Destiny: Rising first impressions - "An alternate destiny begins…"
- It's the first fully mobile Destiny entry
- The MMORPG contains a lot but still fits
- Control layouts can feel awkward in combat
When Bungie decided they would make something that wasn't Halo, many of us were excited, or at the very least curious. This led to the successful and online-dependent series Destiny, and Netease has taken the ball and ran with it into Destiny: Rising. This entry is taking the universe mobile and has quite the challenge ahead. It must carry all that third-person sci-fi MMORPG shooter action onto a screen no bigger than an extra fancy place card. There's a lot of visual detail to worry about and even more gameplay to squeeze in… so, it'll be fun to check on their progress.
What is Destiny: Rising?
When it comes to RPGs (and sci-fi, for that matter), there's a tendency to not really pay attention to the timeline, or just create additional ones as you start writing new stories. Destiny already has a vast universe, but Destiny: Rising is looking to take it on in its own way. It tells the story of the Traveler, a large white orb of whatever-floats-your-boat, which arrived on Earth sharing its light energy and allowing humanity to rapidly advance beyond its means and create an era of peace.
However, all good things must come to an end and Earth was attacked, the Traveler was damaged, and much of the planet was destroyed. Still, our favourite white orb still had enough light to protect the last remnants of humanity and give birth to the Ghosts, who could revive people with the potential to wield the light against darkness. So grab your powers, your guns, and armor, because it's your destiny to fight for Earth.
Destiny: Rising up and down
Right from the start, it's impressive that the Destiny: Rising team managed to capture much of the vastness of the Destiny series into a portable form. Just looking at the visuals shows the amount of effort that went into trying to keep the level of quality we've come to expect from new entries. Some concessions had to be made, namely in the customisation department, so you won't be able to tweak your character as thoroughly as in the other games. The enemy and vehicle models may not be as high-res as those you might find on a console, but for a tablet - or dare I say, a phone - it looks pretty good.
Characters
Returning to the character front, the shift away from extensive customisation has made room for this entry to explore another popular model: The hero model. While the story focuses on a main character called Wolf, you don't have to be fully locked into their shoes, albeit the futuristic wolf-shaped space helmet looks cool. The design implies that more characters will be added to the team who you can switch between for different gameplay styles and weapons. For now, Wolf is a solid introduction to this part of the Destiny story, with effective shooting mechanics and flashy abilities to unleash in the multitude of firefights.However, since much of the character(s) details are handled by the design, this highlights another key element of the series: Loot and gear. A big part of the previous games was being able to jump into limited-time missions and raids for a chance to fight big baddies and get high-quality stuff. Considering how much work has been put into creating stable and reliable online functionality, it looks like Destiny Rising is going to go in that direction.
It already has plenty of pre-made missions to play on your own or with a squad for the usual loot, but the experience on its own can be quite exciting. As the enemies keep coming, you find yourself in the thick of it, unleashing everything you have and hoping you always have a safe spot for the prickly moments. There's already a sizable community building and this being a mobile game, there are a lot of opportunities to create weekly or even daily events to take on.
That being said, we are hitting the biggest yet and most damaging speed bump: The controls. While the game will likely have controller support, the beauty of having this game on a mobile device is that you don't have to carry accessories around. The designers have done a good job of reducing the controls to the most essential without making gameplay too simple, yet the onscreen UI is crowded.
Either the left or right side of the screen is going to be full of onscreen buttons which is the cleanest look but will inhibit how you look… With your eyes, not in appearance. Movement, jumping, and fighting work well enough, but the looking and aiming are slow and awkward with all the buttons in the way and only having so much space to move them. There is an auto-aim and auto-fire system in place for those who don't want to worry about looking sharp in the middle of a fight, but that robs a lot of the experience that Destiny is known to provide.
Fate Falling, Destiny: Rising
Destiny: Rising is the latest instalment in the Destiny series, taking the third-person MMORPG shooter to the mobile platform. The team has managed to bring a lot of the feel and presentation of the IP to such devices while not being too demanding. Everything functions well and looks like it could fit alongside its peers, especially with an already active and supported online community to help it grow.
While there are still a lot of kinks to work out, a wise use of that time would be to offer more touchscreen controller layouts so that everything can play as smoothly as we hope it will continue to run. Whether it's your destiny to watch its development is up to you.
