Chaos Rings Catch-All

Yes, the time has come to create a catch-all for an iPhone game. Reasons why are e.g. here and here (and also to unclutter Phone Gaming catch-all thread). So, any impressions? Help to fellow Chaos Ringers such as me who have a problem in the very first Arena fight?

Slide to Play wrote:

The iPhone finally has its own triple-A Square Enix RPG that actually reaches the heights of a Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. With an epic storyline and deep gameplay, Chaos Rings should be at the top of your iPhone wish list.

Also: there will be an HD version for the iPad.

I've been playing it slowly (only about an hour in, at this point), and am posting here to bookmark the thread.

Man, I'm sorely tempted, thanks to you lot of enablers. Even though playing this type of game is totally outside of my general iPhone game usage.

I'm going to hold off on anything detailed until I get the chance to put some real time into it this weekend, but my initial impressions haven't changed much so far. Loving the hour or so i've put in.

There is one thing I can say for sure. There is way more depth to this combat system than I thought there would be.

Dammit, I was ignoring this game just fine in the iPhone games catch-all. It looks like my type of game.

So, as the proud new owner of an ipod touch, I am definitely considering this as a purchase. Can anyone put it in perspective against a game like dungeon hunter?

HD version? I'm so close to getting an iPad, I might just wait.

I may be missing something on the map screen, but it doesn't always seem to match up to the 3D view screen, as in, it will show a room with four exits (connections) on the map, but I can only see where two of them are in the 3D view. What's going on?

I am playing it on both an iPad and 1st gen iPhone. It plays well on both - obviously better on the iPad. So far it has been a great game.

How's it run as far as loads and frame rate goes on the iPhone, farley? I have an iPhone 3G and this game looks like it would murder it.

Load time is under 30 seconds. Scene changes around 10. Battle transition 5-10 seconds. Some of those events happen often so it can be a little annoying.

There is a slight but noticeable slowness to running around the screen but it is not bad at all. I wouldn't even notice really if I wasn't playing on the iPad as well and could see the difference.

I would honestly say this game plays better than Space Miner (which I just finished). It loads faster and the transitions between areas is faster. SM by the nature of the game plays faster.

Another thing is that if I leave it running my phone does not get hot. I noticed that with SM, and Bookworm that if I leave the game on the phone became hot. I am glad that this doesn't happen with CR.

It also seems to be less taxing on the battery which is good because my phone already needs to be charged everyday if I make many phone calls.

All in all it seems like a well optimized game. I am really happy about that since I am sure it is tempting to program mostly for the newer models which have more RAM. It is nice they didn't take the easy path.

Certis wrote:

How's it run as far as loads and frame rate goes on the iPhone, farley? I have an iPhone 3G and this game looks like it would murder it.

I'm on a 3G, and I'm very pleasantly surprised as to how well CR runs. Loads are perhapss a little longer than I would like, but certainly not painfully so. I have not come across any slow down as yet.

Katy wrote:

I may be missing something on the map screen, but it doesn't always seem to match up to the 3D view screen, as in, it will show a room with four exits (connections) on the map, but I can only see where two of them are in the 3D view. What's going on?

The map is the one thing I'm really not a fan of so far. It seems unnecessarily confusing.

So far I've been playing it on my iPad and i absolutely love it. Looks great even though it's scaled up. I haven't enjoyed the games that you need to spend more than 2 minutes on such as GTA: Chinatown Wars on my iPhone so much. The big screen is easier on the eyes and the thumbs.

Can't go wrong with Chaos Rings.

On my 2nd gen iPod (a little slower than a 3GS I guess) it pretty much runs like a dream. I haven't experienced anything like the load times described above.

The leveling system as it relates to encounters is a little strange. You can select the level range of the monsters in the dungeon you are attempting. For example, 1-10, 11-20, 21-30 etc. Experience is awarded accordingly. However, the bosses themselves are always set to your level. So, it kind of begets the question, apart from being able to challenge yourself in the dungeon crawl, what is the benefit of leveling your characters up? Actually, there is one additional benefit. Fighting a creature far above you in level greatly increases the chances of getting one of their skills. Also, I suspect there are some skills that can only be obtained by tackling higher level creatures.

However, I've just had my first arena fight and the opponents were not set to my level. I find that a little strange.

5 hours so far and enjoying it. Nearly finished the 3rd dungeon.

guitarlicks4 wrote:

The big screen is easier on the eyes and the thumbs.

The cool thing about the control method is that you actually only need a single thumb to play. Touching the screen anywhere brings up the virtual stick. Tapping the screen anywhere does the context sensitive action. Basically this is a JRPG that you can play standing on the train, holding your iDevice and using the thumb of the same hand. Not something you can say about any PSP or DS JRPG.

Mr GT Chris wrote:
guitarlicks4 wrote:

The big screen is easier on the eyes and the thumbs.

The cool thing about the control method is that you actually only need a single thumb to play. Touching the screen anywhere brings up the virtual stick. Tapping the screen anywhere does the context sensitive action. Basically this is a JRPG that you can play standing on the train, holding your iDevice and using the thumb of the same hand. Not something you can say about any PSP or DS JRPG.

