GameLight - Ark of the Ages

Android Site: Google Play - Ark of the Ages
Source: Youtube Channel pocketgameruk

I read about this game two week ago over at Joystiq and was curious about this Action-RPG dungeon-crawler.  I never buy games for mobile devices, but I just so happened to receive a Google Play card recently and decided to give this game a try as I couldn't resist an attractive price of $2.  The game promotes online interaction with other players to receive special powers as well as using real money to get benefits.  That already made me sad to have micro-transactions in a game I already paid for, but I ignored it for the time being and went into my first dungeon.  There are probably games with better graphics than what Ark of the Ages has for the android market, but I was pretty impressed with what was presented.  Walking around felt alright, but turning does take some getting used to.  The overall gameplay feels like a mix of old school First-Person dungeon crawlers (even though it's in 3rd-person when walking around) and current day touch-screen phone games where combat consists of slashing, blocking, and using specials to fight off enemies.  The game is challenging in that enemies don't reveal how strong they are until the player starts fighting them and that replenishing curatives, buying new equipment, and fixing current weapons is expensive.  With that, the game revolves around 2 things: Grinding and paying real money to skip the grinding.  For a phone game like this, I don't really mind grinding as it's a way to pass the time and so far it's rather entertaining.  The game isn't necessarily deep in combat, story or innovation, but it provides a decent amount of achievements (better equipment, strong foes, and lots of quests) for the player to stay busy and entertained.  Some common complaints by others who have reviewed the game is that the game relies too much on paid items to get anywhere (I can't confirm that just yet), the game won't start up (worked okay for me so far), and the Gree taskbar is distracting (Yes, it doesn't go away but it hasn't been a problem for me yet).  I don't expect too much for games on phones as long as it has a structured gameplay providing entertainment.  Ark of the Ages isn't one of those games friends would talk about and share their experiences, but so far it's a great game to pass the time and have some consistency of getting stronger and progress.

Source:
-Joystiq - XSEED brings RPG 'Ark of the Ages' to Android