The mixture of platformer and RPG isn’t a common one and while this small genre is perhaps best known for its Paper Marios and Castlevanias, Illusia has a different tone that might be familiar to those who’ve played Gamevil’s Zenonia series.
RPGs can tend to be long games, so let me preface this review by saying that after five to six hours of gameplay I’ve only seen around the first half of the game and you can choose to make of this what you will. Illusia’s gameplay could also potentially extend past the seven worlds, with two major classes to select, different difficulties and a rush mode, you can’t really argue that you’re not getting enough hours of content for your $5, assuming you enjoy the content that’s presented to you. While the game itself is relatively long it achieves its longevity through a lot of grinding and backtracking. Each world is made up from a series of smaller areas and you’ll have to trek to and from your given quest through many screens of creatures and platforms. One such point has a town elder reading a list of ingredients that he needs and rather than giving you multiple quests, or the list, he’ll send you back and forward through the same areas countless times to kill specific creatures and return with their hides.
All the time spent going across the levels isn’t wasted however, you’ll want to spend your traveling time knocking out some enemies along the way so you can level up and put their loot to good use, whether you equip it, sell it to a NPC or put it up for sale in the online marketplace. The loot you find is mostly useless and you won’t be swapping out your items too often but being able to store and trade your items online is a welcome and unexpected feature. Each class has their own selection of items that they’ll find and be able to use, which will also adjust their appearance. The two main classes of fighter and magician play very differently from each other, with one being more focused on close up combos while the other relies more on tactical long range attacks. As you progress in the story you can take sub classes and differentiate your character even further, with new passive and active skills that you can begin to level up along with your regular stats. While killing foes is a fine way of leveling up and collecting loot, you also have a fair selection of sub-quests that can be completed, some of which are repeatable should you be running short on cash.
Illusia has a clean 16bit style that also shows off some great effects on occasion when you’re pulling off some spells or slashing in with a great combo; however, beyond the graphical style there are some glaring presentation issues. It doesn’t feel as if Illusia was ever developed with the touchscreen in mind much less Android, all the buttons on your device will serve no purpose, so you’ll have to use the on screen menu button, sure this occurs on most iOS ports, but it’s still a big pet peeve. Menus have to be navigated using an on screen direction pad rather than tapping headings and arrows, which also isn’t a unique issue but it still feels rather hokey. Other slightly stranger issues occur practically any time you’re presented with text. Rather than wrapping the text in message boxes at spaces, the text wraps mid-word as if you’re using an old word processor from the 1980s. The sound also has one rather large problem. Each level has its own tune and the actual sound effects are just fine, but each levels tune is around thirty seconds long and stuck on loop and even though the tune itself is fine it’ll drive you crazy just as quickly as you’d expect, although fortunately there is a mute option.
Illusia gets its combat right and it’s as fun to dive in and slash up foes with the fighter as it is to lay down some well timed spells with the magician and the RPG elements are equally as well performed as long as you can look past the constant backtracking. With all these great elements it’s a real shame that the controls let down the other parts of the game. Walking left to right and getting into fights is no problem, but as soon as the game relies on you jumping between collapsing or moving platforms, everything goes horribly wrong. Most of the jumps you’ll see should be a piece of cake to traverse but an accidental double tap of a direction will dart you too far off course and any kind of precise movement is nearly impossible to complete due to the delay in response of the controls. With any luck some kind of fix will come in for the control issues through an update, but until then you have to be prepared for some frustrating moments.
Control issues aside, Illusia is a fantastic action RPG. The combat is fun and the variety of the customization extends far further than you’d expect for a game that begins with only a pair of selectable classes. If you’ve enjoyed the Zenonia games that Gamevil released previously and you fancy a bit of sideways action then you should give Illusia a look.
When you’re ready, head over to the Android Market and download this game by clicking or scanning the QR Code below.
Summary and Downloads:
Game: Illusia
Developer: Gamevil
Cost: Â $4.99
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