April 30, 2009

Sometimes it says I’m a fighter. But I’m not playing a game called “Fighter.”

(Pardon the long, rambling intro. This is a review for Rogue Touch. I promise I get to reviewing it at some point.)

I’m relatively new to the Roguelike scene. I played Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon 2 way back in the day on the Playstation, but much like my first play of FFT, I didn’t get it, and I never got far.
Fast-forward to a year or two ago. I love Pokemon, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon looked like fun, so I picked it up. I ended up putting a decent amount of hours into it. It was pretty easy, and since I knew Pokemon, I already knew all the moves and elemental charts and whatnot. I had a great time, and I picked up the sequel and had a great time with that too. (SMILES GO FOR MILES!) About that time, there was much talk and reviews on the Talking Time about Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer. It was apparently the game that all Mystery Dungeon games were based on, and was more true to the Roguelike pattern than others. I tried it, and completely sucked at it! I went back to my easy baby Roguelike. But a few months later, I picked it back up again, and really started to learn it. It was good times. It’s still hiding in Best Buys for like 10 bucks, and everyone should buy it.

But yes, I’ve come around and I like Roguelikes. Which means when I heard that the original Rogue was ported to the iPod and iPhone for a buck as Rogue Touch, I decided that I could give it a go. I mean, it’s the game that all the other games are like, you know? I’d never played it. And surely, portable, with a different interface, I might be able to enjoy it.

I was completely right on that point.

The idea of Rogue is, of course, that you are a Rogue going in to the Dungeons of Doom in order to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, and score some phat lewts along the way. It is the game that came up with the random dungeons, the randomized scrolls and wands you have to test, the cursed items… all those things that make up the strategy of most modern roguelikes are already here. It’s brutally hard, but I can already tell that it’s earned its reputation.
The game doesn’t use ASCII like a version one might play on the computer. It does use tiles. Personally, I vastly prefer such tile systems. I hated Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup until I realized how much help the tiles were and installed them. So yeah, I’ve no complaints about the tiles.

The controls, too, work surprisingly well. You tap to the sides of your character and he moves a square. Double-tap, and he keeps moving in a direction until you tap again, or he hits something like a door, or an item, or sees an enemy. He even automagically turns when moving down the twisty passages between rooms using this double-tap. Tap on him directly, and you get options like pulling up the inventory screen, descending stairs, and shooting a bow. There’s a button to tap to rest for a turn, and a button to tap to search. That’s basically it. It works pretty well, although not always perfectly. I’m sure it would be much less of a hassle to zap an enemy with a wand with a keyboard, since you could just hit a key or two. In this, you have to tap on the guy, then tap on inventory, then tap on the wand, then tap on zap, then tap a direction. Yeah. Still, I have no idea how it could possibly be better on the iPod. I’ve no complaints.

I’m still figuring out how to play the game worth shit, but I’m finding it as addictive as any other Roguelike I’ve tried. My best run so far is only to floor 17 (From what I understand, you have to pass at least 52 floors, maybe more, to actually win) but even then I was testing scrolls and potions and really getting going with my hero, whom I named @, actually. My main problem is probably that I fight too many things, but that’s just how I roll. I do find it funny that, due to all the fighting I do, sometimes the game changes my class to “Fighter” instead of Rogue. I don’t know exactly how it determines that, but it’s fitting.

Anyway, it’s certainly a solid roguelike experience on your iPhone or iPod, if that’s something you want. Apparently the sale that had it for a buck is over, and it’s three dollars now. But it’s probably worth that if you’re a fan of the genre. And hey, if you aren’t sure if it would be fun, you can always download the original game to your computer and try it there first, hm?

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