Across Age

A few days ago saw the latest release from FDG Entertainment hit the AppStore, Across Age, a J-Action RGP game which they are hoping will show everyone else how it’s done.

FDG Entertainment are probably best known for their Bobby Carrott series that started out way back when as a j2ME game on the likes of Sony Ericsson mobile phones before being spruced up and brought to the iPhone for the likes of you and me to enjoy. I thoroughly enjoyed the Bobby Carrott series and so being a fan of RPG’s as well, I was keen to see how well they’d done.

To be fair, the story line is nothing new, an evil power is making life a misery for the entire world and you have been tasked to save the day. The story picks up as you arrive in a village to find a Grand Mage Ceska  who is needed to help you save the day, however, upon arriving at the school you learn the mage isn’t all you expected, in fact, she only knows one spell, the ability to travel back in time. Undeterred you team up and begin your long journey to save the world.

This probably provides one of the most interesting, and unique factors in this game. You don’t just control one character, you have two, swordsman Ales and the magician Ceska. You are free to switch between both characters whenever you feel the need and this ability is central to completing this game as many of the dungeons you visit will require your characters to go their separate ways to solve the variety of puzzles laid down before you.

The game offers a great mix of straight up action and intricate puzzles. As you progress you’ll battle a variety of monsters and need to solve various puzzles that are challenging enough to make you think, but not so challenging that you get frustrated and lose interest. in addition to all this is the ability to travel back in time which adds another dimension as you are able to revisit places you’ve been allowing for some interesting riddles and game twists.

Graphically, I love this game, reminiscent of the 16bit era and reminds me of the likes of Zelda in its presentation. From the moment the intro movie plays you’ll realise that this is a serious contender in the AppStore’s ever growing number of RPG games, and I have to say, at present it is my favourite. The sound, along with the graphics have been well implemented and the translation on the storyline is great, I haven’t found any grammatical or awkwardly phrased sentences that can hamper games of this type.

As a J-Action RPG game, the focus is geared towards actually progressing through the game as opposed to spending hours upgrading your characters stats. When you level up, your skills are automatically increased, though that’s not to say everything’s entirely out of your control, new weapons will be required if you want to progresses and new magic spells will need to be learned as well.

Probably the strangest aspect of the game, and one that may take some getting used to, especially if you’ve spent time playing Zenonia or the inotia series, is the combat mode. When controlling Ales, there is no attack button, to engage in battle you simply walk into the enemies (it is suggested you stand diagonally next to the enemy as this will decrease the chance of a counter attack). At first I found this a bit strange, but when you think about it, why do you need to constantly hit a button to wield a sword when the game can do it automatically?

I think the only issue I’ve had so far is the lack of health restoratives (be them apples, bread, potions etc). I say this because if you get knocked out, you regenerate at set points with very little health, this can be a pain, especially if you are miles from a village as the likelihood is, if you’ve died once, you’re going to die a few more times before reaching a point of safety where items can be bought to heal your characters.

Despite this one weakness I am still enjoying my time with this game and if the 15 hours of gameplay, as stated by FDG Entertainment, turns out accurate, this is one that is definitely worth the money. Different enough from the other RPG games available to make it worthwhile picking up, especially if you’re a fan of the genre.