➤ Rangers of Oblivion, the review 🎮

With the arrival of Monster Hunter: World it seems that the world has definitively discovered the Capcom series, although this has been on the crest of the wave for several years, especially in Japan. The resonance obtained by the new chapter is destined to be felt for a long time between console and PC, finally assigning Monster Hunter a prominent place in the western play offer, with the mark left by this chapter that will be able to provide inspiration and examples from follow for those who want to try their hand at this particular meaning of the action RPG. Among the direct consequences of its success we can count the birth of new mobile titles that try to trace its structure, now a physiological reaction of the portable device market to any successful videogame product. Rangers of Oblivion clearly fits into this trend in search of the Monster Hunter on a mobile platform, but this does not mean that it is not able to be characterized by some specific peculiarities between style, setting and game structure, as we try to explain in this review.

To tell the truth, more than originality there is a certain well-balanced balance between various sources of inspiration that appear strongly in the features of the game: essentially it is a reduction to the smallest of the classic Asian-style MMORPG (not for nothing the production is entrusted to the Chinese giant NetEase) focused above all on hunt for monsters and on character growth through accumulation of experience, weapons and armor. In fact, the two genres have a large area of intersection that can easily give rise to numerous experiments of this type and Rangers of Oblivion manages to place itself in a point rather equidistant from the two main sources of inspiration, even if in the course of the game the closeness to the classic MMORPG becomes clearer. From a technical point of view, Rangers of Oblivion is simply spectacular and clearly demonstrates the value of the production fielded by NetEase for its development, with a truly high-profile graphics system for a mobile game that is reflected in the quality of the models of the various characters (although strongly related to the usual stereotypes of oriental taste) and settings.

The hunt and the role

After a spectacular presentation in computer graphics and a fairly complete editor, at least by the standards of mobile titles, the game turns out to be an action RPG apparently completely similar to the classic MMORPGs with an oriental construction fantasy setting. The structure of the quests, however, refers directly to the aforementioned Monster Hunter, as is immediately evident, being focused entirely on hunting monsters. The gameplay is divided between activities in the inhabited centers, where the social and character management phase ranking takes place, and the quest phase with exploration of the surrounding environment in search of materials for crafting and obviously the fight against monsters. Among these we find creatures more or less powerful and difficult to take down but we are definitely far from the epic levels that characterize many of the clashes in a normal Monster Hunter.

La hunting in Rangers of Oblivion it never reaches the impressive scale of some fights proposed by Capcom, limiting itself to a sort of balanced task, which can be challenging but hardly prohibitive or even epic. This is both because of the simpler design of the monsters and because of the mechanics of the combat system. To meet the limitations of the touchscreen controls, in fact, the fight takes place simply by pressing keys corresponding to simple attack, dodge and special abilities. Given the power of the latter, we are basically called to alternately touch the keys of the special moves limiting ourselves to wait for the cooldown times and possibly attack the weak points of the larger enemies to maximize the damage and the collection of materials, the only strategic element inserted in the clash. The focus therefore shifts above all to the character growth, on the conquest of the loot that leads to new weapons and armor more than on the pleasure of the fight, even if the animations make it all certainly spectacular to behold. As for the structure free-to-play, the game seems surprisingly fair in the management of resources and micro-transactions, so a try is recommended to anyone who is attracted by the setting and by the particular mixed RPG solution.

Comment

Tested version Android, iPad 1.2.2 Price Free Resources4Gaming.com

7.2

Readers (2)

9.0

Your vote

The race to find the mobile Monster Hunter has officially started and NetEase is immediately ready with a high-caliber challenger, but Rangers of Oblivion still carries several elements from classic online RPG to be able to propose a real alternative on this front. The combat system, while designed to work well on mobile devices, is also too simple and the clashes with monsters rarely reach moments of epic challenge as they should, being effectively the center of the gaming experience. Here we are still in an intermediate territory, which does not shine in any specific field but can satisfy for the vastness of the world made available and for the truly high-profile technical realization.