it felt more magical than it does now playing on a device where you have to face its imperfections head on.

    Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/loop-hero-review/