Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Review RPG Codex Review: Tales of Illyria: Fallen Knight, soon coming to PC

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Tags: Little Killerz; Tales of Illyria: Fallen Knight

Ah, the wonderful world of mobile RPGs... Wait, mobile RPGs? Is there anything there that could legitimately be called one? Apparently Tales of Illyria: Fallen Knight can, and so esteemed community member MicoSelva has undertaken to review it for us. Thankfully, it's coming to PC in 2015, too, so we can all enjoy it soon enough. In the meantime, let's hear whether and why Tales of Illyria is worth waiting for.

Here are a few tidbits from the review to get you in the mood:

The RPG Codex first became aware of Little Killerz' Tales of Illyria back in August 2012, when its Kickstarter campaign was launched. The game's reception on the forum was somewhat lukewarm, due to issues such as its limited combat animations, the perceived dissonance between its promise of a pen & paper feel and its Final Fantasy-inspired mechanics, and Illyria being an actual place in the Balkans. The general reception was not much better, and with only $1765 raised from 97 backers out of a total $23000, the crowdfunding campaign was cancelled in September. However, the developers at Little Killerz continued to work on the game, and it was eventually released for Android on June 19th 2013, after spending some time as an Early Access release on the Google Play Store. The game's name was changed to Tales of Illyria: Fallen Knight, in order to differentiate it from its sequels, the first of which, Tales of Illyria: Beyond the Iron Wall, was released on March 24th 2014, with another one on the way.

Tales of Illyria was originally planned to be released on PC as well, and after multiple delays, the full trilogy is supposed to arrive on Steam in 2015, having already been Greenlit last year.

[...] The gameplay in Tales of Illyria: Fallen Knight is basically a mix of Oregon Trail-style travel sequences, a CYOA event-based narrative, and Final Fantasy-style combat. If that sounds like something unique to you then, well, it is. While none of the mechanics present here are new, they do combine into something I have not encountered before.

[...] The roads of Illyria are far from safe, and travellers can expect to encounter all sorts of events on their way to the next village/town/city/castle. These range from the very simple, such as getting attacked by a pack of wolves or finding a stranded horse, to more exotic events such as stumbling upon a cultist orgy or an entrance to a tomb, which you can then explore. Similarly, in settlements you might, for example, be vomited on by a drunkard or asked by the local guards to help with an investigation. The game is packed with these events (the developers claim there are over 700 unique sequences) and they are the definite highlight of the game in terms of writing and appeal. Although you will encounter some of the basic ones repeatedly (I must have slaughtered an identical party of slavers at least half a dozen times), many are truly unique, and sometimes they even form small sub-plots with the outcome of later encounters in the sub-plot being determined by your decisions in previous ones.

Usually events are resolved in a few minutes at most, but the largest ones, like dungeons or multi-stage combat quests can take much longer (I would estimate up to half an hour). Typically you cannot save during these events, which can be a pain in the ass, but they make for some of the most challenging content in the game and are rather satisfying to complete, even if they do not always grant the biggest rewards.

[...] Tales of Illyria: Fallen Knight is a very interesting title. I could call it 'the best mobile RPG I have ever played', but that would be both overly enthusiastic and overly narrow praise (I've only played a few others, and they were mostly crap). While it has its flaws - obfuscation of mechanics and the poor UI being the most obvious ones - it is a decent game with more mechanical depth than many modern PC/console RPGs, at least on the non-combat side of things. Illyria's standout features are its random events and CYOA gameplay, so a lot depends on whether that's your kind of thing. Some will embrace the variety this design offers, excited to see what the game will throw at them next. Others will hate its inherent passiveness and become bored of watching the travel animation and tapping herbs while waiting for the next event to occur. I belong to the former group, obviously. The world of Illyria never ceased to entertain me and I was always looking forward to whatever lay ahead. The game should probably be avoided by those who play RPGs mostly for combat. This aspect of the game is rather simple, and its mechanics are too obfuscated to appeal to min-maxers.​

Read the full review: RPG Codex Review: Tales of Illyria: Fallen Knight
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,237
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
MicoSelva report for fisting pl0s.


I suppose I should point out that I played the game entirely on Veteran and it was still easy to finish.

The sequel is allegedly better in terms of C&C etc.
 
