Across Age is a fantasy adventure RPG that looks and feels like an old Nintendo or Sega Genesis title. The graphics are simple, the animations are minimal and you are forced to read line after line of text to understand the story. However, this RPG is by far one of the best of its kind in the app store. The gameplay is smooth, the puzzles are challenging and the story is intriguing.
The game plays very similar to Zelda and is often compared to the classic title. You play as a swordsman name Ales who, early on, finds a partner in a young mage named Ceska. You play the game with the option to switch between both characters as you wish. Each character has their own special abilities and there will be plenty of occasions when you will need to utilize both characters to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles. The team element is very important in this game.
Along your journey you will encounter a variety of monsters that you can attack in real time. The fighting is more like Zelda as opposed to Final Fantasy. Monsters will occasionally drop items such as apples for increased health. The more enemies you defeat, the more experience you gain and the faster you level up. There are also treasure chests that contain special items of important use. Some items will be automatically consumed while others may be utilized by accessing your inventory.
The controls, while intuitive, are not perfect. You move around with a virtual d-pad in the lower left corner of the screen. Even after some recent tweaks, it’s still sometimes difficult to precisely navigate around the map. You’ll find yourself trying a few times to get through a narrow door. There are two buttons in the lower right corner. The larger one is the action button for attacks and opening treasure chests and doors. The smaller button is for your teammate control. Tapping once will detach you from your teammate so you can travel solo. This button also gives you the ability to pick up your partner to throw them to higher levels that would otherwise be unreachable. Besides the occasional lack of precision, the controls still work very well.
Your progress is automatically saved as you play and when you start a game, you can choose to continue from where you left off. However, you also have the ability to save your game at multiple points.
On the surface, Across Age may seem like a typical RPG. However, everything in this game is done well, from the graphics and sound, to the controls and storyline. It’s absolutely a top-notch action/adventure title that I strongly recommend trying out.
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