I always look forward to a good ol’ top-down RPG on the iPad, even if — like Exitium: Saviors of Vardonia — it’s not a very good one. I think these RPGs speak to my console roots, as they tend to be most like games I’ve enjoyed greatly on other platforms. How cute, I’m nostalgic for yesterday.
So Exitium is the story of one of four playable characters fighting against an evil force invading your land (Vardonia). I chose a guy with blue hair and a brown beard who is referred to as a Berzerker — all that means is that he’s the one who swings a big sword, and I mean that literally rather than as some kind of weird joke.
My guy is conscripted into the army to help fight off the invaders, but then his family gets murdered, leading him on a quest for revenge. Cut to . . . some amount of time later, I think, and my guy is no longer in the army, and he decides to join the army. Yeah, I’m utterly confused, too. But who cares about the details, right? (I do.)
Exitium, unfortunately, is not a humorous game. It thinks it’s telling a serious, epic tale. It kinda does a bad job at that, but that’s OK if it’s fun to play, right? That’s another unfortunate aspect of the game. The controls are out-and-out wonky. It has a virtual D-pad rather than a virtual stick, and this means you can only move up, down, left or right. This becomes a problem because the D-pad is far too sensitive, and so it becomes impossible to move precisely. And so this game is gimped in the most basic way, effectively ruining it. It can be fixed with an update, but for now you, should probably just skip it.
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