Zenonia 3 Review

When tasked with reviewing Zenonia 3 on iOS, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I had no familiarity with it other than the cursory knowledge that Zenonia was an action-RPG from Gamevil, a South Korea-based developer. Otherwise, I was totally in the dark. But, remembering the love affairs I've had with a plethora of action-RPGs in the past, I optimistically gave Zenonia 3 a go.

What I found was an inconsistent experience, one contingent on both extraordinarily basic combat and insanely deep inventory and statistical systems. Zenonia 3 revolves around a character named Chael, a human who gets whisked away to an unknown territory full of skeptical NPCs and hostile creatures. If Zenonia 3 has one true weakness, it's its rambling, nonsensical and long-winded story. As the actual gameplay is much more successful than any attempt at storytelling, you'll be glad that Zenonia 3 gives you the opportunity to skip over virtually any cut-scene or conversation.

Zenonia 3's combat is action-oriented and realtime, foregoing a more traditional RPG experience in terms of turn-based combat. Combat is fairly forgiving, exponentially lessening the frustration you might encounter with its finicky controls. It goes without saying that Zenonia 3 would be much more successful on a traditional handheld device (so that your fingers aren't all over half of the screen), but basic combat is still functional and enjoyable with the virtual buttons and D-pad.

Where Zenonia 3's real depth (and potential) comes into play is with its main quest and side quest systems, its inventory development, and all of its other extras. For someone who digs the grind of an action-RPG like this, Zenonia 3 will prove to be an intriguing package, and rightfully so. Building up an inventory of weapons, armor and items is rewarding, and when you couple that with completing a series of quests and myriad optional side quests, you'll find that there's plenty to do to keep you busy in Zenonia 3.

In terms of inventory management and other tasks that require you to use Zenonia 3's menus, there are some problems. Because the screen you'll be playing Zenonia 3 on is so tiny, many of the buttons in the menus are annoyingly small. When you go to select an item to equip, for instance, you'll be pressing a button that's mere pixels wide. This is only a minor gripe, but in another sense, with all of the inventory management necessary in a game like this, you'd expect a better interface.

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