Terra Incognita

Terra Incognita is Latin for "unknown land," which is ironic, because this 3D adventure is treading incredibly familiar territory.

Tasked with exploring a seemingly deserted island in order to locate a mythical treasure, you find yourself indulging in pastimes which have been present in similar titles for decades.

There’s the usual real-time combat with nondescript slime creatures, leaping from moving platforms, stacking crates in order to reach high ledges, and even collecting keys to unlock doors.

Not that all of this is a bad thing, of course. In fact, Terra Incognita brings to mind some of the classic 16-bit adventure RPGs such as Landstalker on the Sega Mega Drive and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

While the game’s inspirations are sound, however, the execution is unforgivably sloppy.

For starters, the controls are awkward and wholly unsuited to the game. Pinpoint accuracy is required for many of the jumps and the sketchy responsiveness of the virtual buttons makes it hard to complete some of the most difficult sections.

Being able to change your camera viewpoint using a second virtual analogue stick is a nice touch and makes judging those tricky leaps easier, but it can’t save a generally broken control scheme.

Combat doesn’t fare any better – in fact, it’s even more busted. Your character’s sword attack is like a spasmodic twitch and connecting your halfhearted swing with an enemy is about as easy as stabbing a flea with a drawing pin.

It becomes incredibly frustrating when you encounter more ferocious foes as they attack unremittingly, not even giving you a chance to fight back.

It’s a shame that these issues exist because the foundations of Terra Incognita are solid. Each room is a self-contained puzzle where you climb platforms, open treasure chests and defeat enemies in order to get to the exit.

Early stages are simplistic in design and won’t tax your grey matter all that much, but later levels become increasingly impressive in their scope and size.

Sadly, the twitchy controls only make tackling these epic challenges more exasperating. After spending a large portion of time getting to the exit of a stage there’s nothing more disheartening than having to start over because the game only seems to register every third button press.

The game isn’t helped by the fact that the visuals are rather amateurish. The main character showcases a rather blocky quality and the enemies you face are incredibly basic in terms of design.

To top it all off the English translation is absolutely laughable. We defy you to watch the opening dialogue – which is absolutely riddled with spelling mistakes and other grammatical errors – without smirking.

As much as we applaud the developer’s intention to give the iPhone a 3D action-adventure capable of standing alongside the classics of the genre, we’re sorry to report that Terra Incognita is best left as an uncharted region on your map.