Top 5 Free, Old School, Fantasy Role-Playing Games for iPhone/iPod Touch

Are you tired of free, "lite" RPG games where you play for five minutes and then have to buy the regular version to continue? Are you weary of role playing games that emphasize "role" over "play"? Do you remember a time when games had graphics that looked like Legos or even just letters, yet they still managed to suck hours out of your day? Those golden moments can be yours again if you own an iPhone or an iPod Touch! All for just the price of your time to download the games and the price of your soul to play them.

Now I say in the title of this article that these games are the top 5 of their kind, but in reality these are about the only games of their kind that I can find in the App Store. Since this type of game is pretty specific, it took a little time to experiment with different search words and sift through various lists. So here they are from least favorite to best.

5. Rogue, by gandreas software. This is an iPhone translation of a classic, classic, classic game with the same name. The idea of the game is the fundamental basis for 99.9% of role-playing games; create character, fight stuff, find stuff, defeat the monster boss at the end. In fact, that is the basis for all of the games in this review. Anyway, the unique aspect of this game is the graphics, or lack of graphics. You could call this a text adventure, in a way. This is not a text adventure in the sense that you are typing commands in the form of sentences and using your memory and imagination to figure out where the door is in the room you are standing in. This game uses ASCII text (letters, symbols, numbers, etc.) as the basis for its graphics. This port of the game keeps that same look, but it also gives you the option of switching to an updated, pixel graphic look. The charm of this game is the seemingly endless levels and huge variety of treasure to be found. Unfortunately, this version kept crashing on me, so I didn't get to delve too deeply into it, although I do fondly remember playing the DOS version. Also, the way to input commands, in the iPhone version, involves different methods of swiping your finger across the screen, which takes some time to adjust to. Hopefully, they will fix the bugs that make it crash.

4. Tap Quest, by Fromahead. This is an original game made for the iPhone/iPod Touch that jumps ahead about 10 years in terms of graphics. Which, in relation to Rogue, only puts it at about 1985 era graphics. But even though the graphics are more like graphics the game play is extremely watered down in comparison. The premise of the game is to find special crystals which are at the end of each level of play. You start out with three characters; a knight, a mage, and a ranger, with the opportunity to find other characters later. You move your characters around the screen by tapping where you want them to go. Instead of a continuous map, though, you move from one screen to the next fighting monsters. This is a good game that is easy to play, but you don't have a lot of the detail of some of the other games on this list. There aren't any items to find besides gold, keys, bombs, red potions and blue potions and you don't have to worry about spells or weapons or armor. It's pretty much just tap and attack. Yet there is something endearing about this game.

3. iNetHack, by Dirk Zimmermann. Ok, so this is basically the same game as Rogue, or rather the original NetHack is based on the original Rogue and so this translation of NetHack to the iphone is really similar to Rogue. The difference is that iNetHack utilizes graphics in a style that is similar to Tap Quest. You start off the game by choosing your class, then your race and gender and then you get plopped into the dungeon where you then proceed to fight stuff, find stuff and level up. Oh yeah, and another major difference is that you get a pet, which can die if you're not careful. Well, it's actually pretty easy for your character to die if you're not careful as well. The iPhone control system for this game attempts to recreate the amount of options you would have if you were playing this on a regular computer by providing long menus of actions you can perform, as well as hot keys on the screen. This makes figuring out what to do and how to do it more complicated to figure out at first, but after a while it gets easier.

1. Sorcerer #1, Sorcerer #2, by Death=Head & Co. These two games are tied for first place because they are actually the same game, just different difficulty levels. Sorcerer #2 starts off with characters at a much higher level and you can import your characters from Sorcerer #1 (although I haven't figured that out yet.) With these games you get to create a party of six characters, which you then take into the dungeon and fight stuff, find stuff and level up. The difference with these games is that you roam the dungeon in first person. Okay, so the graphics, again, are not state of the art. Basically, the dungeon walls are represented by white lines on a black screen. But you get to try and find your way around that maze at your leisure, while trying not to get killed. When you do encounter monsters, you get to see color, pixel pictures of them, which is a nice touch.

So there you have it old timers. I realize that there is not a ton of variety in this list, since Rogue and iNetHack are essentially the same and Sorcerer #1 and #2 are more overtly the same. But, hopefully this article will help you out if you have been itching for a retro adventure. Please game responsibly, especially if you have a family.