Medieval Combat: Age of Glory

Some fighting games have long, drawn-out stories about fighters defending their honour or taking part in worldly fighting championships. Medieval Combat has none of this nonsense. It's a fighter with seven characters, ranging from mech-types to armoured knights and humans, and all you need to know is that they want to smash one another up.

There are various ways of doing this. The standard fighting game weak and strong basic attacks are dealt out using the '5' and '8' buttons, and there are also strong and weak magic attacks, which are delivered via '0' – the longer the button is held, the stronger the magic. Finding the right moment to hold it down for several seconds rewards you with the chance to pull off an unblockable attack. A series of arrows appear on-screen and hitting them correctly within a time limit unleashes the attack.

Finally, pushing forwards twice triggers a grab, backwards twice a block, and holding '*' taunts your opponent, simultaneously depleting their own magic bar.

The range of moves is near perfect for a mobile game, with no finger-twisting combos to worry about. Instead, the fighting is geared around strategy and countering. When your opponent pulls off a ranged attack, it can be bounced back to him by hitting out with the right timing.

Also impressive is the presentation. Each character is chunky and detailed and, as they fight, bits of armour come flying off them, changing not only their look but also their vulnerability.

The music, too, is stirring stuff. It kicks in at the start and end of each bout, while suitably chunky sound effects punctuate the battles themselves.

With a limited number of characters and story, and no multiplayer mode, all of this satisfying fighting could have been in vain if it weren't for the number of modes on offer. Arcade enables you to choose from one of three difficulty levels, before facing up to increasingly strong opponents. In Instant Play, you get to choose your character and the AI combatant you want to fight, while Survival pits you against an unending succession of enemies to see how many you can defeat with a single life gauge. There are also training modes where you can practice new moves without getting pummelled into the ground.

So Medieval Combat is up there with the best of the fighting games on mobile with regards to the basic fighting system, but it's not completely without problems.

While there's a range of ways to deal with each opponent, all too often it pays to just lay into them with a succession of close-range attacks, giving them no chance of fighting back. By doing this (especially with auto-guard on), you can make your way through the various difficulty modes quite easily.

Still, the game has the look of a great arcade fighter and converts well onto mobile. It's responsive, solid and strategic with a control system that works. It won't last forever, but you do get a good few days of fun fighting – and free from any of the usual moral justification to boot.