My first 10 minutes with Terato Tech’s iPhone game, Qalvinius, left me really unimpressed and disappointed with it. The game attempts to meld aspects from RPG games with that of 2D traditional side-scrollers.  The game starts at the hub town of Qalvinius and first maddening 10 minutes had me doing quests that involve running up to a certain NPC to strike up a conversation, before running off to the next NPC.

It got to the point whereby Quest 1 was given by a certain character (A) to talk to another (B), and once I’ve have completed that, B gave me a new quest, which is to talk to A. Such a lame premise (it’s all talk talk talk and more talk…see screenshots below)  is compounded by really lame combat. The main character, Ares, who although looks like he is equipped with a sword from the onset is then given a wooden sword in one of the quests.

The monsters that you are assigned to kill are really dangerous especially when they surround the player character; you are almost certain to die in your very first combat quest…and I thought these things only happen in Demon’s Souls. As much as I want to see a local mobile game developer succeed, I can’t believe that the output turned out to be an uninspired/half-baked amalgamation of ideas. It’s very difficult to recommend Qalvinius and I think that lessons from this debut must be taken to heart in order for Terato to come up with better games.

Qalvinius is currently available for free (for a limited time) on the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qalvinius/id383276106?mt=8