iYamato, Geppetto’s WWII survival shooter game, has recently been released into the app store. While boasting terrific wartime sounds and beautiful graphics, the repetitive gameplay and limited controls serve to hamper what could otherwise be a very immersive, enjoyable experience.
As commander of the Yamato, the Japanese Combined Fleet flagship, you are tasked with defending the so-called unsinkable WWII ship from Allied forces bent on sending it to Davy Jones’ locker. Your defenses, and we mean ONLY defenses, consist of your main guns and your deck cannons. There will be no outmaneuvering the attacks. You must balance your firepower against swarms of enemy planes, bombs, blimps, and other such weaponry that continually barrage the Yamato. Eventually, you are going down. The point of the game is to remain afloat for as long as possible. At times, part of your ship may be submerged underwater, as you take damage from the constant attacks. Your ability to defend yourself will become more difficult as a result. Once you become overwhelmed and the last bit of your ship disappears below the surface, the screen fades to white and it’s glub glub glub for you.
Graphically, Geppetto clearly went through a lot of trouble to make this look impressive, and they have succeeded. We were sold on the game by looks alone. The sound also oozes quality. Your controls are fairly simplistic and require little effort to operate or strategy to persevere. Your main guns are controlled by touch buttons at either bottom corner of the screen. Keep contact with the buttons and they will continue to fire. Slide your fingers left or right to control the aim of both the main guns and the cannons. Cannon fire is controlled by left and right buttons between the center of the screen and the main gun buttons. Tap these for a burst of cannon fire. As cannon fire is more powerful, you’ll see more pronounced effects from their use, but must also wait a couple of seconds for them to reload. Balancing the use of these weapons and employing precision aiming is the key to going the distance.
On its surface, iYamato is a polished survival game. Unfortunately, it leaves the player wanting more. More control over the action, more defensive mechanisms, perhaps some type of power-ups, an upgrade system tied into successful defense against enemy swarms, the ability to move around and avoid some attacks….. anything, really. We grew bored with the game fairly quickly. Also, the controls buttons felt very low on the screen. It was uncomfortable to have to keep our thumbs so low. The buttons could stand to be a touch higher. Despite its national and global leaderboards, iYamato lacks some of the key replayability factors that bring us back again and again. With its $0.99 price tag, it won’t cost much to try it and see for yourself, but unless Geppetto does some significant update work (which they do appear committed to at this point), we may just let iYamato and its 3-Dimple rating rest at the bottom of the sea.
iYamato gets our AppSmile 3-Dimple rating:
