Pocket Starships

Gameplay

Its Red vs Green in this massive domination style space MMO. You are given a basic ship, with a solar powered laser and a few nukes. It's your job to level your ship, acquire weapon upgrades, purchase additional nukes. Each zone has an HQ, where you must defend from the enemy team or waves of NPC pirates. The more zones a team controls, the more resources they have and money they accumulate. On a larger scale, capturing the most territories before the season ends is the primary goal.

As the Captain, it's your job to explore each Zone and harvest minerals from the asteroids. When your ship is full, you are required to deposit the minerals back at the Zones HQ. During this time, waves of enemy NPC Pirates we'll be attacking you. If you or your HQ is destroyed, you must start the entire process over - losing all acquired resources. You can either complete this task solo or request aid from your team. The HQ has a limit on how much it can process - so when your team comes with you, get your mineral harvest going ASAP.

Controlling your ship and attacking is fairly simple. With your left virtual joystick, your screen moves and rotates around your ship. Your right joystick controls your weapons and harvesting systems. Depending on your role, and your ships build - combat strategy is totally up to the gamer. Entering a large scale battle (barely lvl 5), I hugged my medic and kept enemies off his tail. When you die, you spawn back at your main HQ. If the fight is still progressing, you can warp back in after a short delay or your ship finishes repairs (depending on the zone).

Creativity

Pocket Starships did a great job creating a simple portable space MMO. The overall concept doesn't stretch our imagination, but with the perspective of a pickup-and-play - Bravo! You have a basic amount of customization options, and a fair number or weapons. When it comes to personalization, you'll start recognizing a lot of duplicates. In fact, the game itself does seem a bit plain. The zones are empty - without personality, and even the enemy lacks any real connection.

Aside from the artwork, the organization of the game is unique. If they had to option to play with one hand, or vertically then I'd be impressed. What's going to push this game to the top, is two reasons. The amount of Mobile Space MMOs are low, and the quality of the multiplayer experience. With the amount of players, you don't experience any lag - even over carrier. In fact, I didn't have a single issue with in-game functionality (great job coders.)

Value

You have the option to purchase both in-game currencies - Free-To-Download. Which means “potentially” if you drop about $200 you will acquire the highest/rarest items in under a week. Completely unfair - even if they wanted everyone to do that, the level cap scales to high for the worth. I'm not sure if too many people have been purchasing, I have only seen 6 boss players, and they could be beta testers. The boxes are a fair exchange, and should be the only way to play. The purchase of Solar, (diamonds) is going to kill the game.

If you play the standard way, you are able to unlock everything in-game without spending real money. For now, it isn't too much of a deal being insta-killed. But if the community ever grows, you're going to find a lot of upset gamers. This game does have the option for season resets, which could help with balance issues in the future - if handled properly. Overall I find it hard playing this game for over an hour, boredom sets in with the amount of repetition. If wasn't for the strong multiplayer foundation, it wouldn't have made it over a 7.

Dawn of the Immortals

Dawn of the Immortals is a free-to-play, fantasy MMORPG on mobile devices with high quality graphics, real-time action combat, persistent and instanced maps, lots of quests, an in-depth pet system, and streamlined gameplay.

Classes and Character Creation

Dawn of the Immortals begins with a bright and colorful Character Creation screen that features 6 different characters. Players can choose one of these 6 characters who represent the 3 different classes (Magus, Berzerker, and Priest) with male and female counterparts. Magi are ranged sorcerers armed with staffs that deliver powerful elemental spells upon their foes. Berzerkers are large melee warriors armed with two-handed axes with high amounts of health and decent amounts of damage. Priests are short, half-human, half-animal creatures that specialize in healing and boosting defense. Each character has 5 different hairstyles, which represent the game’s only appearance customization. All the characters, however, are very detailed and are different in both appearance and gameplay.

A Charming Fantasy World

Dawn of the Immortals has a semi-open world that combines persistent areas with instanced quest dungeons. The world is colorful and the graphics look great for a mobile game. Players start off on a grassy persistent area where there are NPCs to talk to and monsters to fight. Dawn of the Immortals has many persistent areas full of quest NPCs and monsters although these areas not super large and players won’t spend too much time in each of these maps. There are, however, a lot of these maps that greatly vary in environments and themes and there are occasionally some other players roaming these areas. Towns are also persistent and players can find shops, quest NPCs, and other players in the main city.

