Impressions: SONG SUMMONER: The Unsung Heroes (iPod)

Finally there's an iPod game that was interesting enough for me to try out gaming on my 5th-gen iPod. Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes from Square-Enix is a role-playing/strategy game similar to Final Fantasy Tactics series, but much more simple in many ways. Its story, characters and dialogue are absolutely ridiculous which may make playing the game somewhat uneasy for certain people, but if you can look past that it's not too bad a game especially at its 5€ price point.

Still, I did have some major problems with it. They're not as much about the actual game as they are about playing games on an iPod. The game suffers constantly from low framerates which make the otherwise surprisingly convenient click-wheel controls feel very irresponsive and slow. Another annoying thing are the loading times. It's not that they're very long but you'll be seeing a loading screen between almost every menu screen and action. In addition to this the game is loading and using the hard drive constantly in the background which surely puts a huge strain on the battery which will drain out quickly especially on older iPods. The 5th-gen iPod also heated up considerably while playing. I really hope these problems only occur with the older iPods as without them I could easily recommend the game to anyone who likes japanese style RPGs.