I know everyone has a million different ideas for games and it's not particularly interesting to hear *but* I think I've struck upon a rather good concept for an iPhone RPG adventure title. Picture this: a action RPG consisting of basically 3 game types rolled into one. First you have a top-down, plot-driven action RPG a la the 2D Zeldas. The difference here is that it is both an action RPG but also has non-random encounters; when you encounter an enemy visible in the game world you enter a Final Fantasy style arena, however rather than wading through menus you use the touch screen to initiate action based attacks, along the lines of The World Ends With You (video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNZAM-epTqI). This way you've gotten an engrossing, deep single player adventure on the iPhone that doesn't rely on finickity on-screen D-pads for combat and yet still makes use of the touch screen. Think for eg. drawing runes on the screen that correspond to defensive and offensive spells - if your enemy is about to attack, draw a defensive rune asap. Movement I recommend being handled by your character running to where you click, like Diablo 2. In this game you should also be able to hunt and capture a pet companion eg. a wolf that assists you in battle. Secondly, the game also contains an action mini-game with which you can train your pet, increasing it's usefulness in the main game. If we're waiting at a bus stop we might not have time to invest in progressing the main adventure game, but this will allow us to contribute to that campaign even when we only have a few minutes to play. Lastly, utilising the iPhone internet capabilities, pets may be traded and dueled online. I am convinced this, with a good plot and good graphic/sound and art design, would be mega mega hit on the iPhone/iPod Touch. You have a game that can be played at any time that uses the touch screen AND has a collection & multiplayer aspects via. the wifi. I like to imagine setting it in a dark, alternate Europe where mythology is reality. Think Diablo 2 meets Pokemon meets Zelda... *drool*
Definitely, any iPhone game should make full advantage of touchscreen, Accelerometer and networking features as much as possible, whilst trying not to resort to "quick hacks" like on-screen buttons. A very ambitious idea!
Legend of Zelda is not an RPG series, action/RPG or otherwise. It's action/adventure. There's a difference. *cue infamous genre classification rant, marketing rant, "race to the bottom", blah blah blah yakkity smackity
Gee, fancy seeing you here So tell me, how do you really feel about Zelda being classified as an RPG By the way, so as not to stray completely off topic, your idea actually sounds pretty cool, Yixian. Your method of combat reminds me of Deep Labyrinth for the DS (I think that's the right DS game I'm thinking of - and no, I've never played the other one you mentioned). I'd also just like to point out that Zelda was by no means a random-encounter driven game. In fact, there were no random encounters in Zelda (at least not the original ones).
Sorry yeah I was trying to differentiate from both Zelda and FF really. I was thinking Chrono Trigger with TWEWY-style combat. Seems like the perfect way of having all the depth of an Action RPG on the iPhone without running into the control hurdles traditional combat styles might have with your fingers and a touchscreen. I am surprised the Diablo style of controlling movement hasn't been used much on the iPhone yet, Zenonia could do away with that D-pad entirely.