Questing and Instanced Quest Dungeons

Questing plays a large role in Dawn of the Immortals. Players will constantly move from one quest to another and the game is very beginner-friendly as it guides players to where they need to go. The game has an auto-move feature which is extremely convenient. Tapping on your quest overlay take will you straight to the quest NPC you need to talk to or the monster you’re supposed to fight. Questing usually involves killing a certain number of monsters or talking to a certain NPC. These monsters can be in the persistent areas or the instanced dungeons. Quest NPCs will teleport players to instanced dungeons very often for part of the story, and players will have to solo these areas and complete the quest objectives. The instanced dungeons are quite varied in appearance and the story is somewhat interesting and well-written to aid in the RPG gaming experience. Most objectives in these dungeons, again, are just talking to NPCs and killing monsters but there is usually also a powerful boss to defeat. Overall, questing was very simple and beginner-friendly with the auto-move features but at the same time, very convenient and still interesting to see how the story unfolds and what new areas you will be brought to next.

Simplified but Engaging Action Combat

Dawn of the Immortals features action, hack and slash combat, but is slightly different than the action combat seen in most other games. Players can move their character with a virtual joystick on the bottom left of their screen and have a button on the bottom right to attack, as well as skill hotkeys. Unlike other games, where tapping the attack button will stop your character and make them attack, the attack button in Dawn of the Immortals acts as an auto-targeting mechanism that takes your character to the nearest enemy (if there is an enemy nearby). Once you’re within attacking range (depending on your class), tapping the attack button again will make your character attack and you have to keep tapping to keep attacking. It’s a bit more simplified because technically you don’t have to move with the joystick during combat. If you just keep tapping attack, your character will automatically keep moving to nearby enemies and attacking them. You can, however, move and attack at the same time which adds some kiting fun for the Magus and Priest classes. Using skills also changes up the monotony of spamming the attack button. This game may feel automated to some players due to the auto-move questing and auto-targeting combat.

A Loyal Pet that Fights by Your Side

Dawn of the Immortals has a fairly in-depth pet system that most mobile MMORPGs lack. Players start off with a cute, little, green tribesman pet after completing the tutorial and there are many more pets that can be acquired throughout the game. Pets have various skills that can strengthen themselves or the player, and weaken enemies. Pets can level up by fighting alongside the player and they also get experience when players complete quests. Once a pet has enough “STAR” experience, players can level them up with in-game gold for pets levels 2-5. To reach pet level 6 (max), 3 of the same pets at level 5 must be combined. Pets can be obtained from pet summons (in-app purchase) and from certain instances that drop Pet Eggs. The pet system offers players a unique companion to fight by their side and an additional entity to level up and customize.

Cash Shop/In-App Purchases (IAP)

In-app purchases in Dawn of the Immortals offer players advantages and bonuses but are fairly lenient. Gems (the premium currency) can be used to purchase pet summons and pet items, which include pet enhancement items, pet skills, and pet exp stones. Gems can also be used to purchase equipment enhancement supplies, in-game gold, and cosmetic outfits. There is also VIP statuses players can purchase which gives bonus exp, increases in PVP challenge limits, opportunities to enter special instances, and other bonuses. Paying players can get advantages by obtaining unique pets, items to level their pets faster, exp boosts, and enhancement supplies that allow them to upgrade their equipment faster than others. Spending money, however, is not necessary to enjoy the game but paying will decrease the time spent grinding and offer other bonuses, which in my opinion, is still not really required.

Final Verdict – Great

Dawn of the Immortals was developed by Perfect World Entertainment and had a big name to live up to, but it managed to succeed in many levels. Although the game might feel automated and paying members do have some advantages, Dawn of the Immortals offers impressive graphics, persistent and instanced maps, action gameplay, lenient in-app purchases, and streamlined questing that makes it a very enjoyable mobile MMORPG that all gamers should try out.

