When I was younger, the only thing standing between me and hours of gaming goodness was money. These days, I wish I had that problem. Time is a valuable commodity to all working adults. Likewise, kids don’t have the attention spans they used to, so if you are going to hook anyone, your game has to make a good impression. With that in mind, I’ll spend 30 minutes with a game and give my thoughts on if it deserves your precious time.

 

I’ve always been a big fan of the Action/RPG genre, so when I saw Heroes Lore III for the iPhone on sale for only $0.99 via EA’s holiday sale, I couldn’t resist giving it a shot. Having previously played similar titles on the iPhone such as Zenonia, I knew that the game would have to operate using an on-screen thumb stick and would require blocking a portion of the screen. Unfortunately,  the game’s UI also ate up a size-able chunk of the remaining portion. Also not helping the matter was that on top of this, the controls weren’t very responsive and had a strange lag to them. This doesn’t bode well for a dungeon crawler with on-screen enemies. The fact that you could only attack in 4 directions compounded the control issues.

Visually, Heroes Lore III hearkens back to the SNES days with a style very reminiscent of Secret of Mana, utilizing bright colors and distinctive character designs to give the game its own flare. The audio design for the game is passable, although a few of the sound effects were grating from the very first time I heard them. How you could possibly get a stinging metal sound from chopping a wood box I’ll never figure out.

Although I obviously haven’t played much of the game yet, the dungeons and village areas seem to be fairly par for the course. Likewise, early on, the story doesn’t seem to be anything remarkable, although I do see potential as the game allows for you to play from two opposing perspectives. This brings up the possibility for more replay value, although I have a suspicion that the two storylines will become one at some point.

 

Each character has several different classes to choose from which affords them different weapon/gun/magic combinations as a main and sub weapon. HL III also has an remarkably complex stats system which involves you spending skill points each time you level up in order to advance your character. Although this is a common occurrence in many games these days, to see it in an iPhone game is quite impressive.The only issue I see with this is that you seem to level up your stats rather quickly, which calls into question the length of the game.

Overall, my first 30 minutes with Heroes Lore III were a mixed bag. The concept and styling show a lot of potential, but the frustrating controls could hamper my enthusiasm to spend a lot of time with this game. For $0.99, I don’t regret the purchase, but I’m also not sure how quickly I will be going back to it.