The thing about RPGs is that if they are done right, and if that they are very deep (full of quests, NPCs, places to see, and most importantly, keeps you coming back for more), then you know that it’s gonna take a longer time to review in order to do the game some justice when you are typing it out (just like what I’m doing over here at this point of time). This is the case when it comes to Gamevil’s RPG offering for the iPhone/iPod touch, Illusia.

The game takes after Diablo for the PC, whereby there’s plenty of creeps to kill and as such, leveling up and loot are never a problem in the game. And like Diablo, there are quite a number of varied locations to visit and quests to partake off. Quests can be divided to main quests and side quests, and while some of them might be a little cookie cutter (go here, fetch this, investigate that, kill something), these are RPG staples that you can’t go wrong with.

All these take place in a 2D environment, where the characters look like they have been taken off Maple Story or the Final Fantasy character lists.What I like about Illusia is the tiered character class system. For example, if you start off as a Fighter, you get to branch off into becoming a Knight (defensive focused) or a Warrior (aggro all the way). This opens up different kinds of skills to upgrade to, which is pretty cool.

The items system is pretty cool as well. Your character gets to lug around more than one bag for storage and additional bags are purchasable from merchant NPCs. There’s also crafting in which items can be passed to a Blacksmith to be merged although you are cautioned that if you provide too few items (like 2 or 3), the process is likely to fail and the items will be lost!

Illusia is one heck of an RPG for the iPhone and it’s impossible to cover everything in a single review. One thing to note, the game is really funny, watch out for the dialogue. There was a mission involving killing a whole bunch of monsters on behalf of an NPC who wanted to pass through the area, only for the monsters to comeback. When the NPC complained, the player character replied “That’s the thing with monsters”, or something along that line.

The game deserves to be in the gaming library for any self-respecting RPG fan on the iPhone/iPod touch. It may be take the guise of a cute looking 2D platformer but it’s surprisingly deep. Nine Over Ten 9/10 awards Illusia with a 5/5. Highly Recommended!

A review code for Illusia was provided to Nine Over Ten 9/10 by Gamevil PR for the purpose of this review. Check out the game over at the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/illusia/id403467154?mt=8