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Inotia 3: Children of Carnia is the third installment in the hit RPG series The Chronicles of Inotia. It is available both for the iOS and for Android. The app itself is completely free and can be finished without paying a single dime despite the existence of the in-app store. Choose from six different classes, each with their own distinct skills, and journey across hundreds of different regions. Battle monsters along the way and gather items to complete quests. Protect your loved ones and your country and seek revenge as you play Lucio, a young boy struggling to accept his destiny and figuring out how to confess to the love of his life.

Amusingly enough, I played the next installment Inotia 4 before I played this one so this review will include a comparison of the two games.

Minimap: One noticeable difference between Inotia 3 and Inotia 4 is the minimap. While it is located in the top left corner in Inotia 4, the minimap was originally in the top right corner. You will see a map icon there and tapping it will reveal the minimap. Whenever you move to a new scene, the minimap will once more hide itself. The minimap is also transparent so you can see behind it. Tapping on the map icon again will give you the world map, which can be quite handy when you have absolutely no clue as to the location of your next destination.

Stats: The stats of each character class differ from each other by a great amount. Some have better physical stats while others mental ones. Stats will be automatically updated every time your characters level up so you won't have to rack your brains to figure out the best way to distribute your stat points. Each class also has different types of skills (essentially magic spells in other games). These skills can be learned using Skill Points. You gain one Skill Point every time you level up. However, if you recently added a party member you'll have a whole pocket of unused Skill Points as none of them have learned skills. If you're ever unsatisfied with your Stats, you can pick up some Dice from monster drops. Rolling a pair of dice will randomize your stats, for better or for worse. Thank goodness that each roll is not permanent as you have the option of choosing to reject the new stats if they're worse than your current ones.

Inventory: The inventory in Inotia 4 follows the same mechanics as those in Inotia 3. You are limited to 16 items at first until you find or purchase more bags to increase your inventory space. However, I have noticed that it is considerably much more difficult to find more bags from monster drop offs in Inotia 3 than it is in Inotia 4. You could, of course, always purchase more, but the bags are very expensive. Also, the largest bag you could purchase will grant you eight slots will this number is increased in Inotia 4.

Another very noticeable difference is how items are picked up in the game. In Inotia 4, you simply needed to walk over the object in order to pick it up. However, in Inotia 3, you must press the Action button in order to pick up the item. If your inventory is full, you always have the option of dropping your old items in order to obtain the new one. Personally, I like this method better than the one in Inotia 4, although it is slightly annoying. Since the new item you pick up could be an inferior version or it's something you later realize you don't want, you can always pick up the item you previously dropped. Of course, this only works if you remain in the same scene. In Inotia 4, you had no choice but to destroy the item you wanted to "drop", and I often find myself regretting my choice.

Mercenaries: While Inotia 4 relied more on mercenaries (It was also much easier to find Emblems to summon them), Inotia 3 has less mercenaries for you to obtain. In Inotia 3, your party's power relies more on NPC characters that will join you during your quest. Mercenaries can still be obtained, though it is much harder to find Mercenary Emblems. Also, one very annoying thing I've noticed is that the other unused mercenaries in your team do not get any experience points. This can cause many problems due to unbalance in levels if you haven't used a mercenary in awhile. So make sure you constantly switch your party members around to avoid such problems. Inotia 4 fixes this problem by granting everyone in your party, both active and inactive, experience points. So thumbs up for Inotia 4.

Awakening Emblems: When new members join your party, none of them will have a complete set of skills. One way of getting new skills is to find Awakening Emblems. Using one of these emblems will unlock a new skill for the party member. However, they don't seem to always work. Too many times I have been told that the emblem failed to unlock a new skill. I don't know how these things work, whether it's completely random or not, but either way it can be frustrating knowing that you wasted an emblem. To make matters worse, these emblems are extremely rare and can only be found from monster drops. You can't even purchase them in the various shops in town. The other way is to use Skill Books. These books are even rarer than the emblems and are only geared to a specific character class. Also, you can only use them when that character has at least 15 Skill Points in a particular skill.

