by The Pokémon series includes some of the most popular releases for portable gaming systems of all time, but despite Nintendo’s continued reluctance to dabble in the smartphone market, we’ve yet to see a suitable clone come to iOS. With Monster Legacy, developer Outplay hopes to change all that. Its scrappy pet-battling game is so reminiscent of Nintendo’s original, in fact, that the main differences center around execution and setting than with gameplay.
Indeed, the broad strokes are the same. A young boy or girl serves as the hero, the whole business of capturing critters and making them fight remains, and monster evolution makes the cut as well. You even get to hunt for wild monsters in the grass, and a mage-like “Mentor” stands in for good ol’ Professor Oak. The differences emerge once you realize you’re not jaunting about the countryside competing for awards; you’re tasked with saving the world of Arborea from a grumpy chap called Ardur.
