Chaos Rings is a rare experience on the iPhone. With great visuals and superb gameplay, the iPhone has given birth to a game; which will make you forget that you are playing a deep and well-presented game on your mobile phone.
Chaos Rings is a tale of five pairs of two, placed against their will, into the game of the Ark Arena. The winning pair will gain eternal youth and immortally. If they lose or break the rules, they will die. The overall story is nothing too special, but interesting little twists will keep you satisfied.
You can either start out as two pairs of partners: Esther and Musiea or Eluca and Zhamo and then more characters will be unlocked upon completing the game for the first time. By only having two characters in your party at a time, it gives a needed focus on only those two character’s story and development. Instead of having eight other character developments going on at the same time, it gives breathing room for those two characters to flourish and to become appealing to the player.
The music is fabulous with unique tracks that range from many different instruments and genres. Some tracks have singing and create a unique memorable sound for that area. However, some of the music is oddly different from what you would expect from this type game. After awhile you will become accustomed to the music and it will play repeatedly in your head for many days to come.
The gameplay has traditional turn-based mechanics and it keeps the game fun and simple. Magic attacks are obtainable through battling enemies and receiving their genes after defeating them. The more you battle that certain enemy the more different attacks they expose, which upon defeat, will add a gene to your attack inventory. This is a great method because it makes it fun to grind and search for that particular enemy you have not mastered. A unique trait this game has is the ability to attack in pairs, though if you attack together, you receive damage together. It is a battle mechanic that tests the player’s ability to determine when it is best suitable to attack as a pair, because thoughtless moves will result in a ‘game over’ screen.
Puzzles are a regular, mandatory event, but for the most part are simple and easy. The puzzles break up the pace of the game, which mostly consists of battling and warping. They are great fillers and keep the game from feeling too tedious with the gameplay. Unfortunately, it fails to challenge the player.
The graphics are the best I’ve seen on the iPhone to date. The game shows the true capabilities of the iPhone and the outcome looks surprisingly good. The animations are smooth and the character’s designs are very detailed and drawn extremely well. The areas have marvellous lush artwork and weather effects that give the levels more of a lively feel. My one complaint was the enemies in the game; I really wish there was more of a variety of enemy design instead of having enemies colors change when they are at a higher level. With that said, there are certain types of enemies that are harder to find, and are unique from the rest of the enemy designs. But, a gamer can only run into a mouse or a dog so many times, while the colors maybe deceiving to some … most are not blind.
Chaos Rings successfully satisfies some gamers problems with other RPG games in the past, by having the player choose what level area they want their enemies to be, before every dungeon. Even random encounters can be switched on or off anytime in the game.
The controls are one of the best I have ever seen on an iPhone game; it is so simple and comfortable to use with having a control stick appear anywhere on the screen wherever you place your finger. Why other developers have not used this marvellous control scheme for their own iPhone games is beyond me.
Chaos Rings is a fantastic surprise for the iPhone by showing the limits of the iPhone graphically, and how much material and depth they can shove into this little device. If you can look past the $12.99 price, you will be presently surprised at how much content and replay value this title can offer.