Equipping: Not every single character can equip all the items you have for him or her, and this is because of the character's class. For example, you can't equip plate or leather armor to mages. As a result, you really need to know which types of characters can equip what types of equipment in order to avoid wasting your money on equipment. In Inotia 4, you cannot unequip any items from NPC characters that join your party. However, in Inotia 3, this is absent. You're able to unequip items all you want. Even if the character leaves your party, you'll still be able to take away their items. So no more need to cry because you equipped a rare item to a NPC character only to realize that you can't get it back when they leave.

Unidentified Items: Along the way, you'll mostly pick up a number of Unidentified Items. These are items that you are not sure exactly what it is. For example, if you pick up a Helmet that is Unidentified, you don't know if it's a Leather Helmet or a Metal Helmet. You don't know any of the item's stats except for the level required to use it. In order to figure out just what it is, you'll need to Appraise the item. Appraising the item will reveal to you just what the item is and it's stats. You can perform appraisals in two ways: 1) Doing it in a shop or 2) Using an Item Appraisal Scroll on it. The first option will cost you 50 coins. The second option is more convenient in the wild, provided that you have scrolls, but such scrolls are hard to obtain. Unidentified items also cannot be equipped to a character. This can be a rather annoying and inconvenient process that heavily hinders gameplay and occupies inventory space. Thankfully, Inotia 4 gets rid of this mechanic.

Shops: Of course, no RPG is complete with shops, but the shops I'm talking about are not the ones that require you to spend real money. Inotia 3 has one to help you get some rare items to help your party, but purchasing them is completely optional. It is entirely possible to complete the game without spending a single dime. Anyhow, Grocery, Weapon, and Armor shops can be found in every single town. One somewhat annoying thing is that the shop will not tell you the maximum number of items that you can buy with your current amount of gold. If you end up purchasing too much, the game will simply tell you that you have insufficient funds and you'll be forced to recalculate how much you can actually purchase. Along the way though, you might find some Street Vendors in the wild. These vendors will appear randomly throughout different regions and will quickly disappear if you leave the region. Most of the items they carry are Unidentified and many don't have very good stats either. Think of these vendors as the black market. While I haven't found many items useful to purchase from them, they are a great way to earn some money and unload your inventory when you're not near a town.

Monsters: General monsters that roam the fields are slightly harder to defeat in Inotia 3 than they are in Inotia 4. This is mainly due to the fact that a large amount of your party members are Priests that rely mostly on supporting spells. In Inotia 4, your party is usually filled more with warriors and knights, those strong in offense. However, it is also because of the supporting Priest characters that it is harder for your party to die. No longer do you need to rely on potions as much to heal yourself.

Boss Monsters: Unlike in Inotia 4, miniature bosses are not marked on the minimap, so you'll have to go find them yourself. Most of the time they're hidden in a little alcove off the beaten path so if you're trying to complete a quest, look for those little nooks in the map. Also, the difficulty of major boss monsters are more suited to your level. They are not ridiculously hard as in Inotia 4 and it is unlikely that you will need to replay a level over and over again except near the end. Most of the bosses I was able to take out without using any potions and needing only very few resurrection spells. So certainly Inotia 3 is much easier to play than Inotia 4.

Resurrection: Let's be honest here. Your character or party will be defeated at some point in the game. At which point you have only two options: Resurrect the character or restart from a previous save point. In Inotia 3, you can use Resurrection Spells to bring back your dead characters. Do note that these spells will not grant your revived character full health so make sure to heal them fast in order not to waste another spell. In Inotia 4, you'll have the option of purchasing two different types of resurrection spells: the basic or improved one. The Improved Resurrection Spell will completely recharge your character's health and mana. However, if your entire party is annihilated, you will have the choice of either admitting Game Over or using a Resurrection Prayer. The Resurrection Prayer will revive everyone in your active party with fully recharged health and mana and you will be at the same spot in the game. This means that if you were battling a boss and have already whittled away its health to halfway, the boss will continued to have only half its health left after the Prayer is used. Handy if you don't want to try battling a boss again from the start. You're given two Resurrection Prayers at the start of the game and you can purchase more using Gems (the in-app store currency that require real money).

Fusion: In the game you will be able to pick up various items that are in the Combination Material class. These items serve no purpose except as recipe ingredients. You'll be able to find a Fusion machine in a town and combine said combination items to create a number of different items such as potions and crystals. You'll only be able to fuse items together if you have the recipe. These recipes can either be found from monster drops or purchased from a street vendor. You can then add these recipes to your Recipe Book. Duplicated recipes will not be added. As a result, what you're able to make is limited to what you can find. This in turn can be somewhat troublesome if you really need a recipe to make potions to save up on gold but can't find one.

