The Quest for iPhone

The Quest is out for iPhone and I just bought it! This looks like it could be the first serious RPG for the iPhone. The graphics look… retro, but they are adequate for a small screen. Everything looks very polished. The game is reminiscent of classics such as The Bard's Tale, Daggerfall, Lands of Lore, etc. It has been out for other mobile devices for some time, where it got good reviews, but as an iPhone owner, I'm glad to be playing it for the first time.

I don't have time to look at it more closely now, unfortunately.

[AppStore link]
[touchArcade post]

I haven't grabbed it yet - been getting review requests for other iPhone games on other sites I write for that have brain-locked me. Have to do it this weekend.

Are those other games RPGs as well? Naturally, I'm interesting in all RPG releases on iPhone. The gods have been kind to iPhone gaming in recent times, with:

• Updates for Puzzle Quest (version 1.2) and the announcement that Chapter 2 will be a free update instead of a separate app like they initially said (finally bought it, even though I have it on Xbox 360 too)
• iDracula, which is a shooter, but could easily become the Diablo-clone I crave if they added levels and equipment (under consideration by the developer)
• Rogue Touch, which looks a lot better than the earlier Rogue that was ported to iPhone and includes animation

And several non-RPG games.

I took another look at The Quest during my 12-minute train commute . This is the first iPhone RPG I know of that has actual dialogue trees! Lots of text to read through, as well. Furthermore, already in the first town I found I met a street girl, so the theme of this game is apparently mature. If the story and side-quests are any good, this might be the best the iPhone has to offer right now.

Just imagine if someone did this with graphics more tuned for the iPhone, though.

I played the heck out of The Quest on my old mobile device. It's an incredibly rich RPG for a cell phone game.

It uses a character development system much like Daggerfall/Morrowind. You select either a base class or create your own, selecting major skills. The skills are tied to attributes. As you level your character up, you select which attributes and skills to improve, and the skills that you use most often increase a little bit on their own. The alchemy and item enchanting systems are also fairly similar to Morrowind's. Some dialog options, and ways to resolve quests, do vary depending upon your character's race and gender.

It has a lot of area to explore, especially if you're a completist. You could easily take 40+ hours on the game. On other platforms, there was an official expansion pack and several third-party ones, including a pretty cool quadrilogy by Zarista Games called The Hero of Lukomorye. Maybe they'll port over some of the expansion packs if it sells well.

The game has some quests that are more interesting and morally gray than a lot of other games, or at least did on previous platforms. There were definitely quests involving infidelity, murder and some sexual encounters. I suppose the developers might have decided to censor the iPhone version to ensure that Apple would approve their app.

I'll probably get mocked for this, but I do wish The Quest were a bit more linear. I found myself drifting from the main storyline in several parts, exploring for exploration's sake. I tend to prefer games that are a bit more driven by the main plot rather than such open sandbox games.

Still, it's a thousand times better than any other iPhone RPG out there.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
Are those other games RPGs as well?

Sdly no … my latest is 'I Play 3D Bowling' …

Originally Posted by txa1265
Sdly no … my latest is 'I Play 3D Bowling' …

Sounds… thrilling! And BadYeti, that all sounds pretty good. I do think this game stands alone at the top as far as (non-Japanese style) RPGs on the iPhone go at the moment. Unfortunately, I do not really put enough time in mobile gaming as I don't travel that much, and at home I tend to either not play games or just play on the PC/console. As such, I never tend to finish games I started.

But I definitely am collecter of those mobile games! On iPhone the price/performance is terrific and it's just addictive buying games off the AppStore.

Among Puzzle Quest and The Quest, though, I don't think I'll ever be bored when I'm out.

Originally Posted by BadYeti
I played the heck out of The Quest on my old mobile device. It's an incredibly rich RPG for a cell phone game.

…

Still, it's a thousand times better than any other iPhone RPG out there.

This is sounding pretty interesting. This is the only? review I could find of the old version. And the manual is available here in PDF.

Sounds interesting, let's hope the controles are better then in Vay.

Originally Posted by HerrSchnuff
Sounds interesting, let's hope the controles are better then in Vay.

They're better than Vay, but not good. The controls are the single bad part of the game. But, on an up note, one of the devs posted on Touch Arcade that they'll add a new optional control scheme with the next release.

Really? That was one thing I was worried about: developer commitment to the iPhone release. I love getting updates to already excellent games. And yeah, the controls could be better, but everything else just works right. Deepest RPG available in the store at the moment.

And I thought Vay had excellent controls, by the way (at least as of version 1.1).