Last edited:

Ptosio

Arcane
Joined
Dec 13, 2007
Messages
679
Location
Serenissima Res Publica Poloniae
Is this this game in which you are looking at your party walking...and walking...and walking? And then you reach your destination where there's nothing but a guy who sells food and furs so that you can walk some more?

Honestly, I don't see much point in bringing it to PC.
 

Little Killerz

Little Killerz
Developer
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
220
MicoSelva Thanks for the well written and honest review. You brought up several shortcomings we agree with, but still managed to highlight the good. I'd be more than happy to fill you in with how some of our "voodoo" game mechanics work. I'd also like to extend to you the opportunity to play Episode 3 before it is released. We'd be interested in your opinions to make the game better.

Crooked Bee Thanks for posting the review even if it's not quite yet on the PC. I know that's a big deal for you guys. It's really a dream come true to see Tales of Illyria on the front page of the codex!!!

Thanks very much,
Chad
 
Last edited:

Little Killerz

Little Killerz
Developer
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
220
For those of you interested in what Episode 3 is going to be like here is the blurb I send to our beta testers. I really need to get better at self promotion, but I'm too busy programming the damn game ;-)

Ep3 is the best Tales yet! Ep3 is a sandbox open world take on the Tales formula. It is different from Ep1 and Ep2 in that the main quest line is not your primary focus, you are not being lead around by your nose intent on saving the world. Ep3 takes place 20 years after Ep2 ends, the land of Illyria is at an uneasy peace. You begin the game by creating your character. You pick your name, sex, head, starting skills, alignment and kingdom. This is done in a narrative like process reminiscent of Ultima. How you answer the questions will generate a starting class and equipment. Depending on the kingdom you pick you will get a different starting event and main quest line. So that means SIX main quest lines. The main quest lines are shorter than in previous episodes and can be ignored.

Ep3's primary focus is the new job system. You get jobs from the Fighters Guild , Mages Guild , Thieves Guild, Hunters Guild and each Kingdom. Ep3 introduces a Reputation system. You maintain a separate Reputation with each kingdom. You increase your reputation by completing jobs for the guilds and helping peasants. You decrease your reputation by attacking caravans, peasants, and patrols or running jobs against a kingdom. Once your reputation is high enough you can request an audience with the ruler of the kingdom and run jobs for that kingdom. Each kingdom has a rival kingdom you maybe asked to run jobs against. Get your reputation high enough and you will be granted titles and estates in that kingdom.

Your party will consist of 15 different characters you can meet during your journeys. They range from good to evil and everything in between. You will not know if they are potential party members you may even kill then with out knowing it. Like if you stop a mugging and kill the mugger, that might of been a party member. Party members can get mad and leave your party and you can choose to kill them. You can have all 15 in your greater party but only 6 in your party proper. You can reorganize your party at any tavern. Each character has a side quest you can perform.

The level cap has been raised to 20 and the gold cap to 99,999. You can store gold and equipment at your estates which makes your gold cap basically infinite.

**Other Improvements**
- A massive amout of new unique and repeatable events
- New monsters
- Arena Combat
- Randomly generated magical equipment
- Lots of new background graphics
- Improved city graphics
- Improved portrait graphics
- 6 new weapons types
- 6 new armor types

The good news is the core game is done. We are now just adding expansion content now.

Chad
 
Last edited:

Burning Bridges

Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
27,562
Location
Tampon Bay
Any discussion of Illyria's technical aspects would not be complete without mentioning its UI. Many Codexers have very strong feelings about well-presented, efficient and easy-to-use user interfaces, and I can definitely say that this game is not for them. I don't want to indulge in any flowery metaphors or talk about wanting to cut myself with broken glass, so I will just say that the UI is... not good. It just isn't. At best, it is ugly but workable, like the town screen textual menu. At worst, it is a time-wasting atrocity. For example, how many clicks/taps do you think it takes to change a character's weapon? Let's count - 1: Party menu, 2: Party, 3: Character, 4: Equip, 5: Weapon, 6: Change, 7: Melee/Ranged?, 8: Pick new weapon, 9: Equip, 10: Back, 11: Back, 12: Back, 13: Back, 14: Back - yeah, I think I just changed my mind about the broken glass.