Technical Issues: When I first started playing this game, I had absolutely no technical issues. The game installed fine and the gameplay was smooth. However, about halfway through the game, I noticed that the game had started to have a tendency of "freezing". I placed quotation marks around freezing because the game doesn't entirely freeze. All the monsters in the region are still moving and your party members are still counter-attacking. However, your leading character will not move or cast any spells, thus being completely unresponsive to the buttons. This can be very frustrating as you must push the Action button in order to attack a monster. If you're being attacked and can't counter-attack, it can quickly spell death for your character. You can only hope then that the rest of your party will be able to quickly deal with the menace. Sometimes, the usually long cutscenes will freeze and you have to give it a moment before it'll respond to your touch and continue. If not careful, your multiple taps might cause the cutscene to skip through the rest of the dialogue, leaving you somewhat clueless. At other times, I'm unable to read the words written near the end of the dialog boxes that pop up to give you more details about a quest because there are several layers to the words.

Conclusion: In the end, Inotia 3 is a must have addition for your digital game library for any RPG fans. For a free game, Inotia 3 does an excellent job. Plus you won't be constantly reminded to purchase items from the in-app store. Aside from some minor technical issues, the gameplay itself is very delightful and exciting. The game is addicting and you'll most likely end up spending hours and hours playing. While Inotia 4 did update and improve some things, there are still some things that Inotia 3 is better. The weaker bosses, for one thing, certainly make life much easier. This game features beautiful character graphics with excellent characterization. So go get Inotia 3 today! I rate this app 4 stars out of 5.

Controls: The controls are simple enough though they might look confusing at first. In the bottom left corner you have your directional pad. Tap on one of the four arrows and your character will go in the direction you want. In the bottom right, there is a circular action button. Press it to talk to other characters, opening treasure chests, or battling monsters. Around the action button are hotkeys that contains your spells. One of the hotkeys will contain your potions for easy access when you're in a tight spot and need to heal. In the top right corner you will be able to see your character's current HP, Mana, and Experience progress. On the left flank are three square buttons. The first button will allow you to save, the second to access the in-app store, and the third to go to the menu where you'll be able to see your inventory, equip your characters, along with other actions.


When you first start, you'll be able to choose from six different classes: Black Knight, Assassin, Warlock, Priest, Ranger, and Warrior. Each class has a different array of stats and skills. For example, magic users such as Warlocks and Priests usually have higher Intelligence and Mentality points but weaker Strength and Defense points than those who deal with physical attacks.

More details on skills: At the beginning, your character will have one skill available. Priests primarily deal with healing, while the skills of Assassins can allow them to strike multiple times to deal extra damage. After trying out all of the classes, I have found that Assassins, Rangers, Warriors, and even Warlocks have the best skills. Every time you level up, you will earn one Skill Point, which can be cumulated and used to learn new skills. Skills can also be upgraded, at an increasing rate of required skill points of course. Using skills will require spending mana at different amounts. Learned skills can be assigned to hotkeys as you won't be able to use any spells that aren't assigned. If you're playing on a tablet, I suggest that you assign the most frequently used spell right next to the action button on the bottom right so that you won't have to reach far when battling.

Profile: Whenever your character levels up, you'll earn three attribute points to upgrade your attributes. These attributes are Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, Intelligence, and Mentality. Unfortunately, the game does not explain what each attribute means. Strength and Vitality (HP) are obvious enough, but the others aren't as much. For example, does upgrading Dexterity mean that my character will be able to attack faster? As a result, this can be very confusing when you're trying to figure out how to assign your attribute points. If you want to reassign your attribute points, you can pick up a set of dice to randomize how they're distributed. If you're not satisfied with the redistribution, you can always cancel (though you'll lose the dice).

Quests: Along the way, you'll be able to go on quests to earn experience and coins. Whenever you see an exclamation point hovering over a character, you know that there's a new quest for you. After you've started, the exclamation point will change to a question mark to remind you that the quest is still in progress. Most of these quests are just optional sidequests that will require you to defeat a certain number of monsters in order to collect a certain number of items. Completing quests will earn you experience, coins, and sometimes even good items. When you've finished a quest, a question mark will appear next to the exit so you know where to go to claim your reward. You'll be able to see more details of the quests you're currently on and their progress in the menu.

