QuestRun (iOS) Review

There are many things a usual fan of the RPG genre will initially miss when starting up QuestRun for the first time, the most obvious being character customisation and proper menus. That is, however, where its charm rests. QuestRun is an RPG experience designed to take away as much unnecessary filler material as possible and only focus on the core combat of the genre.

The problem, however, is that in its quest to trim the experience as much as possible, Cuve Games might have taken away a little too much, including what makes RPGs fun to begin with. The main point of a role-playing title is to plan in advance and use a proper strategy to win. This works perfectly in the title's predetermined quests that demand the player to use perfect strategies to win. However, in the main story quests, this factor is heavily downplayed. This is due to heavy RNG rolls deciding everything from what heroes to run with, to what enemies to face and what loot will drop. Also, the fact that QuestRun lacks most forms of permanent progression makes it almost impossible to affect the odds for a successful run in any way, which is a core piece of RPG design. This ends up creating unfair gameplay that is more often than not balanced heavily to the player's disadvantage.

Another core problem is that its difficulty is initially way too high, with no easing in at all. This would normally not be too much of an issue, but as the goal is to appeal to people usually not into the genre and casual players, the finely tuned and unfair difficulty is indeed a big issue. The fact that the difficulty is also heavily dependent on RNG rolls only pours petrol onto the fire and creates an imbalance and, more importantly, a boring experience.

To counterbalance this, however, QuestRun has some design oversights that make it possible for players to strongly abuse the level-up system in ways that make it possible to, for example, reach the maximum level in the very first fight each time. It could technically be seen as cheating, but nobody will likely feel bad about it in a game that almost cheats against those playing it in the first place.

Overall, QuestRun is a title that took it upon itself to try to alter the RPG model to suit an entirely new fan-base, but in the end it succeeds in appealing to no one. The issues in balance make for a game that either forces the player to be dirty or expect to die in cheap and unwinnable setups. The pre-made scenarios are sort of enjoyable, yet too finely tuned even from the get go, which creates a too difficult experience from the very beginning. However, the main dungeons that pose even heavier RNG-based development and threats are going to end up a complete mess where most of the setups will be semi-unwinnable from the very start. The fact that QuestRun can even propose entering a dungeon with a party lacking any healer should be seen as an insult towards those working through it and their in-game wallet, which will take a heavy hit every time they are enforced to re-roll the party. It is cheap free-to-play mechanics in a pay-to-play game.