The Apple Watch may not have caught on in popularity as quickly as Pokémon Go has, but that hasn’t stopped Apple from implementing some cool features into it. Released back in April of 2015, the watch is able to be a fitness tracker, a home controller for your smart phone, a notification device, etc., and soon it will also become another platform to play games.
Today Square Enix, developer of the immensely popular Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, announced the release of their new role-playing game exclusively for Apple Watch: Cosmos Rings. It’s a spin off of their company’s Chaos Rings franchise, and it be available through the Apple Watch Store. But just how much will gamers enjoy a game which uses a 1.5 X 1.3 inch screen? Below is the launching trailer Square Enix released.
According to Square Enix’s Press Center, the game
immerses players in a mysterious realm where they must face a whirlwind of pathos in an effort to bring back the Goddess of Time.
adding that the game will also
feature nostalgia evoking visuals, simple touch screen controls, and intuitive gameplay providing a unique experience to the Apple Watch.
While there has been other games released on the Apple Watch, most of those are simply games that are paired with your iPhone, letting you quickly play a game while your smartphone does all the real work. However, Cosmos Rings seems like a more promising game with better substance. Takehiro Ando, known for his involvement with Square Enix to develop Chaos Rings and Final Fantasy, is one of the talented names behind the game, along with producer Shun Kambe and art director Yusuke Naora. And judging by some of the photos released of the gameplay, it looks like the design and graphics are about as good as you can get for a screen that small.
The game will use the your watch’s pedometer to record your the amount of daily steps you’ve racked up. The Apple Watch’s digital crown device (the little knob on the watch’s side) will be used along with the messaging feature to allow players to rack up powerful combos with the active chain skill system and participate in automatic battles.
Whether people think the idea of an RPG on an Apple Watch is amazing or simply a joke, it’s still too early to decide since Cosmos Rings was just released today. The app will be listed on the Apple Watch App Store for $8.99, but if you buy it before August 31st, you’ll get it at a discounted price for $5.99. The game has only been announced to be released exclusively for Apple Watch, so it may not overtake PokemonGo as the game of the summer. Still, I’m interested to see how much deeper the RPG genre can go with this new game, no matter how minuscule it may be.