[2019] Runescape 3 Mobile - A Review

So, RS3 Mobile's been out... just shy of 2 month now (7 weeks 2 days as of this writing). I've been using it on a Lenovo Tab 4 - 2gb RAM/16GB storage, so I will caveat this review with the note that my device only just meets the minimum system requirements. But, feedback is feedback, and I hope that the information i provide can do Jagex some good with streamlining the app.

My first nitpick is a feature I discovered to be entirely missing from Mobile almost as soon as I got it running: The Sheathe Weapons button. On PC, this is done by pressing * on the Number Pad or by right-clicking the gear on the Action Bar and selecting Draw/Sheathe Weapon. On Mobile, this is done... not at all. I spent a full 20 minutes poking around the UI trying to find the button, to no avail. So my first bit of feedback is to add this somewhere for those who enjoy the aesthetic of sheathed weapons and frequently switch between Revolution and Legacy Combat Mode (when exiting Legacy back into Revolution, weapons are left constantly drawn). This can be added by tap-holding the settings gear in the combat UI, tap-holding the bubble that opens the combat settings menu, and/or by tap-holding the Adrenaline/Special Attack bar - and given how much redundancy is already in the Mobile UI in some areas, I won't object to adding the option to all three.

Anoher small nitpick is that a lot of items

tend to overlap the outside edges of the equipment slots they're equipped in. Not shown here are the Large Rune Pouch and the Demonic Skull, which also do this, as does almost every item nearly the size of the box on PC.

Next up is stability. For an app still in beta, RS3 Mobile is remarkably stable - since I started using the app about a week after Mobile Early Access first launched, I've only had three crashes. The first was while trying to load W84 Combat Academy during DXP - with probably upwards of a thousand players in the area, more than a dozen training dummies active, every portable skilling location available deployed, and particle effects/hitsplats going off literally everywhere. My Mobile client gave a valiant effort in trying to load this absolute clusterf*ck and only gave up the ghost after about 30 seconds, and I'll easily forgive it this - I fully expected a crash in this situation. The second and third happened today, while trying to gather a few last screenshots for this review and toying with graphics settings. The second crash was upon trying to exit the home menu with Water Detail turned to high while standing next to the River Lum, next to the Fairy Ring outside the GE. The third was in the same spot with Water Detail set to medium. Low did not produce any problems, but was not noticeably different from Water Detail off. I blame this entirely on my device not being able to handle that specific level of detail.

There are, however, significant graphical hiccups in Mobile that cannot as easily be explained by a low-grade device. This generally tends to involve particle effects and the like (and generally doesn't affect performance), though I will be documenting these issues here. This set of issues can be summed up by one phrase: Squares. Squares everywhere.

A few pieces of evidence:

• At Brilliant Wisps.

  
  Note the item icons for Brilliant energy, Brilliant Memories (the darker purple squares) and Enriched Brilliant Memories (the bigger, light purple square), as well as the wisps themselves and the steam from my Steam Battlestaff.

• My Cosmetic Outfit, from the back.

  
  Full Inactive Vitality Suit with inari Tail and Purified Swords and Crystalline Wings. Note the squares around the handguards of the swords, all over the tail, and around the lantern at the GE.

• Same outfit, from the front.

  
  Mystical Gaze aura override is also active (and square). Note as well the squares on the chest where there's usually particle animation on the Vitality Suit.

• Purified Swords particle effects while running.

  
  My character flees in terror as a stream of squares chases him across the north wall of the GE.

• Crackling procs while AFKing Hellhounds.

  
  In addition to being a big cloud of white squares, this particle effect noticeably persists for 2-5 seconds longer on Mobile than on PC. As one can see from the Crackling Cooldown debuff at the top of the image, Crackling activated a full five seconds before taking this screenshot, and persisted for 2-3 seconds afterward - on PC, this typically only lasts 3-4 seconds.

The next set of screenshots deals with another issue: Textures themselves not loading properly. This pertains pretty much exclusively... to leaves on trees. Cases in point:

• Just south of the Eagle's peak lodestone.

  
  I was on my way to a Coordinate Clue in Arandar Pass and grabbed this one pretty much at random about two weeks ago. Note on the minimap all the white blobs - all trees, all white.

• Kharshai Jungle.

  
  Notably, the larger palm trees have white leaves, but the smaller, choppable Jungle Trees have properly green leaves. These are the only trees in the game that seem to be green on Mobile for me.

• Tirannwn Forest.

  
  Everybody wanted Priff to get Christmas decorations. On Mobile, at least, Tirannwn is nice and snowy... and has been for two months. Also, related to the last point: note the nice, square flames on the Tracker's campfire.

