Destina is my favorite, it's fast paced and controls is pretty good. Decent graphics, simple and compact story, 6 hour gameplay. I never played a RPG game as good as Destina again. Zenonia 3 is good but both graphic and controls are so-so. Zenonia 2 requires a lot of grind, same problem with Zenonia 4. FF3 is the worst RPG game I'd ever played. The plot is so stupid and the game is heavy grinding and very slow-paced. Chaos Rings II is great except it's kind of slow and their characters are very nagging: "Darwin?" "What?" "Nothing" "Ok, let's go on." "Darwin?" "errr?" "Darwin." "eh." "Darwin?" "..." "Darwin." "..." These dialogues make nonsense other than try to make you feel the game is longer and the plot is deeper than it actually is.
I beta tested Undercroft - it's an iOS original, and definitely a classic Dungeon Master / Bard's Tale "Western" RPG game. It was intended as the first of a series, but didn't do well enough to warrant continuing. The Quest is a port, but some of it's expansions were written for iOS first. (It just so happens that expansions & even save files are 100% compatible across platforms! How's that for great portable coding!) Legend of Grimrock is not an iOS original, but is releasing very close to the PC release - I'd say this one is on par with titles releasing for PC and consoles (almost) concurrently. It's a fantastic title for a world where "Western" RPGs are few and far between. Speaking of gamebooks - Keep of the Lich Lord was specifically re-written for iOS (i.e. it's roots are from a Fighting Fantasy gamebook, but the original authors worked with Meghara to re-write portions of the plot & background to place it in the Fabled Lands world.) Which leads to Fabled Lands - if you want a fleshed out world to play in, take a serious look at Fabled Lands II Gold Edition (and pray they get books 3-12 ported!) It's a port of a set of gamebooks, but Meghara has created tons of art & music to accompany - and they way the books were written I bet most people playing with the app would think of it more of an RPG than a gamebook - it's free roam with many 'sandbox' elements i.e. you can own property, buy/sell commodities, ally with different factions, etc.
I'd agree that as far as Western RPGs are concerned there isn't a whole lot on the iOS that has a grand, epic Skyrim-style story with character customization and the like. But there are quite a few JRPGs on the iOS that I found to be enjoyable as far as both story and gameplay is concerned, including the aforementioned Ash. The Kemco games, while somewhat generic, are pretty good at storytelling (Fantasy Chronicle is my favorite of those so far). Seriously, if you go back to the early Final Fantasy games. Was the storytelling really that great? There was no customization. And, well, I guess because stories like those games have been told numerous times since then, they even feel generic by today's standards.
Try 'Fall Of Angels'. It's not western (although it was made in the west I think) but it has a really good gripping story. The naive looking graphic style is better in play than the screenshots suggest. Don't just take my word for it, check the thread where you will find lots of Touch Arcade's hardcore RPG fans praising the narrative.
There is a show called "Extra Credits" floating on the internet dedicated to what makes a Western RPG and a JRPG. Interesting watch if you have the time. It's on Penny-Arcade if I remember correctly. The TL;DR is this - JRPGs focused more on telling a story and Western RPGs focused on creating experiences. Story telling in games is hard. Even harder on mobile devices since there is more opportunity for distraction to pull someone right out of the experience (a phone call, a message, another push notification). It can be overcome, but it's going to take time to experiment and play to the strengths of mobile games before the really heavy story driven games will come out
Even if there weren't a game better than Chaos Rings on this platform (I'm not saying this is true, just stating a possibility), it doesn't make the game good. From the games I've played, Ash is better on story and characters. I can't name any other good RPG. I could say Final Fantasy Tactics, but it is more of a strategy game. Customization doesn't make a story better or worse. Actually it kinda makes the story worse most of the time. It may make the game better overall (in some cases), but it usually means a not so good story.
...not to mention storage space. Currently replaying Dragon Age Origins. Almost 14 GB install + mods.
I would be quite happy to buy a $20 RPG if it was actually worth that much. I wouldn't expect a PC-style RPG for that much, either. I'm probably going to buy at least one of the Chaos Rings games, and if the one I buy is good I'll probably buy all of them. I threw down $10 for Order and Chaos (or however much it is in USD, I think it was $10 NZD) without blinking twice and if it had a better story I'd have kept up a subscription, even if the subscription was $10 for 3 months rather than the small amount it currently is (if I recall correctly). I'm not an amazing writer and I could write a better story for Aralon; you don't need to hire a writer to be able to do better than that. And it did have some form of a story, so you can't really argue that budget caused them to skimp on the story. (although I bet they skimped on the voice acting. The voice acting and music in that game was...not good.) Don't get me wrong, the game has potential and I wanted to enjoy it.
