Children of Morta review
February 25, 2025 by RSS Feed
I've been playing and writing about mobile games for long enough to remember a time where there were essentially no good controllers available for the platform and few--if any--PC and console releases coming out on the App Store. All of that has changed, of course, and we're now at the point where it feels like there's a new clutch of ports coming out every week or two. There seems to be an interesting knock-on effect with all of these non-mobile games coming to the App Store: mobile ports are getting less and less mobile-friendly.Children of Morta is definitely part of this trend. Despite otherwise being a serviceable dungeon-crawler, so many aspects of this game were clearly not tuned with mobile in mind in 2019 and weren't subsequently tweaked for this 2024 re-release on the App Store.
Crawling chronicles
Children of Morta is a fairly run-of-the-mill roguelite dungeon-crawler at its core. You choose a level, choose a hero, and try to get as far as you can without dying. Along the way you find all kinds of collectibles and currencies, some of which empower your character for that run only and others that can unlock persistent upgrades to make future runs easier.
Where this game chooses to forge its identity is in its lore and storytelling. Each character in Children of Morta is part of a family (The Bergsons), and this family is fighting off ancient evils that threaten the land both through adventuring to awaken gods that can help them, and also through their own camaraderie. This shows up through different vignettes between dungeon runs and also sometimes during them. Some of these narrated sequences simply act to introduce some new upgrade treadmill you've unlocked, but others just help to give dimension to the world and its characters or even offer up some bespoke setpiece. It's a nice touch that keeps its run-based nature from feeling so nakedly repetitive.
Mobilized mess
When I first fired up Children of Morta on my iPad, I quickly realized two things. First, there is no way the touch controls (with zero customization options, by the way) are up to the task of allowing me to overcome this game's default difficulty curve. And second: It's pretty difficult to see a lot of little things on the screen that can make or break an entire run--even on one of the larger iOS displays available!
As a result, I spent the vast majority of my time with the game playing with a controller and training my eyes to pick up on smaller traps or attacks that come from underneath you. This mostly solved the problems, though I still found myself having some runs end abruptly for reasons that are still not apparent to me. The whole experience felt very much like just playing a console or PC game on a mobile device, which--while cool in its own ways--is a compromised experience. Simply give me a bigger screen (or even resolution options of some kind?) and Children of Morta is suddenly a much more enjoyable game.
A battle of bugs
Beyond the apparent lack of considerations for bringing Children of Morta to smaller screens, there are bugs in this version of the game that are pretty annoying to deal with and some other pain points that make it feel even more compromised than it already is. The main offenders here are a bug that sometimes cuts the audio of the game to the point that an entire cutscene plays with no sound and also no subtitles, for some reason. There's also an issue where the game pauses every time you unlock a Game Center achievement.
Outside of bugs, it would be nice if Children of Morta was able to save the state of a run somehow if the app crashes or you have to spend some time away from the game doing something else with your device, but that is sadly not a feature here. Nor is the multiplayer that is present in other versions of the game, though there is a menu item indicating that it should be making its way to the game at some point.
The bottom line
Despite all these issues, I still enjoy playing Children of Morta. It is very far from anything I would call a great experience, but there's enough going on in its combat design and storytelling that I feel compelled by it. Just know that if you do pick it up you'll have to wade through a lot of compromises, unless... you know.. you just buy it on some other platform.
Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/review-270219/
credit : 148apps
The Abandoned Planet review
February 25, 2025 by RSS Feed
The Room in Space
The Abandoned Planet follows a core formula that was largely popularized by The Room series of games. You play as a character who finds themselves under mysterious circumstances, and you wander around in first-person interacting with objects, combining items, and referencing clues to solve puzzles and move forward.
The way The Abandoned Planet sets itself apart is by changing the setting to outer space and then layering on a lot of other appealing adventure game bells and whistles--full voice acting, gorgeous pixel art, and a satisfying mystery.
Tight Space
InThe Abandoned Planet, you are an explorer who crash lands on an alien planet who is basically just looking for a way to leave. Along the way, you encounter a bunch of strange alien objects that take you to all sorts of locations across the planet as you search for some kind of useable vessel to return to earth.
What really gripped me in the opening moments ofThe Abandoned Planet is just how ready it seemed to have you rip through the entire experience. Puzzle solutions were somewhat apparent and locations really restricted the amount of different things to solve at once so you never wandered around aimlessly. On top of that, one of the first things the game teaches you is how to tap on your characters portrait to highlight interactive objects to make the prospect of pixel hunting totally irrelevant.
Uneven spacing
This approach might not appeal to everyone, but it is what fueled my interest in completingThe Abandoned Planet. I have played far too many meandering puzzle games with annoying logic gaps that something with a serviceable story and really straightforward puzzles that kept that story moving felt highly compelling.
