August turned out to be the best month for smartphone gaming in a long time, with no duds whatsoever and a rare 10/10 score.
Adrift in the traditional drought of the Summer Games, this month has seen a bizarre and wholly unexpected tidal wave of excellence on mobile. From the ecstasy of finally being able to play Into The Breach on an iPad or Papers, Please on a phone, this month also sees the arrival of the fantastic Dicey Dungeons and a console-perfect port of Descenders’ unique taste of mountain bike chaos.
Kingdom Rush Vengeance TD+
iOS via Apple Arcade (Ironhide)
Originally released in 2018 as a free-to-play game, this is the rebalanced microtransaction-free version of Legend Of Kingdom Rush: Vengeance for Apple Arcade.
As always, it’s an action-packed Tower Defense game that requires you to build and upgrade turrets while leading a hero and troop reinforcements to where they’re needed on the map. While some tower types never manage to feel essential, that doesn’t spoil the fun.
Heroes are now unlocked as you progress rather than having to pay for them, but otherwise it’s the same game and remains just as polished and addictive as other installments in the Kingdom Rush series.
Rating: 8/10
Papers, please
iOS and Android, £4.49 (Luke Pope)
Originally released for iPad in 2017, Papers, Please brought the unusual brand of fast-track border security bureaucracy to tablets, but this month marks the first time you can play it on a phone.
With a slightly redesigned interface to make it playable on an even smaller screen, there’s no compromise on content or timing, preserving the perfectly judged dance between doing your job and what’s morally right, just like the did in 2013 when it arrived on PC.
Why the phone port took so long is a mystery, but this version is as good as ever.
Rating: 8/10
For your eyes
iOS & Android via Netflix (GoodbyeWorld Games)
Your soul is judged, forcing you to scroll back your entire life in search of the greatness that could qualify you for a place in the game version of The Good Place. And to do all that, your only interaction is to look around and blink.
As you relive scenes from earliest childhood, a metronome appears at the bottom of the screen, and blinking will jump you forward in time, sometimes a minute or two, sometimes many years. So you can hold a scene that you enjoy, but not for long. A single blink eventually comes, like it or not, and that moment is lost forever.
It’s a fascinating meditation on the impermanence of even the most blissful periods in our lives, making you part of its flow, often involuntarily, as unsolicited blinking propels you out of childhood and into adulthood.
For any parent who has watched a child grow up, it’s a terrifying process that won’t leave many dry eyes at the end of playtime of less than two hours, even if the ending itself descends into schmaltz.
Rating: 7/10
Dicey Dungeons
iOS and Android, £4.49 (Terry Cavanagh)
You are a brave warrior trying to defeat Lady Luck and what the game accurately describes as her ‘cruel whims’, taking part in a series of fast paced tactical card battles.
Dice are important, but only insofar as they feed your available special moves, which range from transforming into a bear (which has strong attacks but isn’t great at trading with merchants) to setting fire to opponents’ dice, making them useful only at the expense of health.
Along with his upbeat sense of humor, the number of potential effects, some of which combine as you complete each throw, makes for a tactically interesting game that offsets the random elements with a range of skills you can use to reduce unlucky throws.
Rating: 8/10
Into The Break
iOS, included with Netflix subscription (Netflix)
The excitement is palpable. From the developer of the legendary FTL, one of the best strategy games ever made comes to iPad and like FTL, this feels like the definitive version of the game.
As usual, you’ll defend Earth from invaders with a team of three battle mechs. Both friendly and enemy units have simple but strict rules about how they move and attack. As with chess, the interaction of those moves creates a dizzying level of tactical complexity.
It’s a roguelike, though completing each of its island-based levels unlocks the ability to start from that island in future runs, and this iteration of the game comes with a slew of new content, including new pilots, mech teams, weapons and enemies. It’s the best version of Into the Breach and for Netflix subscribers a fantastic gift that arrived with surprisingly little fanfare.
Rating: 10/10
Map Crawl Adventure
iOS and Android, free (Arnold Rauers)
From the developer of the great Card Thief and Maze Machina, comes a new layered, tactical card game for one.
As in its previous releases, you have to string cards together on a 3×3 grid. Every card you tap uses power, and when you run out, cards deplete health instead. When that’s gone, it’s game over.
The roguelike structure and the interplay of the effects of the different cards make for a robust and thought-provoking long-term challenge.
Rating: 8/10
Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent
iOS and Android, free (Square Enix)
Octopath Traveler’s take on 16-bit style Japanese role-playing players has sparked nostalgia for years, but until now the mobile version was only available in Japan.
The voice acting is still in Japanese, but now subtitled, and while Champions Of The Continent shares the same gacha tendencies that many have learned to despise, it’s far from the exploitative mess that some respected franchises become when they make the move to mobile. to make.
Graphically and combat-wise, this stays remarkably true to its older sibling and while there are incentives to spend downright ridiculous amounts of money, playing for free is perfectly feasible.
Rating: 7/10
descenders
iOS and Android, £8.99 (noodle cake)
Descenders, the roguelike of mountain biking, has been redesigned for mobile and arrives complete in every way. Just like on the console, you explore the open world through a series of hub points.
Starting from each, you’ll find procedurally generated courses that are incredibly varied, so you’re never quite sure what kind of challenge you’re going to face in your quest for reputation, which also unlocks new kit for your rider.
The touchscreen controls almost work, but plug in a controller and this is the full console experience on a small screen.
Rating: 8/10
Email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk, leave a comment below and follow us on twitter
MORE: Best New Mobile Games on iOS and Android – July 2022 Recap
MORE: Best New Mobile Games on iOS and Android – June 2022 Recap
MORE: Best New Mobile Games on iOS and Android – May 2022 Recap
Follow Metro Gaming on Twitter and email us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk
For more such stories, check out our Gaming page.
0 Comments