Vay Review
I have to admit that I am not really a big fan of the classic RPG games. I could never get into the Final Fantasy games but that all changed once I was introduced to great RPGs like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Fable, and Jade Empire. Being the RPG nut that I am today I had to buy Vay the second I heard about it, and boy has it changed my opinion on classic RPGs.
This is an “upgraded” version of the classic Sega CD game Vay, but not that much has changed. Starting off with the story its your cliche RPG story line, the Princess is kidnapped and you have to rescue her and save your world from an evil force, been there done that. Despite being a recycled story it is still fun to play out. There are cut scenes in the game that are pretty cool but they do show there age. The dialog has been changed since the original to match the way we talk today so expect to hear the word “awesome!” a lot.
The graphics are decent. As you can tell the game looks like the original version but its not a bad thing because the graphics don’t get in the way at all. The game does not run in full screen as you can see that the menu is presented on the left side making the game still 4:3. This is not the case however in the battle scenes, as they are full wide screen and the effects look pretty good. The sound effects in the game are really good and the music fits the game perfectly as well. The presentation is a little messy on the other hand. The game uses a mix of the iPhone menus and there own menus and with a lack of information for items it can be confusing.
The gameplay is really easy to learn and can be really fun. Like I said this is a classic RPG so there will be leveling up, monster battles, and casting spells all of which is really fun to do. Leveling up in this game is easy and is not as hard or as frustrating like with other RPGs, FF3 for example. As I mentioned before the menus don’t offer up too much information so the first time you play the game you will have no clue what the potions do or how well a weapon performs.
Overall Vay is a real winner on the iPhone despite being technologically challenged. You can expect to be glued to this game for hours and is well worth the $4.99 price tag. If you are a fan of RPGs or just retro video games Vay is a no brainer.
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