Now, I hear some people saying "try turning Textures on." And that's the first thing I tried. Except... that doesn't work. And, in fact, it makes things worse. Two pairs of screenshots for this particular issue. Near the Underwall Tunnel at the GE, textures OFF.

Note that the walls look relatively normal, though lacking in brickwork detail. Now... Same spot, textures ON.

Note that the wall's color has lightened, and the pillars on it have partially disappeared. Additionally, those paying attention to the small bit of the GE floor at the bottom of the pictures will note that the circular floor has also lightened in color. For a more... obvious example, we head to the Farming Guild. Textures OFF.

Not pretty, but functional. Now, Textures ON.

Granny, Sam the Sheepdog, the player at the bank chest, the house, the ground... all bleached white like someone spilled the world's largest bucket of paint primer. I'd call this a relatively major problem, seeing as how, when called by the game's script, some texture files are straight not loading. Another area of note for Jagex where textures don't load... Treasure Hunter.

Finally, I will cover the app's saving grace: Functionality. Overall, Mobile is not nearly as pretty as RS3 on PC (at least, not until it gets a nice hard spit-polish, which I fully expect considering this is still a beta), but it works. I'll admit, it doesn't work quite as well as PC, but it works. You can, more or less, do pretty much anything you can do on PC, though I wouldn't recommend high-intensity activities. Don't bother setting FPS above 30, you probably won't get 30 FPS most of the time. There are some things to note:

• Mobile needs to work on recognizing tap, tap-hold, and swipe gestures a little better. Oftentimes while doing clue scrolls, I would tap-hold my Ring of Fortune to teleport to the GE and have nothing pop up - and as soon as I released the hold, the item unequipped as if I'd just tapped it. Other times, I'd swipe (to drag an item or rotate the camera) only to have the game act as if I'd tapped the spot the swipe started. Also, in particularly taxing areas/situations (like fighting Double Agents and Saradomin Mages, or whenever I'm up on the top of White Wolf Mountain), tapping items to equip or swap items doesn't always register.

• Some particularly click-intensive activities should be avoided. One of the first things I tried out was blooming Mort Myre Fungus for an hour. On PC, at my normal spot, I can typically generate 2600-2800 fungus per 1h12m run. But between having to tap-hold through Ghasts and Snails, having the game chop down a nearby tree when I actually tapped on the bloomed log nearby, and having the game select items on the ground when tapping nearby (and therefore opening the Area Loot interface), I only managed 1800 in the one run I did on Mobile. That's a pretty significant drop-off in efficiency.

• Speaking of Area Loot, one of the more irritating features of Mobile is when one manages to tap-hold an item stack on the ground, select a specific item, and select Take... it opens Area Loot regardless of what item you select. This is a problem in situations where lots of things have died in the area and left junk on the floor I don't want which fills the Area Loot interface to the point that the item I selected doesn't show up at all. I'd like at least an option to bypass Area Loot when specifically selecting Take on an item in a stack on the ground.

However, when one ignores or bypasses these issues, RS3 Mobile is a functional and mostly convenient way to access Gielinor when PC access isn't readily available - particularly for those who, unlike me, have access to mobile data plans and aren't tethered to WiFi for internet connections. You can do clue scrolls with remarkable ease (especially if you have another mobile device with the RS Wiki pulled up so you can cheat), and puzzle boxes are super easy with the Mobile interface. If you want to AFK a monster group, you can do so without significant problems - I even did this to the point that I got my first 99, Magic, in the Abyss on Mobile.

(Still continuing the Squares Everywhere point, take a look at my Abyssal Wand/Orb in that picture) It's slightly inconvenient to have the Components UI for Invention interrupt Disassembly actions on Mobile when it doesn't do so on PC, but I'll chalk that up to technical limitations and not complain. The UI is remarkably customizable for a mobile app (being able to add or remove Ribbon buttons at will), and having access to up to two (or even three) action bars with how the combat UI works is extremely convenient. I frequently miss my grossly oversized minimap from PC when traversing long distances on Mobile, but the minimap is just the size it needs to be for the Mobile interface - and being able to turn it off for a more compact interface is nice. You can, in fact, make almost the entire UI go away with a few buttons if you want screenshots of an environment or greater access to the area around you for navigation. Despite the fact that much of this post is dedicated to detailing bugs or nitpicks, those problems are either avoidable or ignorable with no real drawbacks.

In short, once Mobile is fully complete and released, I have absolutely no doubt that the performance will be more streamlined and that the issues outlined above will be resolved. Even with all of its issues, I give the present state of RS3 Mobile a solid 4 out of 5. Now, if the game will give me a Shadow Dye from my Hard Clues as a Christmas present, I'll be a real happy camper.

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