RPG Grinsia (for Android)

Like?Symphony of Eternity($2.99, 4 stars) and RPG Aeon Avenger ($3.99, 3.5 stars), RPG Grinsia ($7.99 on Google Play) is a traditional, top-down Japanese RPG for most Android phones and tablets with a fantasy setting, cute little cartoon characters, and turn-based combat. Unlike in some of its competition, Grinsia starts you out with a pre-formed party: a family of "treasure hunters" who quickly get drawn into a plan to protect some ancient artifacts from a predatory empire. Translation and character development are actually pretty good here, and you can answer simple yes/no questions in the dialog interface. There's even a bit of comedy.

Grinsia takes place in three scales: a zoomed-in town mode, a zoomed-out walkable world map, and a turn-based battle interface. Battles are more tedious than in the other Kemco games I've played, because fighting always seems to require one too many taps, there's a tedious little XP-acquisition sequence at the end of every battle, and there's very little user choice in terms of acquiring skills and abilities. In a game where you're constantly running into invisible random monster encounters, that's an issue.

Grinsia's other challenge is that it seems to be easy to get stuck; I had trouble about five hours in with a cave where the game's UI elements seemed to be blocking the way out, for instance, and I've seen other complaints online about different locations. There have been a few minor version updates since I played through, though, so those sticky points may have been cleared up by now.

Grinsia isn't a must-buy like Kemco's classic Symphony of Eternity. There just isn't as much fun character-building involved, and the battles don't go as smoothly. But, for eight dollars with no additional purchases necessary, it's a decent plot-driven RPG.

For more Android App Reviews, see:

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??? Symphony of Eternity (for Android)
??? RPG Grinsia (for Android)
??? RPG Aeon Avenger (for Android)
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