Yes! This is actually one of my favorite features that was built into the game.

I think I'll check out the price of this one this summer, when I'm eligible for the discount on the new 4th-gen iPhone.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

However, I've just had my first arena fight and the opponents were not set to my level. I find that a little strange.

So did you win? I can't seem to win and am thinking that I'll maybe go grind some more levels. If the opponents are not set at my level, that would be a good idea. When I met them, both them and my team were levels 11 & 10, so I thought the game sets the same levels (although Analyze says they have far higher HP).

Wow that's weird. My guys were level 25 or so, and they were something like level 15/16. As you noted, they have a lot of hit points, but were soundly thrashed.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Wow that's weird. My guys were level 25 or so, and they were something like level 15/16. As you noted, they have a lot of hit points, but were soundly thrashed.

Off to the grinder it is then. No matter, I quite like the game battles, so it will be fun.

Yeah, I don't think I've been leveling that much but I always try to run the dungeon at the highest possible level bracket. So I usually level up every 2-4 encounters.

I levelled up a bit, found some new weapons and the first arena fight was done in two turns with me barely taking a scratch. I'm a bit annoyed by the fact that battles are usually quite easy, but then again I can still take on higher level monsters if I wish. Four hours in, still having lots of fun. Although I'm currently stuck on a boss in the third (?) set of dungeons (the new one after the first arena fight).

So, how many different gene plates are there? I've discovered twelve so far (plus the two you start with).

Spoiler:

Bird, Deer, Dog, Dragon, Hippopotamus, Insect, Manta, Monkey, Mouse, Slug, Tiger, Tortoise

So that makes for some choices about which plates to equip. I'm still in the early game (second dungeon area), so I haven't even come close to filling the plates up with their genes.

OK, I finished my first playthrough, about 7.5 hours, so I guess on par with Touch Arcade. My main complaint would be the difficulty curve is a bit messed up. The game started out as moderately difficult, then really quite tough, and then super easy for the last half. Monsters will match your level but their leveling curve is way more moderate than yours. For example, a level 1 monster may have about 600 HP. The level 40 version of that monster may have about 2000 HP. In comparison, your characters start at 600-800HP, and by level 40 they'll be about 5000 HP. Similarly, I was taking 100-300 damage per hit at the start of the game, and by the end of the game the same or less. I think it's something that they should definitely work on as a patch.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

OK, I finished my first playthrough, about 7.5 hours, so I guess on par with Touch Arcade. My main complaint would be the difficulty curve is a bit messed up. The game started out as moderately difficult, then really quite tough, and then super easy for the last half. Monsters will match your level but their leveling curve is way more moderate than yours. For example, a level 1 monster may have about 600 HP. The level 40 version of that monster may have about 2000 HP. In comparison, your characters start at 600-800HP, and by level 40 they'll be about 5000 HP. Similarly, I was taking 100-300 damage per hit at the start of the game, and by the end of the game the same or less. I think it's something that they should definitely work on as a patch.

Yep, the fact that I can take on a monster 10 levels higher than me without too much hassle is a bit of a letdown (the fact that you recover all HP after the battle simply makes you ignore damage if it's in the low hundreds). Are there any unlocks after finishing?

No unlocks yet, but I suspect that completing with both the pairs will unlock the other two pairs (they show up on the achievements screen). The second time you play, even with a different team you get all your gene plates and money from the previous play through.

Another thing that makes the game easy is that some enemies can be killed in one hit by attacking with the right element. The game refers to it as a "blow out".

Only about an hour or two in. But I found I finally just had to sit down and read through all the directions (which I never do). Perhaps because I'm new to the Square-JRPG genre, but it took a full read for things to start making sense.

Controls are really smooth, though! The only other robust game I tried on iPhone was GTA, and I quit after an hour or two because the controls were so terrible.

I'm now going through with the second pair of characters. Great thing is that you keep the gene plates and genes that you got with first two characters, so I'm cutting through dungeons like butter. I assume after second playthrough more characters will unlock. Anyway, after more than five hours the game still has a solid hold on me. Watching the storyline from another point of view is certainly interesting.

An easy way how to level up with the second pair of characters and quickly learn new genes:

Spoiler:

Ruwach is a powerful spell, so even with level ca. 15 character you can jump into LV31-40 dungeons. Wait for an encounter, obliterate the enemies with Ruwach (one hit is usually enough, if not, you will survive until next turn anyway) and repeat until you are out of MP. Then exit, return, lather, rinse, repeat. You level up each 1 to 2 encounters, more on higher levels. When you get slug gene command of "Get More Genes" you can quickly master all gene plates.

After a respite I finished the game with second pair of characters. I have to say that the unlocked content that you get after you finish the game is both more interesting and more challenging than the whole game up to the "end". If I understand it correctly I have to finish the newly opened dungeon to unlock the new characters. In short, after eight hours it's still fun, still offers new content - weapons, items and genes. E.g. in level 51-60 dungeons you can actually find items that permanently increase your stats.

I just bought it. I need something to do on my commutes to and from work.