This review is a little later in coming than we’d intended, seeing as Zenonia was released a few weeks back, but better late than never we always say. Zenonia is a multi award winning action-oriented RPG for the iPhone by developers Gamevil, which has recently been ported to Android. It was a hugely popular title on the iPhone Apps Market and is expected to be just as popular on Android. It’s style is very reminiscent of old-school classic, top-down RPGs such as Zelda and Final Fantasy. Zenonia sees you playing a young man going by the unfortunate name of Regret (nice way to give your child a feeling of being unwanted Mum and Dad) who is trying to piece together what happened to his father and what it is that makes he himself so special. It’s an undeniably cheesy and cliched plot, but I guess this isn’t Planescape: Torment, it’s an action RPG. Here’s the official description from the Android Market:-

THE RETURN OF CLASSIC ACTION RPG

AWARDS
Best Adventure/RPG Game from The Pocket Gamer Awards 2010
Best RPG Game of 2009 by IGN
Best RPG 2009 by TouchGen

FEATURES
Numerous quests following an epic storyline
Create your own character
Hundreds of items
Stunning effects and graphics
Innovative real life system

Veteran players of RPGs such as the early incarnations of Zelda will find they settle comfortably in to the gameplay mechanics of Zenonia. It’s got all the ingredients for a trip down gaming memory lane, right down to some laughable dialogue sections between NPCs, carrying on the meme-inspiring tradition of all good games translated from the original Japanese/Korean. The game is controlled via a virtual D-pad and on screen buttons. Judging from the Market comments, a lot of users have found that they had issues with the controls being either a bit hit or miss, or downright unusable.. This reviewer found, for the most part, that the controls were adequate, but a little over-sensitive at times. Gamevil claim the game has some 40 hours of gameplay, which is no mean feat for a mobile title, and, I daresay, probably makes it fairly unique among Android games. Given the nature of the RPG, I daresay you could spend longer than the suggested 40 hours purely through grinding. There are also a good number of sidequests for a bit of variation from the main plot.

Combat in Zenonia, rather than being turn-based, is handled in real time. You tap the attack button to take a swipe with your chosen weapon. Additional attacks and skills can also be picked up as you progress through the levels, which helps keep combat interesting. I was pleasantly surprised at how intuitive the combat actually was, although, occasionally, I’d have prefered to be able to choose my target, rather than rely on the auto-targeting.

There is a full day and night cycle in the game which influences more than just the generation of a lighter or darker area: as time passes, Regret needs to eat to keep himself in tip-top condition (which was an occasionally annoying distraction), and weapons and armour degrade as the days go by, requiring replacement or repairs

Graphically, Zenonia looks great. The animations (particularly for some of the magical attacks), visual effects and colouring all look carefully thought out and very polished. It’s a gorgeous looking game in fact. The audio for the game is also pretty good with a well-scored soundtrack and evocative sound effects, although they can get a little repetitive after you’ve put in a few hours of game time.

Fans of the action RPG genre will find plenty to love here, with perhaps only the pointless requirement to keep Regret well-fed as a negative. More casual gamers though, may be put off by the sheer scope of this game as well as the amount of grinding that is required from time to time just to level up enough to progress through to the next dungeon or area. You need to invest time in Zenonia to get the most out of it, 5 minute dips here and there probably won’t do it justice. Also, as mentioned, don’t go in to this expecting a particularly engaging plot, or great characterisation; this is an action RPG with a hackneyed and predictable story, littered with the odd (and often hilarious) post-translation grammatical error, so hardcore RPGers, who like their heroes angsty and their plots original, may prefer to wait for something a little more highbrow.

Overall, this is a superb addition to the Android Market. It’s professional, polished, full of personality, occasionally humourous and is far and away the best RPG we’ve seen for the Android OS. It’s not without it’s flaws, but, as part of the overall package, those flaws are forgiveable. It’s also a little pricier than a lot of the market at $5.99, but considering you get 40+ hours of gameplay, that’s a bloody bargain.

Zenonia is available now on the Android Market for $5.99

Some selected user comments:-

“Plays perfectly on moment. More games like this please ” – (5 out o5 stars)

“Reminds me of WoW. also, I find some of the dialogue amusing. Definitely the best game available on the market as of yet” - (5 out of 5 stars)

“Controls are pretty bad, writing is poor, first 10 mins are reading cutscenes – get me playing already!” – (2 out of 5 stars)

AndAppStoreHQ rating:-

Android apps at AppStoreHQ