A fun, challenging, iphone RPG that does (most) things right.
After you choose your character type, which determines your base stats (I chose Paladin for my playthrough), you watch an opening movie and then the main story starts. It seems your character (Regret)'s adoptive father has died by a demon. It turns out you aren't aware you were adopted, however and aren't really sure of your place. Eventually the townsfolk decide to cast you out, as they've decided you have caused too much trouble to their precious town, and you find your place. While this isn't the most original story in RPG history, it does open the door for one of the games biggest replay feature: Good vs. Evil. One of the first decisions you will make will decide which guild you will work for: The Guild of Light or the Guild of Dark. I did not choose to take on any evil work throughout my playthrough, so I am unable to report if it is possible to switch guilds throughout the game, but imagine it is, due to the fact that a meter on your stat screen tells you your percentage of good/evil.
The other innovative factor in this game was not as much of a hit with me as the good vs. evil. This is the food/hunger factor. The days turn to nights in Zenonia. If you have not fed yourself within a certain amount of time your max SP will drop. You must then eat in order to regain it. However, this is where the problem lies. It seems that sometimes I eat a large meal and less than 1 game hour later, I need to eat again. Other times, it seems I go for days without a meal and my SP meter does not drop. Even after the latest update, in which Gamevil states the hunger issue has been fixed, I haven't seen much difference. It's a great idea, but it doesn't work correctly. Other than that, Zenonia has an armor repair system much like your typical MMORPG. As you wear your armor, it degrades until it finally breaks, in which case you get none of the benefits of it. You can buy repair hammers and repair it on your own, but you risk losing some of the durability of the armor by a few points.
The Blacksmith can repair it with a better chance of not losing any durability, however, I was upgrading armor so much with each level that I rarely worried about max durability until later levels in the game.
Which brings me to the gameplay itself. The controls are very intuitive for an iPhone, once you get used to them, although it may be a bit confusing at first to figure everything in the menus out (they don't really tell you where everything is, in fact, I turned off the game without saving the first time I played.). The action button and hot-keys are easy to use as well. It's also easy to move around the menu, once you know where things are located. When you level, distribute your stat points, choose a skill on the skill tree, all by pressing the action button. Don't worry about accidentally choosing something you don't want; the game asks you again before you accept your stat/skills. As for the game flow, it's very typical, accept quests, grind a lot, do story missions, grind a lot. Did I mention grind a lot? Yes, if you don't enjoy grinding then this may not be the game for you. Later quests can be a real pain if you aren't up the level of the monsters in the dungeon. Lastly, I must say that the graphics are some of the most amazing graphics I've seen on the iPhone. Only problem is, it seems if too much is going on onscreen, there tends to be a bit of slowdown. This can be annoying, but it's infrequent, and there is a graphics option to tone down the quality, at which point on lower qualities I had no issue.
So, do I recommend Zenonia? Hell yes. At $5.99 it's a great deal, but as of this writing it's only $2.99. It's completely addictive, and gets almost everything right.