Indie Windows Phone RPG Doom & Destiny not only impresses, it's currently free

In our 'Best Xbox games of 2022' feature, I named the sole Xbox-branded RPG Last Fantasy as one of the twelvemonth's finest. This yr we have the very RPG-like strategy game Skulls of the Shogun to look forward to, merely some other Xbox RPG seems unlikely now. Thankfully an indie developer has come along to fill the void with Doom & Destiny from HeartBit Interactive. Previously available as an Xbox Live Indie Game on 360, Windows Phone gamers can take the game with them on the go…. And for free (at the moment)!

Check out our initial impressions and hands-on video after the interruption.

Meta game

Doom and Destiny no traps

Doom & Destiny starts out with four young males gathering at a friend'southward house to play a pen-and-paper function-playing game. Later finding the front door locked, the accept the back entrance and detect a dungeon containing a mysterious RPG book. This dungeon transports them to a world filled with monsters, lava, and other fantasy tropes.

Where the story heads after that, I cannot say just all the same. Maybe information technology never gets serious, as the dialogue text and so far has been totally silly. Already I've run beyond popular culture references to Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, and fifty-fifty the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The writing overflows with clever jokes, but it also suffers from an abundance of grammatical and spelling errors (see one in the picture below) that pull discerning players out of the story. Hopefully the script gets fixed in a future update.

Quondam is new once more

Doom and Destiny complains error
Hint: 'complains' is not the correct give-and-take at that place.

HeartBit'due south role-playing game may be a recent creation, but it could easily pass for a cute Super SNES title. The art style perfectly captures the look of sixteen-chip RPGs (including Final fantasy), with colorful and detailed sprites and razor sharp character portraits accompanying all the dialogue. It even boasts some avant-garde lighting effects that older consoles probably couldn't have handled. As for the music, it perfectly matches the game's slightly-better-than retro appearance.

Control freak

Doom and Destiny battle slime face

Before it fifty-fifty gets to the story, Doom & Destiny opens with an interactive tutorial that explains the controls. Every bit you would expect, your left thumb controls movement while the right handles interaction and menus. Merely instead of a fixed virtual stick like Final Fantasy, this game creates a temporary stick wherever you place your thumb. It feels less precise and responsive than it should, but possibly some tweaking in the options will fix that.

As for interactions, swiping your right thumb to the left brings upwards the in-game carte at any time. After that, single thumb taps select things. Sliding to the right cancels and backs out of menus. I'd nonetheless prefer a fixed bill of fare push, but the left- and right-sliding works surprisingly well. HeartBit showed a lot of centre by going the extra mile with a unique control scheme when porting the 360 game to Windows Phone.

Slight incompatibility

Doom and Destiny rope
Push bated this statue to discover a subconscious path...

Doom & Destiny runs on both Windows Phone 7 and 8, only suffers from a bit of crashing on eight. According to an interview at WP7 Connect, this is caused by a memory-related bug. The developers already plan to ready the trouble, and so it won't be effectually for long. In the meantime, call back to relieve often! Practice this by left-sliding to open up the menu and selecting the Relieve option.

The cost is right

Doom & Destiny costs 400 MS Points/$5 on Xbox 360, but the Windows Phone version is currently complimentary! Apparently the devs plan to start charging for it afterwards the memory upshot gets patched out, so grab it while the getting's good.

Pick up Doom & Destiny hither at the Windows Phone Shop and face your destiny.

Thanks to Theaddict for the tip; via WP7 Connect

QR: Doom and Destiny

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