Ravensword: The Fallen King by Human Powered Games and Crescent Moon is an action/role-playing game that creates an attractive, large and immersive medieval fantasy world for you to explore in either first person or third person on your Iphone.  That in itself is an achievement that deserves praise.  But does the action and the role playing measure up to the remarkable 3D environment?

  

You awake in a village having been found unconscious in the forest.  The village is surrounded by eight beautifully well-detailed areas for you to explore and complete quests that you receive from the villagers.  You’ll travel through cemeteries, forests, dungeons, castles and volcanic caverns all filled with nicely animated creatures like skeletons, zombies, lizards, orcs and giant demons all eager to hack at your health bar.  There are options to turn shadows and foliage on which I would recommend in order to get the most out of the graphics as it runs quite well even on my 1st generation Iphone.  

You control movement with a d-pad that is adequate but not as smooth and responsive as those found in some other games like Modern Combat, Dungeon Hunter or Doom Classic. You control your view by swiping on the right side and to turn quickly you swipe with two fingers. To attack you simply target your enemy and keep hitting the attack button which is where we start to experience Ravensword’s shortcomings.  Without the benefit and variety provided by magic attacks as in Dungeon Hunter, the melee fighting becomes repetitive after awhile.  Further along in the story you will be able to buy a bow for some ranged fighting but don’t expect Ravensword to be a treasure hunters delight.  There are very little weapons or armor available in this game which is a big disappointment that takes away a lot from the potential of Ravensword.

  

While you do gain experience from each kill and level up, you have no control over your stats. Everything is applied automatically and there is no skill tree which makes Ravensword a rather light role-playing experience.  Since there’s such a limited amount of weapons and armor to buy, the money you pick up from your slain enemies will mostly be spent on regular arrows and explosive blast arrows which you’ll need to complete the game. You need to buy a lot of healing potions since each potion only fills a fraction of your health bar.  If you die you’ll be transported back to the village and have to make your way back to where you died.

The main quest has you freeing the fallen king but there are some interesting side quests that should have been incorporated into the main quest.  One will let you ride a horse and another gives you the Burning Rune which lets you set your enemies on fire.  This one in particular should have been part of the main quest.

  

The game saves automatically wherever you quit.  There’s a map but it’s not much help in navigating the rather large areas.  It simply tells you which area you’re in so you’ll have to do some searching to find your way around.  While you’re on a quest, there’ll be some green arrows over doorways to lead you.  Every door or new area you enter will subject you to a load screen.

Because of the great potential of the absorbing 3D world created in Ravensword I’m ultimately  disappointed by what it lacks in role playing, weapon drops, magic and any kind of armor. It’s a beautiful looking opportunity lost and gets 3.5 stars.


goyami@comcast.net