The N-Gage, once lacking in RPG titles, has had a change of face lately, with a steady flow of decent role playing games such as The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey, Nokia's own Requiem Of Hell and The Roots: Gates Of Chaos, all N-Gage exclusive too! The Roots (which also has a bigger, bolder console version coming soon to Xbox and PC) sticks to the mindless hack and slash, gain experience points, level up and hack some more routine, but it certainly doesn't feel tired or generic in this instance. The game is a prequel to the original Roots title, its storyline taking place thousands of years beforehand. One feature that might make prospective Roots gamers foam at the mouth is the fact that this game boasts unlimited character development; there is seemingly no end to how powerful your character can become. The game even encourages you to do just that, by placing items of high value around the maps, which can only be used once you achieve a certain level of experience.

Presented beautifully, from the start menu to the HUD and inventory, the artists have pushed the N-Gage to the limit, creating a look and feel that blends in with Roots' mythical worlds. The use of colour is astounding, vivid landscapes painted with a rainbow of colours, making no two levels the same. Alas, the game's sometimes-muddy visuals can be an unwelcome sight, which can prove cumbersome in battle scenes. You even lose track of your character when the fighting becomes intense and enemies swarm around you. Contributing to this discomfort is the recurring thorn in the N-Gage's side - lag. The frame rate is average to decent most of the time, but it stutters at various points during the levels, when too many enemies are on screen at once or when the environments overwhelm the console's aging hardware.

All the characters are available to choose from the start. You can select from a demented Warlock, a cunning Thief, a strong Paladin, a mighty Sorceress or a fierce Warrioress. You begin the game with your character, a simple weapon and a small amount of gold. The first levels are very slow and will most likely put anyone looking for a quick mobile game right off this title. It's not for the impatient but if you work at it, you will unlock everything great that The Roots has to offer. The real fun starts to happen when your character passes level 13 or 14 - and that's about seven hours into the gameplay.

The layout of the levels and worlds becomes familiar after the first area is cleared. You must pass four levels in each area, each with its own difficulty level, represented by a number of skulls displayed before you enter, ranging from one skull to four. Each level is around five minutes long and consists of fighting your way through hordes upon hordes of enemies, then reaching the end of the zone to face off against an end of level boss. The transition from the standard battling to boss battle is impressive; the music and lighting become more intense, as does the action. Even the console vibrates in unison with the flickering luminance. It can be heart racing when a large demon creature with powerful attacks is pursuing you, but usually one or two blasts of your character's magical talent can put any beast to sleep.

After you topple the boss, you are rewarded with an item, such as a piece of armour. More often than not, these are worth large sums of money, so it's wise to collect these items and sell them on to the local vendor, if you don't plan on equipping them. Speaking of equipping items, your character can equip numerous sections of armour, such as a helmet, shield or boots. These do not suffer any damage, which eases the challenge a little but may disappoint some die-hards out there. You could play through the whole game wearing the most basic suit of armour and it will be untainted - although this is not recommended, unless you want an extreme challenge!

If you have passed the game entirely or are just looking for a change to progressing through the levels, you can take time out to visit the Bounty Hunter in the local town, who has a number of side quests for you to engage in. He asks you for a certain amount of different items and gives you a time limit, usually 20 to 40 minutes, to fulfil his tasks. Once you complete a quest, you receive a reward, in the form of a rare weapon or valuable item to assist you upon your journey. It is most certainly worth checking out his quests every now and then.

The levelling up process works on the basis of experience points, which you gain by killing enemies. Your level of experience is displayed in your player's menu, brought up by pressing the 2 key in game. When you have gathered enough experience points for a level up, a flashing orange icon appears in the top right of the screen. You can now access your player's menu again, where you are awarded points to distribute among various aspects of your character. You can add points to your attack, defence, health and magic levels. Depending on how you want to develop your character, you make choices based on this, for instance, if you want your character to be skilled in combat, award more points to your attack and defence levels. After this, you can proceed to level up your magical talents and other abilities, such as attack rate and accuracy. Roots offers quite a lot of control over character development for a mobile game.

The controls are customisable to whatever you are comfortable with, but I left them at default, which is very intuitive. The 5 key functions as an action key, to interact with people or pick up items and navigate the menu. Key 7 is your primary attack key, for a thief it fires an arrow, for a paladin it swings your sword, etc. Keys 8 and 9 are used to execute your chosen magical talents, sort of magic attack hotkeys, coming in very, very useful - especially when you find yourself overrun by a slew of enemies or under pressure from a level boss. Keys 4 and 6 are hotkeys to replenish your character's health and magic gauges, which are shown on screen as red and blue vials. Other keys are used for map and inventory functions. It all becomes second nature after an hour.

There is a wireless multiplayer mode included, where you can team up with a friend to battle the underworld, or trade items. This is a nice feature, provided you actually know someone else with an N-Gage and a copy of this game on hand. Alternatively, you can play in a competitive mode against two to four of your friends. The Roots is lacking online features and in a game where online item trading would be ideal, this seemed at first like a glaring omission. However, the fact that the core gameplay is so involving and addictive, compensates for this minor shortfall.

The music is completely fitting to the theme; ghostly and enchanting sounds accompany you throughout, with the music changing when you enter a battle, (which is very frequent) to a faster track, of beating drums and crashing cymbals. The different enemies you encounter during the course of the game also have slightly varied death cries and beastly growls. The sound is of variable quality though, as there seems to be a constant fuzz in the background. This becomes easy to ignore once you clock up the gaming hours however.

With an awesome array of characters to choose from and a lot of controls and commands (seemingly) to learn at the beginning, The Roots: Gates Of Chaos feels overwhelming. It is in no way a short-lived experience; you can easily rack up 60 hours of gameplay, levelling ever upwards in a seemingly endless world of magic, beasts and fantasy action. Lack of arena features for once isn't a major letdown, as The Roots has more than enough gameplay and longevity to make up for that. If you want a lengthy, action based RPG title on the go, then The Roots is perfect for you.

Reviewed by Dan Whelan for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).