This sort of rote design does nothing to energise the experience: wandering a forest hunting bears that randomly drop bear tongues isn't fun. In fact, your very first mission is to kill a bunch of enemies in order to collect the items they drop. Instead of abandoning tedious item fetch quests which dominated the previous two instalments, Inotia 3 continues to embrace them. While it's possible to put up with a less-than-perfect translation, warming up to the gameplay is another matter. Worse still, there are plenty of errors in the text from misspellings to awkward word choices. Characters speak too formally, which often gives their interactions an unnatural quality. Part of the problem is the dialogue, which not only is stiff and unnatural, but also riddled with mistakes. Main hero Lucio, for example, is so narrowly focused on his crush on party member Ameli that the game feels more like an episode of Glee than a quest to save the world. It's easy to swallow a familiar story, yet the one-dimensional characters make it difficult to care at all about what happens outside of combat. More disappointing are the wafer-thin characters and poorly written dialogue. It doesn't hurt that the quest is a lengthy one, so you can be sure you're getting good value. The adorable sprite characters, simple soundtrack, and pleasantly typical environments are sure invoke a sense of nostalgia. In spite of this, there's charm in the colourful graphics and cheery music.

It's a cliche story with predictable settings, although to be fair Inotia 3 isn't alone in sticking with convention in this regard. You've played this game before - as the unlikely, youthful hero whose destiny involves saving the world from an ancient evil, you traipse the land killing enemies with sword and magic. Inotia 3: Children of Carnia sticks to old conventions rather than getting with the times, catering to the role-playing tastes of last decade with its uninspired storytelling, missions that play out like chores, and slapdash iPad support. Level-grinding role-playing was all the rage more than a decade ago, but the genre has since moved forward. What passed for entertainment several years ago doesn't always cut it today. I wouldn't touch broccoli with a ten-foot pole when I was younger, but now it finds its way into dinner every so often.

Things that were unpleasant as a kid often become enjoyable as an adult.

Inotia 5 ios