Item: Implosion - Never Lose Hope
Rating: 10.0
Author: Christine Chan

Implosion - Never Lose Hope ($9.99) by Rayark Inc. is a premium action game that is worth all of your money. Yes, despite what looks like a high price tag, this game is worth the download. If you enjoy action, sci-fi, anime-style art, and mechas, then you’ll enjoy everything about Implosion. It’s just a fantastic new title from the developers of Cytus and Deemo.

In the world of mobile games, it’s very rare to see a high quality, exceptional title these days. The norm seems to be freemium puzzle or arcade games these days, and while some of these are fine, the trend gets tiring after a while. Even though I don’t usually play too many lengthy games on my iPhone, there is always an exception to be made. I heard a bit of talk about Implosion last week, and I decided to check it out after I saw it on the App Store. Honestly, there needs to be more extraordinary games like this one.

The graphics in Implosion are outstanding, as Rayark has brought a high definition, console-quality world right into our palms. The game is completely rendered in 3-D with incredible details, textures, flashy lights, and particle effects as you tear and blast through foes in a fluidly moving mecha suit. There are immersive cinematic cutscenes and dialogue sprinkled throughout, such as the opening intro, that pull you in with the story, first-class voice acting, and Hollywood-grade audio. Your mecha suit is well designed, giving you balanced movement, speed, and power. The original orchestrated soundtrack is mixed by John Kurlander, a Grammy Award winner and the music engineer behind “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, so I recommend getting your best headphones and immersing yourself in it.

In Implosion, the story takes place 20 years after the fall of Earth as we know it, and humans are faced with extinction. Our demise was brought to us by being so technologically advanced that other lifeforms out there could detect it like sharks. The XADA came, attacked, and took over, forcing the few survivors to flee the planet. Players take control of Jake, who is the only one who is able to control the War-Mech series III battle suit, and thus humanity’s last hope.

Even though Implosion is an action game, it is based on chapters with levels that you have to clear in order to progress the story and move on to the next mission. Some of these can be short, while others take a bit more time. There are also different challenges on each, such as sub-boss fights or large bosses, defending some refugees from attacks, and more. While you start the game with Normal difficulty, there is the option to go back and replay levels on Hard or Expert difficulty.

At the end of each stage, you’re given a letter grade based on your performance, so the less damage you take while dishing it out, and not having to revive, the better your score is. There are also hidden challenges on each mission, which you see at the end of the level, but you can always replay a level and try to accomplish it.

The combat in Implosion feels like something you’d get out of a console game, such as the Devil May Cry series or even Bayonetta. Everything happens in real-time, and you’ll fall in love with the quick flurry of slashing that you’ll do, or even hitting them from afar, all while racking up the combos and consecutive hits.

A circle around your character has a blue pointer showing you what direction to be going in, and smaller red arrows will appear on the ring to indicate upcoming enemies. Health bars appear for all foes, so you can see how much more before they fall. Your own health bar is shown in the top left corner as well, and your suit comes with shields that can save you from hits, though there is a recharge time.

The controls are simple and easy to pick up. Moving your thumb in the bottom left joystick controls your movement, and it’s pretty streamlined considering some missions are from an angled top-down view, while others are just side views. The bottom right has an array of buttons for your standard attack that can be chained into combos (largest button), dashing, and special attacks.

Your battle suit is also equipped with ranged weaponry, which you can use by doing a long-press anywhere on the screen aside from the buttons, and then drag it around to aim. While your suit comes with a standard infinite laser shot, sometimes you can find power-up missiles to blow your foes up, though these only have a limited amount of ammo.

While I found the touch screen controls to be completely fine, if you do have a MFi controller, the game fully supports it.

Another thing about Implosion is the fact that the levels may have environmental hazards that you need to watch out for, such as spinning saw blades in the ground. Fortunately, these dangers do not discriminate on who or what they damage, so you can use them to your advantage if you can lure foes into them.

As you make progress in the game, you’ll notice that clearing out waves of enemies will sometimes drop upgrades for your suit. These are used in the game’s ARK Kernel upgrade system, which you can access from the main menu. This system gives you six different slots to equip the power-ups in. The battle suit has seven stats that are affected by these equipped items: Power, Endurance, Rage, Armor, Hack Level, Shield, and Critical Rate. There are also three special attack slots, but I haven’t reached the point to add more yet (still pretty early on in the game). As you try on different upgrades (a level requirement is needed for each), you can see how that item affects your current stats, so you can quickly see if something is better or worse than what you already have.

Players will start out with the Avalon battle suit for a good chunk of the game, but if you have enough badges, the Crimson suit is unlocked. As I stated, I’m still fairly early on in the game so I haven’t been able to use Crimson. There are also other rewards that you can get with badges as well.

As if Implosion doesn’t already have enough replay value, there is also full Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements. There are 69 leaderboards that include total badge count as well as points for all of the Hard and Expert levels, and nine achievements to obtain. And if you want to play the game on multiple devices, there is fast iCloud syncing that you can enable so you can pick up where you last left off.

I’m still in the first chapter of Implosion, but this is definitely one of my favorite premium games so far this year. The graphics are stunning, the dialogue and voice-acting is unprecedented for a mobile game, controls are intuitive, combat system is streamlined, the game is challenging, and there is a ton of replay value with the grading system and harder difficulties. This is a game that is worth your money and then some.

I highly recommend checking out Implosion if you haven’t already, especially if you are a fan of sci-fi, anime, and mechas. You can find Implosion on the App Store as a universal download for $9.99.