Chaos Rings (iPhone)

A high profile release, this. It’s a proper handheld JPRG game, designed for the iPhone and not relying on an existing name for sales. It’s also very expensive by iPhone standards at £7.49, making it the most expensive iPhone game I’ve ever bought.

I’ve only played it for an hour and a half so far, but I don’t think I’ve wasted my money. It’s very impressive indeed. The production values are incredibly high, there seems to be a ton of content, the story is intriguing, the battle system is fairly simple (without being overly so) and the box-pushing puzzle sections are a nice change of pace. (You don’t need to stand next to the boxes to push them, taking care of the most annoying things about box-pushing puzzles in games.)

Back to the beginning, though.

When you start the game, you’re asked to choose your team from a choice of two. (I believe there are four teams in total and I guess you unlock the missing two by completing the game with the first teams.) I chose the team on the right, consisting of scantily-clad lady warrior types Eluca and Zhamo. (Yes, the game features silly RPG names. Yes, I had to look up those names because I couldn’t remember the spelling off the top of my head.)

I do like chocolate. Nom.

Once you choose your team, there’s a fair bit of story to wade through before you can start playing. By JPRG standards it’s all over with pretty quickly, but it’s still a bit too long when you’ve got the iPhone in your hands and you’re itching to, you know, play the bloody thing.

After that’s done you walk through a big door into the first “dungeon”, a strange mix of lovely, leafy glades and neon-lit corridors. It all looks very nice and there’s loot to pick up from treasure chests (which appear to be placed randomly whenever you enter the dungeon) and a few puzzle rooms and, yes, random battles. (After a short while you get an item that lets you turn them off, but, really, I don’t think you’d want to very often. Partly for the rewards, partly just to see the excellently-animated enemies and partly because if you’re playing an RPG and don’t like the battle system, why are you playing at all?)

In battle you first choose whether to attack with each character separately or as a pair. The pair option gives a combined attack that’s supposedly very powerful, but means that each enemy can in turn target both of your characters with each of their attacks. I’ve not used that option very often, but I guess I’ll investigate its worth later in the game.

During battles you can obtain the “genes” of the monsters you fight, meaning that you can use some of their powers in the future. (Though, strangely, you can obtain the genes without obtaining any of the skills that come with it. I had tortoise genes for a while that didn’t come with any associated magic.) Or, to put it another way, you learn spells by fighting monsters.

Give me your genes, weird dog thing!

It’s all beginning to sound a bit complicated, but it’s fairly simple in practice and I can see agonising choices ahead when choosing which genes to equip.

Using skills learned from genes uses up magic points, which, unlike hit points, don’t get refilled after battles. I got to the first mid-boss after lots of magical experimentation and had a devil of a time beating him. When he died I had one character knocked unconscious, my other character was one hit away from death, I was out of MP and I’d used most of my items.

They broke my spleen, they broke my knee and then they really laid into me. Vicious little buggers.

Rather than carry on, I left the dungeon using an Emergency Exit (which refills your MP) and stocked up on supplies at the shop, before going back in for another go. I suspect that’s the pattern of the game. Choose a dungeon, choose a difficulty level for that dungeon, then work your way through it as far as possible before leaping out again, going to the shop and trying again. I’m already terrified of what the boss at the end of the first dungeon might do to me.

There’s a lot I’ve not talked about – levels, equipment, etc. – but this post is already far too long and if you’re reading this you’ve probably already read a proper review, anyway.

So, yes, it seems to be a really good game – it reminds me a bit of how I felt playing Riviera on the GBA, though I’m not sure why – but let’s see how much I actually end up playing it, eh?