Not surprising. It isn't such a great idea to design something for tablets and then move it to the PC. The reviewer already said that he mostly plays it on the toilet (?!), being able to run on the Pc is no more than a gimmick. Btw are there no emulators yet?
 

tuluse

Arcane
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,400
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Not surprising. It isn't such a great idea to design something for tablets and then move it to the PC. The reviewer already said that he mostly plays it on the toilet (?!), being able to run on the Pc is no more than a gimmick. Btw are there no emulators yet?
Check my sig
 

Little Killerz

Little Killerz
Developer
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
220
You can play them right now in Blue Stacks or I heard Chrome recently added an extension to play android games in the browser.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
At last I can give it a look.

Not surprising. It isn't such a great idea to design something for tablets and then move it to the PC. The reviewer already said that he mostly plays it on the toilet (?!), being able to run on the Pc is no more than a gimmick. Btw are there no emulators yet?

After trying several games on my phone I came to the conclusion that I just hate small displays and can't be bothered reading on it for longer than a few minutes. And not everyone has a tablet. I prefer netbooks for various reasons.
 

Little Killerz

Little Killerz
Developer
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
220
Morkar I should note that the game is Google translated into German. But I hear it is laughably bad, which is why I didn't bother to translate Ep2.
 

Little Killerz

Little Killerz
Developer
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
220
I'd also like to add that while the game is text heavy we NEVER give you a wall of text. You are given small blocks of text and typically a choice to make. I'd go so far as to say you wont find another game with as many "Choices" to make. Also game play is broken up by combats, traveling and visits to cities. Unless you have bad eyes its easy to play on a mobile device.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
9,939
Location
Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I played Ep1 on my tablet and it is a fun the game indeed.
But the UI... yeah. It is what made me not want to play other episodes. It's just too painful and time wasting.

...UI sucks...
Not surprising. It isn't such a great idea to design something for tablets and then move it to the PC.
That is not even the problem. The UI is bad in mobile game standards, not even talking about PC here.
It is possible without greater difficulty to design a working UI for mobile devices that requires less than 14 taps to change some equipment. It will still likely be more than something designed for mouse use, but it would be much better nonetheless.

I think what happened here is that the developer went for the technically easiest to implement UI, which is just a screen with some buttons that have a function. Drag&drop takes more time to develop, as does anything that goes beyond screen with buttons. A shorter game with a better UI would have been a better decision.
 

RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
Patron
Joined
Feb 23, 2006
Messages
28,396
Location
Not Here
Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
Sounds like a hentai doujin title I've read recently.
 

Nedrah

Erudite
Joined
Mar 14, 2005
Messages
1,693
Location
Germany
The TOI games are easily among the best RPGs (and games in general) on Android. Played as choose your own adventure / oregon trail, they're great for enhanced play sessions above and beyond the call of nature. Wouldn't get them for the combat, which can feel a bit formulaic at times. The wealth of varied and interesting random events along the trail along with the decent world building make up for that and the writing in general works well. I also have to point out that Little Killerz answers support requests quickly and competently, which isn't a given considering the price per unit.

It remains to be seen how well the transition to PC works. I imagine the games might have made a decent splash during the years of the decline (I remember getting rather excited about, say, choice of the dragon at the time). I wish them all the best, though.

Edit: Forgot about the UI. It's true that it isn't exactly elegant. It is, however, consistent and logical. Personally, I wasn't ever bothered by the "clicks" required to manage the party's inventory. If anything, it reminds me of the non-streamlined UIs of the past - which fits the game's overall oldschool vibe.
 
Last edited:

Little Killerz

Little Killerz
Developer
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
220
Nedrah Thanks for your support. We do take customer service very seriously.

Yeah the UI is being rethought for the PC conversion. Obviously we should strive for excellence and that's probably not what we delivered with the UI. However, it comes with a couple advantages.

1. It' s super easy you'll never be lost wondering how the UI works.
2. The layout made it easy to also support controllers
3. We were able to reuse just a couple different interfaces though out the entire game. This is easier for us to develop and easier for you to learn.
4. And the biggest reason is the interface works for any screen size.

We also have improved combat, more mosters have special attacks, strengths and weaknesses. This makes for less routine combats as you can exploit or have to work around the monsters abilites.

Thanks again everyone!
Chad
 
Last edited:

Little Killerz

Little Killerz
Developer
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
220
Hey guys! The games are on sale for .99 on Google Play! Go get em!
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom