I don't know how I managed to miss this for so long but last December a new entry to iPhone snuck in there which was an instant no brainer for me to buy. $5.99 will get you a complete port of an old Mega CD RPG called Vay. Now back in the day I was one of the few loyal hardcore Sega fans that raced out and bought the bulky add on. I sold my Teac player at the time to help fund it! LOL But games were few and far between. Sega did a rubbish job of distributing titles and once again it was up to my contacts at the time to help me out with grey importing. One title that escaped me all this time was Vay. If I had of known of it's existance I would have snapped it up immmediately.
Vay is your typical Japanese RPG. I say that in a nice way as this form of gaming is my bread and butter. The game starts off with a video manga intro (not the best animation by far) showing a prince marrying his mysterious bride. But the whole shebang is interrupted the land is under attack and you lose your bride to be and your parents. Bummer eh?
So we start by trying to work out the controls. The original game was brought out by a little known company called SIMs. But this re-release has been modified immensely to bolt onto the iPhone. Controls are now achieved by tapping to where you wish to move to on the screen. Sounds clunky but it works surprisingly well. All text is retained from the original game but is now displayed in the iPhone font. You tap the message to scroll through dialogue. Also all menu screens, such as weapons, inventories, etc, are displayed via iPhone menu screens. Kinda strange at first and yes you do lose that 90's retro feeling when you see the iPhones crisp text. The in game screens are all the original Mega CD screens but the battle screens (turn based btw) are totally reworked by SoMaGa (the company doing this port).
Check out Youtube and type in Vay, iPhone and I'm sure you'll find a review or two there.
Personally I am wrapped that a company has taken on such a project with some attention to detail. It's a shame thay they didn't revamp the graphics in any way but the music from the CD, which was always Mega CD games biggest drawcard, has been faithfully brought over to the iPhone experience which is a real treat. All the video animation sequences play out via the iPhones video capabilities. You get to quickly get out of the game (say if a call comes in) and you can pick up where you left off with no hassles. HOORAY! Save points have always been a gripe of mine with RPG's. But you still need to save often as you'll only be able to return to your last save point if you should die in battle.
I hope Sega take a look at this game and get motivated to re-release some old Mega CD titles. Also I hope Lunar (which I have!) gets the iPhone treatment and Lunar 2.
Top points to SoMaGa for bringing back the old skool!
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