Zenonia
by Jeff Effendi on Monday 25th May 2009

You’re here with one thing in mind: to buy or not to buy? If you’ve ever played Mass Effect on the Xbox 360 or PC, you’ll know exactly what I’ll be referring to in the next 10 seconds. If you haven’t, just picture it in your minds and bear with me. I love Bioware’s western RPG, I love it to death. In fact, it’s my favourite game of all time. But remember when you first inserted that Mass Effect disc into the 360’s disc tray and started playing it for the first 20-30 minutes? There were frame rate inconsistencies, drops, dips, stutters and the whole shebang. Though strangely enough, despite this, we Mass Effect fans came to realize that at the heart of its technical issues – the engaging storyline, detailed visuals, masterful soundtrack and killer gameplay were all ingredients in creating a triple-A title. Disregarding the fact that the evil frame rate monster peered through every once in a while, Mass Effect was a great game. Did it hurt immersion? A little, but it wasn’t enough to distract my attentiveness.

So what does all this have to do with Zenonia? No the game doesn’t have stuttering frame rates, but at times the translation from Korean to English worried me a little. Right, so have you gone to great lengths talking about Mass Effect just to whine about Zenonia’s translation? Nope. In fact, I think that Zenonia is one of the only games you will ever need on your iDevice. Lively sprites, flamboyantly animated characters, great level of artwork, an awesome soundtrack and compelling gameplay is what you’ll get for the $5.99 you’re paying. For those who’ve gone dark-side-Charles-Dickens-English, you may be put off by the less-than-eloquent language used in the game. But my point is this: if you can look past its translation and sometimes-cookie-cutter-dialogue just as I looked past Mass Effect’s technical flaw – you’ll be thoroughly engrossed by Gamevil’s latest. And that level of enjoyment, my friend, is all in your hands.

             

Visually, Zenonia’s spectacular. The various mixes of different character design, easily recognizable environments, lurid animations of Regret’s swordplay and wizardry and minimal loading times make this action RPG a beautifully realized one. Key characters have all been drawn in with style ala Japanese manga. While this is definitely a good thing, there were only a handful of characters that got the special treatment. What impressed me most about Zenonia graphically were the animations employed by Gamevil. When Regret, the main character, does his lil’-Prince-of-Bel-Air-dance-of-death, it looks absolutely stunning. The way he slashes his weapons, the way the enemies react to the onslaught of attacks and the way the magic skills appear to rain on the party are compelling. What I found to be not-so-compelling though was the presentation.

Games like Toki Tori, Assassin’s Creed and NFS: Undercover are all right-up-there presentation wise. The menus are slick, attractive, and easy to navigate. The level of polish shown in said titles look like they’ve gone under multiple Quality Assurance tests. Spelling mistakes are absent, fonts are distinguishable from the generic Calibri or Times New Roman, and there’s a certain appeal in its design. The presentation in Zenonia isn’t 50-Cent’s-albums-bad, but it isn’t a winning formula either. There were various spelling and grammatical errors which could have been avoided (and I trust they will be once future updates roll in) and the inclusion of not-so-attractive menus. The d-pad and action buttons look great; I’m just wondering why they couldn’t have dedicated the same amount of time to perfecting its translation and menu interface. If you can put aside all of the flaws presented in Zenonia (and the majority coming from its overall presentation), you will definitely make the most out of the purchase. The sprite designs are great, environments lively and animations for an action RPG are second-to-none on the iPhone and iPod touch.

             

RPGs usually contain soundtracks that stand out from other generic, gumbo games. They set the mood, tone and overall atmosphere of their fictional world. Well the good news is that Zenonia are full of ‘em. They’re not necessarily top-notch-Final-Fantasy-soundtrack material but they sure as hell are sufficient for a game of this calibre. Sound effects are also impressive. The sound of swords swooshing and slashing at oncoming furballs are convincing enough. Boxes breaking, enemies’ thuds as they roll over backwards overwhelmed by Regret’s Auron-from-FFX’esque-Broadsword, and casting spells all have unique and distinctly different sounds. All of these aspects mesh well, and in return, the game excels sonically.

Gameplay wise, this is probably one of the deepest iDevice games you’ll play this summer (or winter if you’re an awesome Australian). Not only does it boast a tree-branch-like skill employment tool, it has various categories for the countless items you’ll come across in your adventure. They range from your swords, armours, helmets, bracelets, charms, boots, amulets, ornaments, enchancements and different sorts of potions. You’ll also come across food such as apples and carrot cakes that you can eat to restore your skill points (SP, “MP” if you play Final Fantasy).

             

For those wondering, no you don’t have to constantly feed Regret. This isn’t Tamagotchi and you certainly won’t have to feed the endearing hero every 5 minutes. HP and SP regain over time, so you don’t have to micro manage his health and magic bar after the end of every battle. Regarding the various skills (or ‘magic’) you can learn over time, there are two separate classifications. One being ‘active’, and the other ‘passive’. Active skills allow you to use these skills in battle, meaning they pop out of the screen and attack the enemies just like you want it to. Meanwhile the latter are skills that “hide-in-the-background” Milli Vanilli style. They enhance Regret’s abilities to kill unfortunate creatures, but are never shown on-screen flamboyantly. Got it? Last but not least, you can’t learn all these skills at once. You have to gain these skills as you progress in the game. As you reach a certain level, a few more skills are unlocked for you to learn. As you learn these different skills, it doesn’t stop there. You can keep “re-learning” a particular skill until it’s maxed out. Or you can just move on from skill A to skill B to skill C without focusing on one powerful move. Either way, the level up system is satisfyingly deeper than most RPGs on the platform. But this doesn’t mean that you’ll have a hard time coming to grips with it all. Gamers will definitely get the hang of it within the first 20 minutes once they realize the underlying mechanics of Zenonia. There’s a lot of meat to dig into in the game, and you’re bound to spend more time on this title than any other that were released this month.

             

Zenonia is a competent game. Visually, sonically and gameplay-wise the game shows that the iDevice is able to craft an amazing RPG experience.  If you can ignore the clumsy and cumbersome controls, look past its flaws in presentation and instead focus on the finer points of the game, you’ll find that Gamevil’s latest will immerse you in its storyline, main quests, side quests, memorable characters and stunning design. Somehow, someway, you could probably only enjoy Mass Effect back in 2007 if you ignored the frame rate issues. Hell, you had a world to save and nothing was going to stop you, not even the stuttering screen. To this day, I stand by my opinion that Bioware’s magnum opus is one of the Xbox 360’s finest titles. I’ll say this once again – only if you can get past Zenonia’s not-so-spit-shine level of polish will you engross yourself in this epic tale between good and bad. It’s up to you. But the beauty of it all is that this decision to disregard won’t even be discretionary. Zenonia will take you by your hand and lead you to a place many games on the platform have not. In a twisted, unjustified and ridiculously stupid way, I guess we have our very own Mass Effect for the iDevice. To buy or not to buy – have you decided yet?

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