AppReviewToday- AppReviews

I will be the first person to say that there's a good case for more PC and console games to make their way to iOS. After all, my experience with other mobile game-playing devices that folks fawn over like the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch is that they feel like bad iPads that have tremendous game libraries. That said, I don't think we need to celebrate every time a port happens, and particularly so in the case of games like Wizard of Legend that mostly feel like an also-ran among what is now an ocean of higher-quality roguelites on the App Store.

Dungeon dueling

Wizard of Legend is an action roguelite where you go on dungeon-crawling runs equipped with an arsenal of different spells you can use in tandem with each other to defeat waves of enemies and bosses. In each of these dungeons, there are also item shops, environmental hazards, loot, and sometimes random offers that may help or hurt your chances as you try to progress through three different and randomized dungeon archetypes.

All of the action moves in real time and at a pace that–personally–feels a bit too hectic for the game's unwieldy touch controls. Luckily, there is controller support, but that's not perfect, either (more on that later). There are also different difficulty tunings you can adjust as well as some aim assist features you can turn on to help you out.

Combo caster

The core of Wizard of Legend is its combat, and a lot of it revolves around mixing and matching a loadout of spells that work well together and forming combos with them that lead to seamless victories over enemies. Each spell has several different attributes, including the type of element it corresponds with, a cooldown for when you can cast it again, and a certain ability type.

By managing these appropriately, you can find yourself in a groove of hitting certain spells in a certain order at specific times to have a continous wave of damage flowing from your character. This style of play is incentivized via a combo meter that builds as you hit enemies and–once full–empowers certain kinds of spells that can be used as huge damage-dealing finishers.

Once more, with bugs

The core design of Wizard of Legend is solid and can be enjoyable, but it's also something I've seen before… a lot. Action roguelites are not new territory in the slightest, even on iOS, and the combo-based gameplay doesn't feel like enough to make me want to master it over the half dozen other games that otherwise have a lot of the same stuff but more unique mechanics layered in as well.

It also doesn't help that I have had some peculiar issues while playing Wizard of Legend that make me not really want to put in a whole lot more time and effort into it than I already have. As mentioned earlier, controller support is present in this game, but it doesn't seem fully functional? Certain commands will have button prompts next to them, but pressing the appropriate button doesn't do anything. This doesn't ever happen to any of the primary controls, but rather more on things like pulling up or closing the map. You can just reach over to tap your screen to activate those buttons, but Wizard of Legend also doesn't seem to love transitioning from controller to touch and back again. It all just feels clunky.

Perhaps more importantly, I have also most recently found in my last attempt to put in a few runs on Wizard of Legend that somehow all of my progress in the game to-date had been wiped. I'm not sure how that happened, but obviously it doesn't feel great.

The bottom line

Wizard of Legend seems like a fine game if you just want another roguelite in your game library. I'm just not sure I do, or at least if I did I'd want something that does a little more than Wizard of Legend does to differentiate itself from its peers. I'd also want it not to have the technical problems it has.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/wizard-of-legend-review/

I posted some first impressions of how Resident Evil Village plays on iOS a few days ago, and I stand by most of what I wrote there if you are curious about how it plays and the effort that went into the port. The only thing I now disagree with is how I close the piece supposing that I won't have much to say about the game once I finish it. Now that I have completed Resident Evil Village, I definitely have thoughts, and the prevailing one is this: It's a fine enough AAA game, but–with the distance I have put between myself and that kind of game over the past 15 years or so–returning to it feels surprisingly (and disappointingly) familiar.

What year is it?

The source of my disappointment doesn't come from Resident Evil Village being a poorly made or even bad game. In fact, it's pretty fun. You get dropped into a world of creepy goings-on and try to figure out how to survive against all kinds of otherworldly horrors and solve mysterious puzzles while piecing together why this is happening to you and your family. The game does a pretty good job of creating spooky tension and making you feel somewhat vulnerable despite the fact that the game is ultimately still a power fantasy.

The disappointment comes more from the fact that if Resident Evil Village had actually originally released around 2007 and not 2021, I would have very little problem believing it. This game may be fun, but almost all of it comes from making a lot of very safe and risk-averse decisions that follow a blueprint that was fresh over a decade ago. Does it still work? Sure! I beat this iOS port and had fun doing it (with a controller only), but as someone who hasn't really put much time into AAA single-player experiences in about the same span of time, it's just shocking that so little has changed, at least when it comes to this game specifically.

Horror-flavored CoD

I do have some familiarity with previous Resident Evil titles, and in fairness to Village there are things in this game that are new for the series. As opposed to the watershed releases in the franchise like Resident Evil 4, Village plays in first-person and makes a bunch of other little changes to make combat feel more difficult, including a good amount of enemies that you simply have to run from. Eventually, though, you get so comically well armed that by the end of the game it just feels like you're playing a series of Call of Duty setpieces instead of a Resident Evil game.

Village is at its best around the middle section of the game, where you have somewhat of a free rein to wander between locations, scavenge for supplies and treasures, and solve puzzles. There is also a certain area where your ability to fight is completely stripped from you, and it is easily the most tense and satisfying section of the experience. The rest–again–is fine, but the game only truly feels like it's taking some creative chances and trying new things (that aren't just new for Resident Evil) in about 10% of the overall game.

Should you play it on mobile?

I don't know how enthusiastically I'd recommend Resident Evil Village on any platform, but seeing as how this is an iOS-focused site, I'll just say that the iOS port might as well be the other versions of that game but on limited hardware. It won't look as nice or run as well as it does elsewhere, but it is that game and I ran into no issues with crashing or device heating or anything else that can come when trying to bring something so technically complicated to mobile.

This is all somewhat moot to say, though, because anyone with a device that can run the game can try it out for free if they'd like. The free portion of Village is essentially the entire opening act of the game and provides a very good look at what the game has to offer so you can decide for yourself if you want to sign up for 10 or so hours of more of that without spending any money.

The bottom line

It is certainly impressive that Resident Evil Village exists on iOS, and it's perfectly enjoyable provided you have the right hardware for it (including a controller). That said, “enjoyable” is about as far as I'd go in describing my feelings for it. Village checks off all the boxes to make a compelling AAA single-player game, or at least the ones that passed muster over 10 years ago, and otherwise only has glimmers of inspiration.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/resident-evil-village-review/