Every now and then, we come across a mobile game that’s so utterly devoid of inspiration that we feel a twinge of despair. This week, that was Talion, the latest in a long line of identikit autoplay MMORPGs. If you’ve …
Every now and then, we come across a mobile game that’s so utterly devoid of inspiration that we feel a twinge of despair. This week, that was Talion, the latest in a long line of identikit autoplay MMORPGs.
If you’ve played the likes of Lineage 2, MU Origin, AxE, or any other MMORPG that relies heavily on autoplay, you’ll know exactly what to expect here. You pick a gender-locked standard class archetype, customise its appearance, then head out on an adventure that involves repeatedly tapping a quest indicator and quest complete button every few seconds.
Surprisingly, the character customisation is quite involved, allowing you to tweak everything from the size of your character’s noise to the flap of fat that hangs just beneath its chin. It’s a powerful system that allows you to customise your character to an unprecedented level.
We just wish that level of attention to detail had extended to the rest of the experience, because the fact it’s just another entry in a very tired genre is the very least of its troubles. It’s an ugly, uninspired mess of overly dramatic dark fantasy visuals and obtuse menus.
The awful visuals are largely down to some strange design choices. There’s this weird shadow effect circling the screen around your character, giving the effect you’re viewing the screen down the lens of a telescope or while suffering from a severe migraine.
Then there’s the resolution. It’s a bit too low, which makes everything look blurry. That’s a problem made worse by the fact that everything seems to have a motion blur effect, from rotating the camera to pulling off skills in combat.
The menu system, which you have to spend a fair bit of time in to manage your character’s growth, is arguably the biggest deal breaker. It’s just such a chore to navigate, with thousands of tabs.
You’ll have to keep heading back into it though because the game regularly wants to chuck useless tat at you. This is a problem with the genre, more with Talion, but you’re constantly combatting those coloured dots that indicate you’ve got something new to tap on in the menu.
Ultimately, we honestly just don’t know who Talion is for. It’s yet another identical entry in a genre that we’re quite frankly sick of on mobile, and it brings absolutely nothing new to the table. If you’re already invested in Lineage 2 or AxE, there’s absolutely no point downloading this.
It’s hugely disappointing coming from a developer that showed such promise with the Zenonia franchise during the early days of mobile but Talion just simply isn’t worth checking out. Play something else instead.
