Flipping Legend

This action game balances strategy and retro gameplay in a very engaging experience that will appeal to a lot of gamers. It features impressive graphics: a blend of 3D backgrounds and pixelated characters that could have walked out of a retro gaming experience. Its levels get slightly more challenging as you advance, which helps keeps things interesting. Players leap forward on a checkerboard-like ground that's composed of dark and light squares; the differentiation can help them figure out where they are and where they need to go to engage in battles or pick up coins that can be used to unlock characters. As they play, gamers will be working toward time-based challenges -- for example, they might have to defeat 125 forest bandits in a limited amount of time. The actual battles don't initially require a tremendous amount of logic or skill; you'll win a face-off if you land on an enemy's square. But because you can pretty much only move diagonally and backwards, playing the game requires some thought, which is a plus; you need to use logic and strategically plan out where you're going to step next -- on a square where you'll crush an enemy, for example, or on one that will allow you to avoid falling into an open pit and dying.

The experience could benefit from clearer directions. The game has virtually no written instructions, there's no real FAQ, and instead of offering any information, the support link leads to a page on the developer's site with an email address to contact for more info. While the lack of required reading should make it easier for younger kids to play, it can cause some confusion when you first start using the app, or if you have a question at some point down the road. Because the controls are pretty intuitive, it's not really something that would prevent kids from enjoying playing -- but the app's abundance of ads might. Not only are players frequently prompted to watch an ad for a prize, ads for other game-based apps pop up after every couple of rounds, which really interrupts the playing experience. You can pay to prevent that, but it'd be nice if the developer would voluntarily cut back on the amount that are shown. If it did, given the look and fast-paced, fun nature of the game, it'd be hard not to describe the app as a flipping good time.