Fallen Realms

In modern day terms, adventurers are essentially pest control. The vast majority of fantasy-RPGs seem to task warriors, mages, and rogues with emptying dungeons of giant rats, dusty skeletons, and ravenous bats.

It makes you wonder why such heroes demean themselves so readily. We can only assume that the job market in these fantasy worlds is pretty cutthroat.

Fallen Realms is no different. It boasts a dazzling array of underground fortresses, overgrown forests, and ruined temples for you to clear out, although the rewards for doing so are a little better than the minimum wage.

Using a first-person viewpoint similar to that seen in classics like Dungeon Master and Shining in the Darkness, Fallen Realms initially appears to be pretty standard RPG fare.

Combat is totally random, occurring without warning. Each side takes turns to pummel the other, with victory only coming once you’ve completely depleted your foe’s vitality.

You gain experience after dividing the spoils of war, with increased health, strength and physical resilience being the rewards. You also gain special skills as your job class improves. Coinage can be spent on new weapons and armour, as well as special restorative items.

The central hub in Fallen Realms is your base, where you can sign up for quests, visit the shop, consult the archives of the museum, or recruit new party members at the Guildhall. Quests are your main focus throughout the game, as they not only advance the story but also provide your source of income and experience.

The catch here is that moving through each quest requires use of a resource called ‘Brave’. More accurately described as 'stamina', this depletes with each step you take, and once it's entirely consumed can only be replenished with a special item or by waiting a certain amount of time.

This initially feels like a tremendously restrictive mechanic, but it rarely becomes an issue unless you intend to hammer the game solidly for hours on end. Because this is a mobile phone RPG, it lends itself to bite-sized play.

What's slightly more problematic is the slightly slapdash nature of the presentation. The 2D artwork is generally gorgeous, but the game lurches from screen to screen with an unseemly degree of jerkiness, even on a dual-core phone like the Galaxy Nexus.

We assume this is down to the fact that Fallen Realms is constantly having to communicate with online servers (your game progress is saved to the cloud rather than on your phone itself), but at times it feels like you’re playing a browser-based title on an ancient PC.

The music is similarly flawed - the tunes are great, but they’re short and loop too quickly, giving them a disjointed feel.

Another disappointment is the lack of exploration when in a dungeon - you can’t turn left or right, or even go back on yourself. You can only move forward, with the ultimate objective to reach a certain distance to complete the level.

Such issues might render any other RPG purely forgettable, but Fallen Realms manages to redeem itself slightly thanks to its social elements. Via a connection with the Papaya online gaming service - which apparently boasts over 38 million players worldwide - you can forge alliances and friendships with other players, trading items and even conducting quests cooperatively.

This what makes the game really stand out, and papers over some of the rougher elements of its presentation. The community side of the game is further bolstered by daily quests posted up by the developers. You have to complete these before they're replaced by new quests.

Shifting away from solo role-playing to something with a more social ethos is a neat touch, and there’s a real sense of enjoyment to be had from forging friendships with other players. However, all of the human interaction in the world isn’t going to make up for Fallen Realms’s curiously limited dungeons and simplistic content.

The result is a game that hardcore RPG players will find to be too shallow, but one that casual gamers - raised on a diet of Facebook games - will positively lap up.