Might be worth your time for $0.99...

This is the second Kemco RPG Ive completed, and like Eve of the Genesis, it feels uninspired. The character sprites and monster designs are a step up from Eve of the Genesis, but theyre still hardly animated. The world looks decent, but generic towns, towers, caves, and castles can only go so far. The labyrinthine level design that requires you to locate keys and switches while evading pits and battling monsters every few steps isnt my idea of fun, but fans of older RPGs such as Phantasy Star and Dragon Quest II might enjoy this 14 hour slog.

Unfortunately, the battle system doesnt fare much better -- largely due to tiny text and boring (not to mention useless) abilities. I beat every battle in the game but one (the final boss) with auto-battle (which spams regular attacks) -- and I only briefly went off it before the final boss because I forgot to heal beforehand. Alphadia is not a difficult game as long as you continually outfit your characters with the best weapons and armor and fight hordes of monsters every few steps. The only strategy involved comes from equipping your characters with upgradeable rings -- which grant your characters a few new abilities and stat boosts to supplement your innate element.

The incredibly boring battles are made tolerable with a decent story that draws from FF6 (and possibly Tales of Phantasia). There are a few borrowed elements from the aforementioned games (elemental spirits called espers which bestow your characters with energy being one), but the story was interesting enough to get me through the battles and boring dungeons.

Kemco is on the right track with the story, characters, and the occasional bit of humor, but for their next game, Id like to see more interactivity with the world, larger text in battles, a few interesting side quests, more music, a greater degree of character customization, and a few unique dungeons rather than mundane towers and caves. Id prefer a great 5-6 hour RPG where each location is interesting to a generic game that is 10-20 hours.

Woocifer about RPG Alphadia