Fateful Lore 12+

Greatly enjoyed this one. Aside from what was described, this game is also superbly “well”-written. The story and adventuring aspects of OG RPGs are greatly captured and reflected by this game. And it also charms and packs a lot of those good old RPG humor we all like being surprised with.

Strip away the RPG genre to its very bare bones and you get Fateful Lore. The title is neither very inventive nor is it relevant to the game content.

The story is barely there. Forgettable characters and except for villages, most locations are not named. Also has no map. The 1-2 second pause after a fight bothers me a lot. At least there are no ads.

Spotted a few bugs. In the nearest cave northeast to the Damerel castle, the sprite was able to walk over two water tiles. More importantly, let’s say you cast lightning bolt and it causes blindness for two turns. So after two turns, the text will read “Imp is no longer blinded.” However, if you cast lightning bolt again on the turn it expires in, its effectiveness is dependent on the order of the text that says “Imp is blind” and “Imp is no longer blind.” So if it says “Player_Name cast lightning bolt,” then, “Imp is blinded,” and THEN, “Imp is no longer blinded,” because of the Lightning bolt cast two turns ago, the current lightning bolt is rendered ineffective. But if, “Imp is no longer blinded,” occurs before, “Imp is blinded,” the spell would work.

I think the problem is that this game is not really “turn-based”. True, the player or the imp can perform actions first. But what actually happens is the player performs an action simultaneous with the enemy. And the two are combined in one continuous text barf after the player casts their action. Instead, to clear confusion, separate the two by indicating, “Player_Name’s turn” or, “Imp’s turn.” This way the spells’ effects and potency is clearer and less muddled. It would also help if you can see how long the spell lasts, instead of the player having to guess its duration.
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So if you want a game if you can mindlessly play for 8 hours, download the game. Since it doesn’t have a map, those with terrible spacial awareness should probably stay away from this. Also don’t stop playing while you’re inside a cave and then return playing a week later, in case you forget, get lost, and ragequit. Just kidding.

Honestly, there are better (and more creative) free RPGs in the app store. Nevertheless, I could say I had fun.