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Aside from role playing games being, quite possibly, the least appropriate genre for the iPhone platform, there are more obvious reasons why we found the Quest so incredibly tedious. The controls are barely adequate, even after the original scheme was replaced with “improvements”. You use a “virtual d-pad”, which places directional arrows around your finger wherever you decide to put it. This might seem like a clever idea, but in practice it’s a pain and a persistent source of frustration.
Even locating quest goals causes problems. They’re not highlighted on the map, or comprehensively detailed in your quest log, which is scarce on specifics and doesn’t make obvious how much progress you’ve made. For example, you don’t know if you’ve already talked to the innkeeper or the alchemist, and you don’t know how to learn the “magical fire attack” you apparently need to complete the first quest.
Thankfully, developer Redshift decided to make the combat turn based (otherwise it would simply have failed completely due to the poor controls getting in your way). While the combat is monotonous to start with, the inclusion of spells, potions and attributes are enough to add some tactical depth.
It’s at this point that we should highlight just how much depth there is to The Quest. Not just in combat, but also in the sheer number of side-quests, the class system, levelling, item attributes and more. There’s even a card game in the tavern. It’s the sort of depth we’d expect from a full-blown console RPG, certainly not from an iPhone game. The downside is these things aren’t taught to you , and you really are left on your own trying to learn the ropes.
Despite all the detail and extensiveness, what prevents you from enjoying The Quest is pretty much everything else about the game. It feels terribly dated, and most will struggle to find any motivation to overcome the hurdles that are present throughout. Those who do persist, however, will find an extensive iPhone RPG experience, and might not feel so bad about dropping £3.49 on it for the 50 hours of gameplay that publisher Chillingo claims it has. For the rest of us, though, The Quest has too many fundamental flaws to be enjoyable.
