Horn is the mobile game that hardcore gamers have been waiting for. Developer Phosphor Games has finally cracked the code, creating a fully explorable 3D action/adventure controlled almost entirely with touch-screen gestures.
Gamers play as the titular character Horn, a young Blacksmith’s apprentice who wakes up in a mysterious tower to learn that all other living beings have been turned into mechanical monstrosities. The story takes a back seat to the gameplay, but Horn’s central mystery kept me intrigued thanks to its excellent voice acting and a few genuinely surprising twists and turns.
Horn isn’t an open-world game – the adventure is split into a collection of semi-linear stages. But the game’s impeccable art design and excellent sense of imagination still manage to make each level’s puzzle & combat rooms a joy to explore.
Horn’s intuitive touch-powered controls make exploring the game world a simple pleasure. When out of combat players simply tap where they want to move. Other controls are handled contextually. To leap huge gaps players must tap the approaching ledge in midair. Carefully sliding left and right on the touch screen lets player shimmy along tight ledges. Tapping to move can create moments of awkwardness though, since you can only move to a spot that’s already on-screen. This means that Horn can’t walk backwards, for example.
It’s impossible to talk about Horn without addressing just how gorgeous the game is. Sunlight streams through windows, trees sway lazily in the wind and huge, hulking beasts casually watch on from the background as you solve puzzles. Occasional issues with texture tiling aside, Horn is brimming with both technical and artistic mastery.
The game’s core puzzling gameplay doesn’t set quite as high a standard, however. Most of the puzzles can be solved in just a couple steps, even late in the game. Horn feels a lot like the first or second dungeon in a Zelda title. Expect to flip a lot of switches and shoot a lot of arrows through open flames to light torches or burn down barriers. Thankfully a handful of meatier puzzles sure to make even veteran gamers scratch their chin are peppered throughout, although I still wish there were more.
Combat, the game’s other major pillar, fares better. Players automatically enter combat mode any time they approach an enemy and can tap left or right to dodge-roll out of the way of incoming attacks and the then counter-attack with a flurry of touch-powered sword swipes of their own. It starts simple, but each enemy has its own attack patterns and quirks to figure out. Later opponents and boss fights require a careful approach and have trickier, better-guarded weaknesses. The entire system works great - landing the final blow after deftly dodging all of an enemy’s attacks always feels satisfying.
Horn’s biggest drawback is its repetitive nature. Rooms, enemies and sometimes entire game segments will show up multiple times. It happens often enough that it becomes possible to predict when a treasure chest or other landmark will be waiting around the next corner. Horn’s huge adventure wasn’t created with a copy & paste mentality, but the lack of variety does put a slight damper on lengthy play sessions. I also encountered one serious progress-stopping bug in Horn’s review build, but a Phosphor representative told me they were aware of the issue and a day 1 patch has been issued to resolve it.
Horn is this year’s most impressive iOS game yet. Many gamers might balk at its $6.99 asking price, with memories of awkward iOS games that do their best to copy their console big brothers swimming in their head. But Horn is a game thoughtfully designed from the ground-up with touch control in mind, and it shows.
Horn isn’t perfect - action/adventure veterans specifically might find the experience a little too simple and light. But the game still serves as an impressive example of what can be accomplished when a talented team takes full advantage of modern mobile devices.
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
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