Shops: One nice thing about the game is that shops aren't limited to just towns. Instead, you'll often find them in the most obscure locations in the game, which is great when you need to unload a few items from your inventory. You'll be able to purchase potions, inventory slots, and resurrection spells at Merchandise stores. There are also Armor and Weapons Shops to upgrade your attack and defense. Some items require you to reach a certain level before being unlocked though. However, I have noticed that all the items in the shop are fairly expensive. After battling so many monsters, I still wasn't able to earn enough money to purchase a sword. Also, the better equipment require silver coins, which can be difficult to obtain just by battling.

Inventory: At the beginning, you are allowed to carry a maximum of 16 items. As the game progresses, you will be able to buy more inventory slots in the form of bags that you can equip. However, these bags are expensive to purchase. You can equip at most 4 different bags (not including your initial). Make sure to upgrade your inventory space as soon as you are able to as you'll find yourself constantly trying to juggle what items you want to keep.

Mercenaries: Along the way, you will be able to recruit mercenaries to add to your party to help you out. Mercenaries can be summoned through Mercenary Badges. You'll gain your first badge on a quest. Other badges can be picked up from monster dropoffs or purchased at a high price. Each badge will summon a different type of mercenrary so you have absolutely no control who you will get. Summoned mercenaries will usually be a few levels lower than yours. Each mercenary, even if you get the same class, will have different skills. Unfortunately, you will not be able to edit any of your mercenaries' attributes or skills. The only thing you can change is their equipment. Mercenaries will automatically attack in battle. You can switch to them but you will not be able to access any potions. You can only have at most two mercenaries active in your party though you can summon more. Once a mercenary dies, you will not be able to switch it out to another mercenary though. In general, mercenaries can be a serious help in the game. Using them can help you make short work of monsters, so summon as many as soon as you get the chance. They have skills that will help raise critical attack and generate better treasure. Unless you're willing to spend real money, you'll only be able to have a maximum of six mercenaries in total. One extremely nice thing about this is that every character that you own, whether active or inactive, will continue to gain experience as you progress through the game. That way, you'll never have characters that are extremely uneven in level because you never used them.

Along the way, in order to complete quests, other characters will join your parties. These characters will disappear after the quest is done, but they lend a great help to your party when they are there. Sometimes, it might be a good idea to use this chance to level up the rest of your characters. They also have really good equipment. Unfortunately, you won't be able to "steal" their equipment as your own.

Fusion: Sometimes you will spot Fusion machines hidden in the landscape. Along the way, you'll be able to collect various Combination Items, that can only be used in a Fusion. You can combine these items in order to create potions and enhance materials. So far, I've only figured out how to make new potions (an inexpensive alternative to getting potions as long as you have Leaves of Life). The rest, such as Jewel Socket Creation, have all escaped me as to its purpose. It also doesn't cost any money to fuse materials together.

Ads: While ads won't bother you during the gameplay, they will, however, pop out when you open the menu. Thankfully, they aren't video ads, and you can just press the Skip button to continue. If you want, you can pay $0.99 to completely remove ads. If you're signed into Com2uS, all your purchases and save data will be rememberd on their website so you won't have to spend more money if you ever remove the app from your device and have to reinstall. Ads will also pop out on the title screen.

Conclusion: For a free app, Inotia IV is a RPG that is very well done. While there are in-app purchases to help make your gameplay smoother, it is completely possible to complete the game without spending a single dime. Right now, Com2uS is also giving out 60 free Gems (the in-app store currency) when you install the game. Character designs are extremely well done and each character has a very distinct personality. Grammar and the overall storyline is also not bad. You don't need to rely on other players in order to complete quests and you don't need to wait for something, such as a potion, to finish brewing. I would say that my main complaints are the extremely strong bosses relative to all the other monsters in the area and the expensive items. Also, the constant reminder to log into Com2uS is kind of annoying but can be easily ignored. Other than those, Inotia IV is an excellent game that will keep you occupied for at least hours, if not days and weeks. There's even extra gameplay after you've finished the game with the game's Infinite Dungeon where you'll be able to revisit bosses that are even more difficult than before. I rate this app 4 out of 5 stars.