Fallen Souls

FallenSouls is an action packed stunner that will leave you eagerly anticipating your next opportunity to play the game. It’s just too bad that everyday life will inevitably get in the way of playing this one. It’s that good. If you're familiar with these types of games there’ll be a lot of elements you are familiar with. There are your typical heroes and villains, missions to complete, and companions to help get you there. Of course you’ll want to constantly upgrade your weapons and armor as you go. To reach hero status in this world full or Orcs, warriors, and the undead you will have to keep your wits about you. This is a free app and it’s compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

MMORPG games are one of the most popular category of games in the App Store: there are just so many to choose from it's actually sometimes difficult to weed out the good ones from the bad ones. The most successful ones feature stunning graphics and lots of in-game upgrade options. The idea is to mimic some of the challenges we face in everyday life, not that we have to fight dragons at the office, but we do have to accept different challenges to move forward in our careers and our lives. FallenSouls does a great job of this. It features a rich background story that’s revealed to you as the game progresses, and each character has their own detailed background that really allows you to immerse yourself in the FallenSouls universe.

While there is a lot to like in this game there was one feature that I found a little disappointing. Battle scenes are, as far as I can tell, completely simulated in this one. While this isn’t uncommon in this type of game, it’s something I’ve always felt was a bad idea. MMORPGs can be a lot of fun, but the ones that actually let you fight your own battle scenes are the most enjoyable ones. This game is all about making the right strategic decisions to grow your character. This app will require 121 MB of available space on your iOS device.

This game features simple gameplay. To navigate through the world you simply tap on the screen to progress through each scene. As you move forward you’ll interact with different gatekeepers that will layout the mission objectives for you as you move forward. It makes following the plot nice and simple. Each mission will eventually culminate in a battle scene. To succeed in battle you need to constantly upgrade your weapons and armor to ensure success. It also helps to make the right alliances along the way.

The main quest will always be displayed on your left-hand side and every time you complete a mission you’ll gather coins and be able to visit the village for important information from your commander, and you’ll also be able to upgrade your equipment at that time as well. These are all pretty standard features of this type of game, and it’s really just the great graphics and excellent soundtrack that separates this one from other similar MMORPGs.

If you’re a fan of MMORPGs then you’ll enjoy FallenSouls. This game features stunning graphics and a great sound track that makes for an enjoyable experience. This is definitely one of the better MMORPGs you’ll find in the App Store. 

Izanagi: Samurai Ninja Online

Review:

Izanagi Online is a free-to-play, 3D mobile MMORPG developed and published by Asobimo Inc, a popular Japan-based MMORPG developer known for their mobile games, Avabel Online and IRUNA Online. Izanagi Online was out in Japan for over a year before it was finally translated into English and released worldwide on April 2, 2015. Izanagi Online was built on the Unreal 3 Engine and has a unique ninja theme. This game offers top notch graphics and the characters were designed by a famous visual and graphical designer. Does this new persistent world mobile MMORPG match up to Asobimo’s high standards or was it released 1-2 years too late?

Classes and Character Creation

Izanagi Online offers traditional fantasy MMORPG classes with a unique ninja twist to them. These classes include: A powerful and tanky two-handed Warrior, a silent and deadly Assassin, a fragile but explosive Mage, and a healing and support-based Priest. Warriors are balanced between attack and defense and have a unique class-based ability to block. Assassins portray the stereotypical Japanese ninjas with quick and deadly strikes, shurikens and leaping attacks, and the unique ability to dodge. Mages have low health but can dish out high amounts of damage via ranged magical spells (most of which also moves them backwards to maintain distance from the enemy) and have the ability to recharge their mana. Priests are similar to Mages but have more supportive (buff) and healing spells and a special Barrier skill. Each class has different gameplay as well as different weapons and armor. Players can choose one of these classes, male or female, and customize their characters with a decent amount of face, hairstyle, hair color, and skin color options.

The Open World of Izanagi Online

Izanagi Online has a large 3D persistent open world. After completing a tutorial full of interesting cutscenes and story elements, players start in a town where they will find many other players roaming around. Unlike a lot of online mobile RPGs, both the town and outside areas are fully persistent. The world is technically semi-open world though since the world is broken up into different zones outside of town. However, these zones are huge and are filled with lots of different terrain, monsters, and NPCs. There are caves to explore, plants and other materials to gather, and lots of monsters to fight, which include some big boss monsters that can be found both in dungeons and in the main world outside.

