Review: Angel Sword - Retro Style RPG

Overview Angel Sword is a retro style RPG by dVide Arts, where you must travel the land, doing quests and collecting parts of a sword, so you can defeat an evil wizard. Features Angel Sword features a lot of quests that the developers pretend aren't simply slave labor and very poor controls. Good features are rather hard to come by in this game The Good Angel Sword is an RPG reminiscent of old school 8 bit games like Zelda. You are an Angel, sent from heaven who has to recover 20 pieces of the Angel Sword, the only weapon capable of defeating the evil wizard, as the wizard broke it and spread the pieces across the land To do this you need to talk to the villagers and complete quests for them to hand over their sword pieces. Apparently they couldn't care less that the world will end if you don't get those pieces. These quests are your average RPG filler quests, such as killing a certain amount of something, bringing back a certain amount of something or tracking down a missing person and convey absolutely zero story or interest. Angel Sword at least looks and feels like an 8bit game and if you grew up with the NES you'll have some fond flashbacks from the games' graphics, although the animation is nigh on non-existent. The Bad Angel Sword unfortunately has some of the worst controls ever in a iOS game. The game uses a Dpad setup and is locked in vertical orientation. In most games when you have a virtual stick or Dpad and you slide your thumb from one direction to another, you will start moving that direction smoothly with no downtime. In Angel Sword however if your thumb goes off the directional arrow you stop dead and you must lift your finger off the screen and tap your new direction. This is extremely slow and awkward and makes maneuvering in combat, or even just walking though passages an exercise in frustration as you sloooooooowly change directions and overshoot doors, as you need to be lined up exactly with a door to enter it. Combat is a nightmare in this game, as you walk incredibly slowly and your jerky, stiff controls are totally unsuited to dodging anything. The attack button is also inexplicably set in the middle of the movement Dpad, so you must take your finger off the movement keys to press it. Why it wasn't simply on the other side of the screen where your other thumb can operate it is anyone's guess. You can also only move in four directions, not diagonally like virtually every other game on the platform, so it takes ages to get anywhere. When you attack you also just stick your sword out limply for a fraction of a second and hope the enemy runs into it, as you walk so slowly its better to just stop near an enemy and tap away, hoping they run into your sword rather than aggressively moving towards them. Combat is hardly interesting either and boils down to just tapping as quickly as possible and hoping the clunky controls don't make you run into the enemy. The game's description that mentions "NPCS with in depth stories" is a total lie as well. Every NPC you encounter will simply tell you their problem and ask you to go fix it. No names, background or anything whatsoever, just "GO FIX IT NOW STRANGER!". if you're expecting Final Fantasy dialogue here you'll find this game a total waste of your device's flash cells. There is no excuse for this sloppy attempt at story telling, if it can be called that. Its not like the game's main story is interesting or original in the slightest which is a big no-no for a RPG. Its just another "The big bad has broken into pieces, go and find the pieces so you can defeat big bad" that you've heard 15 million times before, including in many Final Fantasy games, except without the flair, characters and plot twists to make it great. Many iPhone RPGs have great stories and funny dialogue, so there is no excuse. The game is also very short, taking less than an hour to beat, which is ridiculous for an RPG. After you beat the game, you can upload your completion score to a high score list, but really who cares when the game is this bad? Reply value for this game is shorter than a bald man's hair. Its slow, boring and annoying the first time. Its doubtful many players will reply this to place higher on the scores list. Even the game's graphics fail at their attempt to trigger nostalgia. They are simply butt ugly instead with bug eyed ugly people and even more boring enemies. Real 8-bit graphics are stylized and cute, not a brightly colored dog's breakfast like this game is. The sound is no better with obnoxious droning music that doesn't feel retro in the least and beepy annoying sound effects. The death yell for your angel is also extremely annoying. The Verdict Angel Sword is a poorly designed piece of garbage which feels a lot more hellish than a game about angels should. It has no strengths, no story, many problems and dull as dishwater gameplay. Avoid it. If you are after old school RPG goodness give Vay a try instead.

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