Heroes of Steel

Heroes of Steel is an extremely long RPG with a very detailed storyline. It’s a “top down” view which takes a little getting used to, but works really well. It’s free to download and try, then there’s a one-off IAP to unlock all the current chapters. The devs estimate 30-40 hours and that’s probably on the conservative side.

Combat is turn-based and pretty strategic. You have a party of four players who are very class-locked in terms of their skills and abilities: a fighter, a mage, a cleric and a thief. You can also IAP alternatives to these characters that may be a bit stronger or have a slightly different focus (like a paladin vs a pure fighter). You can also reskill characters but you either have to find and save up ore or pay an IAP to do it.

Command your party of four heroes as they fight to protect the last remnants of humanity. Born in a time of warring gods and dark powers, your four unlikely heroes embark on a grim journey set in the sprawling and immense post-apocalyptic medieval world of Steel.

You find lots of eq as you travel through dungeons, and can also craft better equipment from basic ones you find/buy. This is quite a hard game, with the Normal game mode being pretty challenging. The game can also feel a little bit grindy in some areas with endless enemies. Usually when you’ve cleared out an area it remains permanently clear, but a couple of areas have respawns.

One issue is that the game is very linear in progression: you can’t apparently revisit earlier chapters if you didn’t manage a quest in them, and you may not be aware that you’ve just moved forward a chapter (and there are no earlier saves to return to – saving is real-time – if you die in combat it reloads you at the start of the round you failed at). If you get totally stuck in a dungeon, when you die you can “reset” and it will reset the entire dungeon and put you at the entrance, so you can at least escape.

Another issue is that the game is very dark: I played with my phone at full brightness all the time. (I’ve lightened the screenshot in this article or the detail would be very unclear).

Links:
AppStore
Official site