That said,The Abandoned Planet strays from this design approach in the latter chapters of the game. Things become much more abstract and involve back-tracking through a ton of different areas, and--in addition to my own distaste for this change--the game's navigation system does not feel especially equipped to handle this broader scope. Luckily, The Abandoned Planet does not spend a ton of time in this more aimless mode before ending, though I will say that the game's conclusion feels like the beginning of a more intriguing story than the one told in the game itself.
The bottom line
All told The Abandoned Planet does a pretty good job of delaying the onset of some of the more irritating aspects of adventure games. Although they do emerge eventually, there is still enough to enjoy about what this game offers to make it worth your while.
Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/review-270268/
credit : 148apps
Resident Evil 2 review
February 25, 2025 by RSS Feed
There's a lot of different ways I could approach this review ofResident Evil 2, but I don't write long so I just have to pick one. My choice is coming at it from the perspective of someone who has not played the original game for even a second. Seeing this remake with absolutely zero expectations from what the landmark title did back in 1998, I can say that this game absolutely rules and delivers the definitive survival horror experience I've been looking for on mobile.
Running scared
Resident Evil 2 puts you in the shoes of Leon S. Kennedy, a young police officer who arrives in Raccoon City amidst the breakout of virus that turns everything it touches into undead monstrosities. In an effort to just survive and get out of town, you find yourself uncovering what happened here and work to put an end to it.
Although this setup seems pretty boilerplate for most Resident Evil games, this game captures the feel of being in this situation better than most. There are always new horrors and tough situations waiting around every corner, and more often than not you are barely scraping by with a only a few armaments on hand.
Laser-focused labyrinth
Perhaps the highlight of Resident Evil 2 is the setting itself. Very quickly into the game you find yourself trapped inside the Raccoon City Police Station, but its byzantine structure reveals an interconnectedness to other parts of city infrastructure to create varied and horrifying environments to wander through. As more and more paths open up, you are free to wander between them for the majority of the game and backtrack to find new gear or secrets, but to do so you also need to brave through any enemies that might reawaken there.
This leads to an experience that tells a linear story, but gives a lot of room for players to have quite different experiences, all within an arc that shouldn't take more than 10 hours to see credits roll on. As a perfect example of this, I found myself finishing Resident Evil 2 with seemingly infinite ammo for a weapon I never even found, which ended up making me really have to stretch the meager supplies I could use even further.
Two games in one
After completing Leon's story, Resident Evil 2 offers a ton more to do in it, including a playthrough with another character, challenges, costumes, and more. It also is a free-to-download game that lets you try it out before committing to a purchase so you can make sure it runs well on your device and you feel good about playing it there.
If you're familiar with my previous coverage of Resident Evil games on iOS, you should know the story here isn't really different. The controls are fine if you have a controller, and game performance is on par with all of their previous releases, minor bugs and all. None of that got in the way of my enjoyment of Resident Evil 2, especially since this one is so darn good.
The bottom line
I have no idea how the Resident Evil 2 remake compares to the original game. All I know is I thoroughly enjoyed the kind of white-knuckle survival action this release delivers. For anyone disappointed by some of the more silly and action-oriented Resident Evil releases on mobile have been, this is the game you've been waiting for.
Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/review-270287/
credit : 148apps
The Longing review
February 25, 2025 by RSS Feed
Of all the qualities that need to come together to produce a great game experience, one of the most critical is the pacing. Oftentimes, games approach the kind of experiences they want to give players and then the pace takes shape around what these actions are, but in the case of a game like The Longing, everything is built around a set pace that is very intentionally drawn way out. More specifically, the playtime here is stretched to the incredible length of 400 real-time days. I am not sure that this decision makes for a particularly enjoyable game experience in the traditional sense, but playing it can be so hands-off and reflective that engaging with it as an academic exercise is easy enough to do.
Shades of adventure
In The Longing, you control a tiny dark humanoid referred to as "The Shade." The Shade seems to act as a sort of servant to a stone king underground. The game opens with the king explaining that his powers have faded and that he needs to rest to restore them so he can "create a world without longing." As The Shade, your duty is to awaken the king after his 400 day rest.
With all that time on your hands, you can just wait patiently until it is time to do as you are told, or you can wander the elaborate underground cave system that the king and Shade reside in the meantime. All that the king warns you not to do is try to leave the caves and reach the surface. From there, you are on your own for the next 1.1 years.
Slow burn
Once the wait in The Longing starts, you are constantly aware of it via an in-game clock at the top of the screen. It advances whether you are actively playing the game or not. Active play generally means plodding very slowly between rooms and gathering collectibles like coal or books that can be brought to your home to start a fire and read. There are also puzzles, some of which are time-gated and require you to wait until something changes about them before you can proceed further.
