![]() It seems extremely archaic to navigate through the various submenus that make up your character's information, inventory, equipment, and skills, especially after seeing how Underworlds handled this so well using a touch interface. It's no secret that Zenonia on the iPhone is a port of an extremely popular Korean cell phone game built with cell phone hardware in mind, I just wish Gamevil would have made some attempt to (for lack of a better term) make the iPhone iteration of Zenonia a little more iPhone-y. Absolutely everything in the game is controlled using the virtual D-Pad, including navigating menus. Zenonia is controlled using an on-screen D-Pad and buttons, similar to other Gamevil games and I honestly feel this is the game's biggest flaw. Experience points usually come quick, and while the combat is generally fun, grinding still feels like an unnecessary chore rather than an entertaining gameplay element. On top of this, there are several points in the game where grinding is absolutely required to earn enough experience to be a high enough level to stand a chance in the next area. You can pick up five quests at a time, and most quests will generally have you heading to the same area, but more often than not you have to run back to town to eat and repair before you can complete all quest objectives. While I suppose these things could aid the immersion of hardcore RPG gamers, it seems like they just serve as a needless time and gold sink. Items degrade over time, requiring repairs, and your character even needs to eat regularly. There are ten different slots for your character to equip gear in, a ridiculous amount of potions, power-ups, and a detailed magic item upgrade system that focuses on combining items to create more powerful ones. The depth of Zenonia continues as you complete quests in a game world that has both day and night cycles, allowing for quests or quest objectives that only appear at certain times of day. Abilities can be assigned to the action bar on the bottom of the screen to quickly have access to them, and after leveling up and spending points to gain a few different skills, combat actually stays pretty fresh instead of just mindless button smashing. As you gain experience by completing quests and killing monsters, you're able to increase your statistics as well as spend points making your way down skill trees very similar to talent trees in games like World of Warcraft or Diablo which can grant both active abilities and passive bonuses. Zenonia comes packed with an item and character upgrade system unlike anything I've played on the iPhone. Ironically, it's this same level of depth that will most likely leave casual gamers either frustrated or taking a pass on Zenonia entirely. It's nothing we haven't seen before on other platforms, but Zenonia brings welcome change to the App Store in providing an insane level depth that most games seem to lack. Grammar mistakes are abundant in Zenonia's English localization, but more often than not I felt these just added to the humor of the game. Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are plentiful, and even insignificant characters often have amusing things to say if you talk to them enough times. Along the way you're able to make choices that change both your alignment and the direction the game takes through the story. You play as a mysterious child unsure of his identity in an adventure that takes place during a conflict between the Dragon Clan and Holy Knights. I'm reluctant to spoil too much of the plot, but it touches on several RPG cliches. But does Zenonia live up to months of hype? There's no question it stands alone in providing over 40 hours of faithful 16-bit era action RPG gameplay, but Zenonia certainly isn't perfect. Our forums have been swarming over it since we first caught wind of the game at GDC '09, and things only got worse as the beta started and its App Store release approached. ![]() ![]() Few iPhone games have been as highly anticipated as Gamevil's latest epic RPG, Zenonia.
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