Before I go any further with this review I must point out two important facts. Firstly I am aware that this game has already received a mini review by my fellow reviewer Joel, secondly that this game is already very well known. So why this one then? Well, quite simply I have been enjoying Aldon's Crossing a lot recently and really wish I had been told more about it before.

Aldon’s Crossing is a Role Playing Game set very much in the same vein as the Rouge-like series of games. I have played many of these in the past, the first was Larn on the Amiga many years ago. Since then I discovered the Palm versions of these – iRouge and iLarn.

These games share a common idea. You as the player are the hero of the game, set in a world of goblins and dragons, armed with swords and spells. The game does give you free reign to play as you like. There are many guilds who enable you to specialize in certain areas, with the option to change to another guild whenever you like. When starting out in the game you get to not only name your character but also choose their strong points and weak points using a points sharing system. As part of this system you can also choose between being a Human, Dwarf or Elf, I personally stick with Human as it allows you to use any guild profession you like.

The other clever part of this setup process is the ability to choose what you look like – want a beard? Want to be male or female? Skin colour, the lot. This may sound a bit strange to anyone familiar with Rouge-like games as you play from a map like point of view, set above the player with the game moving when you do. However, you do get to see different character faces whenever a conversation is held as opposed to a screen of just text.

Rouge, Larn, Adom and countless others have been played using ASCII characters to represent things in the game, from surroundings to encounters. In Aldon’s Crossing things are quite different though, looking more like Redshift’s Dragonfire, with full colour graphics for everything. Aldon’s Quest is getting on a bit now and is currently only available in low-res, the coming sequel (assuming it is still coming), will be for hi-res machines. This is not a bad point however. Where Dragonfire looks fantastic it also feels a little dead, Aldon’s Crossing soon makes you forget that it is low-res due to the fact that everything is animated, even when your character is just standing still they will be tapping their foot or something.

Now earlier I mentioned the guilds, these play a very important role in Aldon’s Crossing. Basically a guild is a profession that you follow and develop. Anyone who has played ADOM will have a good idea of how this works, in Aldon’s Crossing you can actually change profession as you go along – at one point you need to. Each guild has strengths and weaknesses, it is a good idea to work out what you want to be whilst you are making your character, otherwise you may find that you have a mage (wizard) who cannot cast very accurate spells, a weak fighter or a thief with no sneaking skills. I won’t go into too much detail about them now, it really is a case of try it and see.

Aldon’s Crossing has another, very important trick up it’s robe. Companions. Whilst fighting the hordes of evil you may find that you could really do with some help. Well, if you have picked up a dog or cat at the start then they will stick loyally to your side and fight with you, often drawing attention away. When they get injured simply place over an enemy corpse and health will start to return, depending on how many they eat. If you want to have the benefit of having a humanoid partner to fight alongside then there are many in the taverns around the game. They offer their services for a one-time price. The advantages can be that they can carry items when you are maxed out, the downside is that they will need to use potions to heal quickly, not just free corpses. These companions are literally lifesavers, especially if against lots of bad guys and you are a mage out of power. You cannot name your companions, which at first seems a shame, however as far as a roleplaying adventure goes this is fine – after all, you cannot change peoples names just because they work for you in the real world. 

Last of all I should mention the controls for the game. The icons used for casting opening the inventory, casting spells, picking things up and everything else are all customizable. The menu used for this is split into 3 easy pages next to the main game screen, using tabs for easy and quick selection. It can be a little irritating when changing guild to have to set it all up again but it really doesn’t take much time. The actual movement control is great, tap an area with the stylus and the character moves there, even with a small amount of wall dodging. You can just keep the stylus held for continuous movement. The button controls are ok for the most part, unfortunately 5 way pads were not common when Aldon’s Crossing was made, so left and right don’t work. However, the stylus control is much more intuitive, so this shouldn’t detract from the gameplay.

There is a lot to this game, I have been playing constantly now over the past few days and am getting quite far into it (after a few restarts due to stupid career choices). The other really nice thing is that once I have completed Aldon’s Crossing there are many add-on quests available to develop my character further. In addition to this there is a map maker to design my own. Overall I would say that Aldon’s Crossing is a must have for any would be adventurer. With it’s graphical charm, humor and depth it will keep playing for a long time.