‘Tomes and Quests – A Word RPG’ Review – Tossed Letters and Scrabbled Fae – TouchArcade

What awakens Shaun from his cell gaming overview slumber? I imply, apart from NEOGEO video games and the occasional Shovel Knight recreation. There are two items of cheese that may work. He loves phrase video games, and he loves RPGs. What if we had been to mix the 2? Delightfully devilish, Trailblazer Video games. Positive, this isn’t a mix we haven’t seen earlier than. Letter Quest – Grimm’s Journey was a great one, for instance. However I’m at all times eager for a brand new one, so let’s check out Tomes and Quests – A Phrase RPG ($4.99) at present.

Proper off the hop I’ll say that regardless of some apparent effort going into the sport’s story, I discovered myself getting uninterested in it fairly shortly. Three pals get sucked right into a e-book, and so they’ll should battle their manner via an RPG fashion journey to get out. There’s dialogue between occasions to assist flesh out the story or simply crack some jokes, and whereas it’s decently written I simply discovered all of it to be pretty banal. On the similar time, I’m not likely anticipating a lot within the story division in a recreation like this. It will have been good, although.

The sport is damaged down into quests, which themselves contain a collection of occasions. An occasion is perhaps a battle, nevertheless it is also a short story scene, NPC encounter, escape sequence, and so forth. Most (however not all) of those occasions will contain taking part in a phrase recreation of some kind. I’ll give the sport credit score right here for locating numerous fascinating methods to combine up the gameplay. The usual battles are like taking part in Scrabble (full with matching letter level values) on a small board. As you play, extra gimmicks come into play even in these matches. There are double rating squares, cash to select up, bombs to defuse, and so forth. Every phrase you play will deal proportional injury to the enemies, and you’ll match elemental varieties to deal further injury. The enemies will hit again after each phrase you play, and you want to kill them earlier than they kill you. Expertise collected, ranges gained, treasure looted, transferring on. Boss battles work the identical manner, however they’re a bit tougher.

Typically you do one thing totally different, although. Like typically you want to put down phrases inside a set variety of turns to increase the road horizontally a certain amount. Possibly you want to place phrases to disclose shadowed squares on the board, once more with a flip restrict. Typically the board might be divided into two totally different colours and you want to rating a sure variety of factors within the areas of 1 particular shade. You is perhaps given a jumble of letters and should drop single tiles to attempt to make as many phrases as attainable. These phrase minigames are a pleasant diversion from the principle gameplay mechanics whereas nonetheless utilizing your vocabulary abilities.

As you win battles, you’ll degree up and even get some new gear. Finally you’ll be capable to class change, which is one thing Shaun likes. In case you’re feeling underleveled you possibly can return and re-fight earlier battles. They’ll get tougher every time you win, so there may be solely a lot grinding you’ll seemingly be capable to do. It’d make the distinction, although. Particular person ranges don’t tip the size an excessive amount of, although. Certainly, sheer luck by which letters you’re given might be extra vital than a degree or two. Higher gear additionally helps, however nothing matches up with with the ability to make a phrase with Q or Z proper out of the gate.

Not too shabby on the entire, and it’s a type of video games the place you possibly can simply dip in and play for a bit after which dip out as wanted. I do have some issues with the sport, although. The largest drawback for me is in how the precise strategy of taking part in letters works. They’re in a tray close to the underside of the display screen and it’s truly surprisingly robust to seize them with out closing out to the house menu in case you’re not cautious. Equally, it may be a bit fussy about inserting them on the board. You need to drop them simply so for them to stay. Fortunately, inserting them within the incorrect house doesn’t trigger any points. You affirm as soon as your phrase is in place and something you do up till then is your small business. I’d prefer it if the letter tiles had been a bit larger within the tray or if the tray itself was moved up a bit.

I’m unsure which dictionary the sport is utilizing for its phrases, however there have been circumstances the place it wouldn’t settle for phrases I do know had been legitimate. It was uncommon, nevertheless it occurred every now and then. I’m additionally of two minds in regards to the measurement of the board. On the one hand I can respect that its measurement forces you to play smarter, since it may be simple to muddle issues up into a large number with one unhealthy play. Alternatively, its comparatively small measurement limits your freedom in making phrases to the purpose that you find yourself utilizing numerous smaller ones to get via with out messing up the board. I’ve equally cut up emotions in regards to the issue curve. As I mentioned, a degree doesn’t actually tip the scales a lot. If a participant will get caught, what little grinding the sport permits seemingly received’t assist a lot. They’ll have to only preserve attempting till they get fortunate, and that’s not very pleasurable.

That mentioned, even with all my little gripes, I can’t say I didn’t have enjoyable with Tomes and Quests. I received’t say you possibly can’t screw up a phrase recreation, since you actually can. However there’s a sure pleasure to flexing the previous spelling bee muscle tissues and getting a digital pat on the pinnacle for being a sensible boy prefer it’s elementary faculty once more. This recreation builds its bones round that pleasing feeling, and whereas a few of it might most likely be finished a little bit higher, there are some issues right here I actually respect. The varied minigames had been fascinating and gave a little bit further problem. I sort of loved the way in which the quests had been arrange, like little mini-episodes in a protracted marketing campaign.

Whereas Tomes and Quests isn’t as much as my long-time favourite RPG/phrase recreation hybrid Letter Quest, it’s a good spin on the idea that may very well be so much higher with some usability fixes and slight steadiness tweaking. In case you love phrase video games the way in which I do, you’ll seemingly get your cash’s value out of it. That mentioned, it’s not fairly as much as the extent the place I’m going to shove it in everybody’s face, which is a factor I completely do typically. Oh, I ought to have used a ‘spell’ pun someplace. Wait, my phrase rely is up? I suppose that’s it then.