Battle Quest

Several years ago we would have been happy just to have a text-based adventure on our phones, but the times, as the man once sang, they are a' changing. Now we demand nothing less than a full-blown role-playing game, complete with monsters, magic, wizened old hags and enough gameplay to keep us orc-bashing for hours.

Welcome to Battle Quest.

It's very much a traditional RPG, and that's no bad thing. Taking a leaf out of the Zelda book (SNES-era), the gameplay is viewed top-down. Your character is always in the centre of the screen, and the four-way scrolling takes you around towns and tunnels with the greatest of ease, moving quickly and smoothly from location to location.

The plot of the game is a cliché mashed from every RPG you've ever played. You're an unnamed warrior (who's probably called Thrud, or something) born to defeat an evil Lord who, in turn, aims to plunge the world (which is called Terrogade would you believe?) into darkness. To do so you'll need to hack and slash your way through armies of orcs, goblins pixies and other assorted fairy folk.

The start of the game has you in a town, where you need to talk to the locals for vital information and pick up a sword. You'll come across a King called Darius and a guard called Gordon (genius) and once you've finished sniggering at the silly names and collected enough weapons and advice, you head into the first of the many cavernous mazes and start your quest.

Battle Quest has been designed with real intelligence, so although you still have most of the trappings of a traditional, computer-based RPG, everything can be controlled with a few keys. You use the D-pad to navigate, press it in to attack, talk to people or collect bonus items and use the '*' button to enter the inventory.

Of course, during your adventure, your character gets to level up, so after you've killed a few hostiles your experience is considered to be high enough to take you onto the next level. At this point you're rewarded with some bonus attribute points to beef up your various, um, variables.

It's not an easy game though, even after you have earned your way to the higher levels. There are loads of caverns and a seemingly endless supply of mazes and corridors, and they're all filled with creatures intent on stopping you fulfilling your destiny. So like all good RPGs, a major part of your success is down to how you manage to balance your adventuring with trips back to the town to power up and recharge.

At this point, you may think we'd mark Battle Quest down for being wholly unoriginal, but this isn't a problem. The fact that every aspect has been used before in a thousand other RPGs isn't, in this case anyway, a criticism. It feels more a homage to a time when the role-playing game was all about fun. A time before endless 3D worlds, flashy particle effects and the curse of 24/7 online multiplayer gaming. Frankly, we love Battle Quest all the more for it.