Another option--and one I was fond of--is to instruct The Shade to go on a walk to a random location before closing the game, which led to always opening the game up to find myself in a different part of the cave system. No matter what you choose to do in The Longing, the pace at which is happens feels glacial compared to just about every other game, but that's also kind of the point. I'll also note here that in playing on mobile, popping in and out of the game is probably the easiest it will ever be.
400 Days of Shade
The Longing is absolutely meant to be a slow and meditative game. There is no trick to suddenly get faster movement (though there are ways to manipulate the in-game time). The point is to spend time with it and develop patience--or not. Remember, time advances either way. What it does ask you to do is engage with this core premise until you reach the end, and doing this is an interesting and rewarding exercise.
I could see a situation where I just decided The Longing didn't move or feel the way I wanted it to and just deleted the app, but I didn't. I wouldn't say I spent a ton of the 400 day timer with The Longing open, but having it sit there on my device led to times where I would check in on it, find myself somewhere new, perhaps discover a book or a disappointment (perhaps the oddest in-game collectible), and then put it back down for a few days or more. Whenever I saw it's icon, I knew that even if I didn't tap it, The Shade was there, passing time, whether while walking or standing around waiting for a puzzle to open or my next commands to come in. In my time with the game, there was never a moment where my own life was not intertwined with The Shade, whether I was choosing to actively play The Longing or not. This is a neat idea! I like it, and it is remarkably well-executed! But I'll also say that there's a lot of reasons I've already mentioned why I didn't do a ton of active exploration in this game.
The bottom line
I guess at the end of reviews I'm supposed to assign some value that gives you an idea of whether it's "worth it" to play the game I'm reviewing. Games like The Longing make this practice seem silly and superfluous. In a more traditional "game rating" sense, The Longing isn't exactly something I'd say would net a particularly high score, but it has arguably more value as an experience than many other games I may rate more highly than it. Do I want to play it again? No. Am I glad I played it? I guess? Was it a worthwhile experience? Absolutely. If you're left here scratching your head, probably the best advice I can give you is that if anything I said above hasn't completely turned you off from trying it, you will probably like The Longing.
Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/review-270307/
credit : 148apps
Prado Traveler review
February 25, 2025 by RSS Feed
I've always like the idea of a mobile game taking advantage of something like your step count or other data to fuel or integrate with gameplay. That said, I am not sure I have ever really found something that really pushes all the right buttons for making this click. Prado Traveler is probably the closest thing to what I'd want to see out of a pedometer-based rpg, and that's good enough for me considering the fact that it is completely free.
Walking simulator
Prado Traveler is an rpg where you make a character and send them out on adventures to gain loot and experience. There's not really any story and a lot of the draw is just grinding out more levels and loot to let you go to tougher locales. It's very boilerplate and rote outside of the fact that the whole thing can only progress by walking around.
Each location in Prado Traveler is represented by a deck of cards, which have a random distribution of events in them (usually skill checks and fights), and your goal is to be able to complete these decks without being defeated to earn the most rewards possible. The catch is that each card flip costs a certain amount of steps, which is tied into the step counter of your mobile device.
Pedestrian progression
Smartly (in my view, anyway), the core "gameplay" in Prado Traveler is walking. There is no real interactivity with combat or skill checks, nor do you do a ton of character building as you level up. All of that takes care of itself automatically. That said, between adventures you can visit shops to upgrade your gear, buy components for potions and/or food, and--of course--open and examine the loot from your latest adventure.
If for any reason you are away from the app for awhile, Prado Traveler has a system for banking a certain amount of steps, so you are rarely in a situation where you earn a bunch of steps that can't be used to further your adventures or go on a new one. There are also party mechanics for multiplayer and a PvP mode but I could not get either of those to work and they seem like game modes that are largely impractical anyway.
Stepping awkwardly
Speaking of things not working, Prado Traveler definitely has quite a few problems with it. In addition to certain game modes or menus not really loading properly, there have been times where the app hasn't been able to initially load and others where I completed an adventure and the loot I earned failed to appear in my inventory.
These are pretty glaring problems, but I find it hard to get too upset about them considering the game is so low-stakes and free. My bigger problem is that it seems clear that some of the game's visuals are AI-generated, which sucks ass. I don't know what the plan for this game is for further development or sustainability, but if it makes any amount of money, the first thing the developer should do is find an artist and pay them to do some art for it.
The bottom line
Maybe I am being too forgiving of a game that doesn't work all that well, but there's something about Prado Traveler's low bar of entry that makes a lot of its issues not seem like huge sticking points. This is a game I can open up after being out and about all day and get a new sword or something as I track my progress of dungeon-crawling and step-counting, and I don't have to think too hard about any of that, provided the app is working.
Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/review-270313/
credit : 148apps
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