Just putting this out there but GTA3 is also an RPG. So is GTA:CT. Both games have pretty awesome stories! How about Dark Meadow? That's got a pretty lovely and immersive story to it. What about the upcoming game Forgotten Memories? I'd bet my top dollar that it'll have a fascinating story.
Just putting this out there but I agree almost 100% with this. This is the exact same reason I've given up on/gotten bored with a lot of the RPGs I've played.
All I gotta say is that if they put out anything like Dark Souls for iphone I'll be all over it. From software even hinted at developing mobile games.. I'm crossing my fingers
You might enjoy Osiris Legends. It just went on sale for $1.99: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=2241213&posted=1#post2241213 It plays a lot like the Tales series. The three Chaos Rings games are great.
"The first RPG I ever played on any device was The Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind. To this day, it stands out as one of the best RPGs in the history of RPGs. Perhaps that meant I set the bar too high. " I stopped reading after that statement.
I think this is ur problem right here. I'm assuming you missed the golden era of Rpg gaming snes - PS... Most people know that RPGs have been a mess after then with the jump to 3d. These so called western RPGs are completely different to tradition jrpg and arpgs... Then u throw in the fps/Rpg "genre" and it all just completely different. (that or u just never played an Rpg till then, or u never owned those consoles etc...) I feel like on iOS you probly can't get that expirience because alot of games on iOS are geared toward an audience that grew up with snEs RPGs and find a sense nostalgia with most of the 2d jrpg type games I mentioned. As for the other games... Ur probly right I doubt there's anything as good as the elder scrolls, which was a game that changed the concept of what an Rpg is... Then games like FF 13 comeout and it's like why play this go here to here holding ur hand type game when there's games with fully immersive 3d worlds and such.(this is why ff13-2 or whatever is fruit to break away from the linear gameplay and be more like Wrpgs) Well that's what RPGs on the snes and ps felt like to us the first time..something completely new and different. If you want something that's pushing the Wrpg trend iOS is not the place to look...and only console games for now will ever leave u satisfied. I guess there are a few exceptions...think of Aralon like a mini version of elderscrolls and not the other way around. As far as games like nova and deadspace those aren't RPGs or atleast not how I would define them. Infinity blade is go from point a to point b...the fun of the game is in the sword fighting most closely reseming punch out with some Rpg elements thrown in. And finnally you have a game like super brothers S&S which is another game pushing forward what an Rpg is the the same way Wrpgs did from jrpgs. For me I'm really not into Wrpgs I guess because I don't like the change from the 2d era...IMO ff9 was the last good Rpg... I wouldn't say that other games to come out after that are bad just not my type of game. With exceptions I guess there's always room to try out new games while playing old classics for nostalgia. iOS's claim to fame in the world of video games is physics puzzlers and tower defense and a few other exceptions like sword and sworcery/infinity blade etc..(other things to like portable gaming and he idea of gaming being more universal with everyone as a form of media the same as music and videos and of course touch screen and gyro...but most of this isnt video game genre related) As far as a groundbreaking wrpg on iOS there's not alot besides a few copies or in the games image of console rpgs that are pretty good. Which is cool to somepeople such as casual gamers or people that just like the fact that they can play a game like that on a phone.
I second the nomination for Avadon. As other poster have mentioned, they [WRPG] are few and far between but they do exist - mostly for the iPad. I will one day buy a new motherboard for my PC and get it working again (inc. new pair of speakers - the old ones are now 13 years old!), purely to play older RPGs e.g. Ultima VII, Planescape Torment (if it isn't ported to iOS), resume Morrowind - shed loads of player DLC that expand the game), Vampire:Bloodlines, resume Fallout 3, and last but not least, ME and DA. I would recommend Farenheit if you have never played it [Pc]. Even though it is more interactive fiction - beginning, middle and a number of different endings - how the story unfolds and your interactions with other characters, makes the game one of the best pure role-playing games and certainly one of the most engrossing narratives (especially with a soundtrack composed by Angelo Badalementi) I have had the pleasure to play. P.s. I grew up with text adventure games of the mid-80s on the C64. Alas, I was too poor to be able to afford a disk-drive and missed out on the real golden age of adventure games (Infocom and Rainbow Scrolls).
Just to clarify this mistake many people make. A huge intro (or anything similar) is BAD writing, not good. Not only in games but also in movies and even books. Huge intros almost always means amateur writer. Nobody wants huge intros nowadays, that's one more reason why a good writing/story is important.
Darth Ronfar, while I wasn't really "around" during the SNES era, I have played a fair few JRPGs, such as most of the Final Fantasy series. Thank you everyone for your suggestions, I'll be getting some more itunes credit today and freeing up some space on my ipod, to try out some of your suggestions.
I second the Farenheit recomendation, although is more of an adventure game than a rpg, but it does have a rather interesting story and its pretty immersive.