9th Dawn III 12+

This game does not hold your hand much, first off. You are given the freedom to explore with lots of areas open to you if you can find a way to survive and get there!

There is a ton of customizablility as pretty early on you unlock a 2nd player who has all the same possibilities as your first. So you can have a fighter and a mage combo, etc. Another route is to go more of a stealth ranger with pets that you raise. There is a lot of crafting and fishing mechanics which I’m usually not into. They are a litttle slow going at first but speed up. I’d recommend starting with mining/smelting and then armor and weapons, since the ore is free and you can make some money selling the stuff you make to invest in other crafting.

There really is a lot of freedom in how you explore, this has had me pretty hooked the last few days since I got it! Also, the dev is amazing, they are handling improvements with a rapid turnaround and I think it’s one person or a very small team. I expect more improvements to come but I am enjoying this a ton already and heartily recommend, if you are ok with not having your hand held.

Ok let me start off by saying that I am terrible at writing reviews. But I think this game deserves one. I have played about 2 hours of the game so far. Hands down....Awesome. The devs did a great job. So far I have had a blast. The crafting system is fun. Not to challenging but enough to keep it interesting. Combat reminds in a way of Terraria in the sense that you basically hold down attack and go. That in its self can get boring but seeing as how this is the mobile version, it works. Questing, they don’t hold your hand too much which is a good thing. Make sure you READ the dialog though. Otherwise you will have to go back to the quest menu to figure it out. Best of all the card mini game. I spent about 30 straight playing it. It’s easy to understand and fun to play. Best of all I haven’t seen a single micro transaction!!! Honestly for the price. This is a great game and I hope everyone gives this a chance because these guys really made something fun.

Two of my favorite, most-played games on iOS are Cavern and Cardinal Quest II. 9th Dawn III feels like the best parts of those games multiplied by 100.

Don’t let the 2D pixel art fool you — this is truly a full-fledged, open-world game with loads of satisfying RPG mechanics.

After only a few hours of play, I’ve gotten a sense of the scale and depth of the world. So much to explore, so many quests and conversations to discover, so many monsters to fight and capture. There’s a huge variety of fighting styles and equipment, so the replay value is practically unlimited if you want to roll another character and tackle the game with a different strategy.

The simple twin stick controls are easy to use, if a little finicky (maybe add a customization setting for joystick sensitivity?) and the menus/inventory screens aren’t too cluttered. On an iPhone XR, the text is small but legible.

Overall, this is an incredibly well-made game to have come from a one-man development studio. 100% worth the $10 for such a polished premium iOS experience!

My only regret is that I didn’t discover the 9th Dawn series until now. I’ll be playing this one for a long long time, and will undoubtedly find myself re-installing and re-playing it for many years to come.