“Unreal Graphics”

The graphics in Izanagi Online look spectacular. Izanagi Online is one of the few mobile games created with the Unreal 3 Engine, which is capable of producing console quality graphics. The textures are detailed and sharp and the animations are smooth. The game has a dark, gloomy theme to it so the graphics don’t look super bright and colorful but they are good for what the game was going for. The characters in Izanagi Online were designed by Takashi Okazaki, a famous designer most known for writing and illustrating the manga, Afro Samurai. No doubt he was the perfect person to design the characters in this dark, ninja-themed MMORPG. The graphics and designs fit the game’s “ninja and demons” theme well and this is one of the best looking MMORPGs on mobile.

Questing: Back to the Basics

Questing in Izanagi Online feels very traditional, which may be a good thing for players familiar with PC MMORPGs. Players will generally find themselves running around town (which is fairly large) talking to NPCs, meeting other players, and fighting monsters outside of town. There are a lot of quests to accept which gives players something to do other than to grind and these quests usually involve killing a certain number of monsters, obtaining a certain number of monster drops, gathering materials, and talking to other NPCs. Each NPC has quest dialogue that provides a somewhat interesting read for those interested in the game’s lore. Questing is fairly generic, but provides objectives for players and gives the game a PC MMORPG feel to it. There’s also a handy quest arrow that guides players to where they need to go.

Combat: The Good and the Bad

Izanagi Online is yet another mobile MMORPG with action, hack and slash combat but there’s good news and bad news about it. Players can move their characters with a virtual joystick and have a button to attack as well as skills to use and a special class ability. Different classes vary greatly in combat gameplay due to their different skills, class ability, and attack style. The action combat makes the fighting more engaging and the smooth animations and flashy skills make it pleasing on the eyes.

However, there is some bad news. Although the attack animations look smooth, it is the attacking itself that feels clunky. First of all, it is a bit hard to aim your attacks. Unlike a lot of mobile games that simply guide your attacks into your enemies, in Izanagi Online, your character will only attack the direction in which your camera is facing. Meaning, if your character is facing the enemy but your camera angle isn’t, you will start whacking forward in a straight line instead of in the direction of the monster. Players have to position the camera so that monsters are “12 o’clock” from their characters in order to attack their enemies.

Attack animations also cannot be cancelled, so if you’re in the middle of an attack and want to block (Warrior), dodge (Assassin), or just move out the way, you have to wait for the attack animation to end (which has a slight delay in ending) and then do an action, such as move. It ends up feeling a bit clunky and doesn’t feel as smooth as most newer action RPGs on mobile. In its defense though, this game was released in Japan 1-2 years ago. This combat system would have been considered amazing 1-2 years ago before all the better action RPGs came out, but it is still decent once you get used to the aiming and attack delays. It can still be very annoying when you’re fighting bosses and need to dodge fast but can’t. Also this game doesn’t have PVP, which will disappoint many players.

Cash Shop/In-App Purchases (IAP)

In-app purchases in Izanagi Online feature a variety of different items that provide advantages and cosmetics but are not required to progress in the game. A large part of the IAP Store consists of lotteries for equipment, items, and Avatars (costumes). The lotteries are separated into different categories and players have chances to obtain high ranked weapons and armors, items such as experience boosts, return scrolls, repair kits, appraisal kits, enhancement items, and more, special Avatars that do not increase stats, and in-game gold. The items can also be bought separately without going through the lottery. Players can also purchase inventory and treasure box expansions. The special weapons and armors can give paying members an edge in combat, although powerful weapons and armors can be found and enhanced without paying. The experience boosts reduce grinding time and the other items are also useful convenience-wise. The Avatars and expansion items aren’t really necessary though. Overall, even though IAPs in this game can provide some advantages, it is not entirely necessary and the game has no PVP so these advantages can’t really affect other players.

Final Verdict – Great

Overall, Izanagi Online is a great open world MMORPG on mobile devices with amazing graphics. Despite the clunky combat, Izanagi Online offers top notch graphics, a large persistent world, a unique and well-designed dark ninja theme, lots of quests, and fair in-app purchases that make it a great mobile MMORPG despite its late release into English.