Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1 Review

Penny Arcade is the only webcomic that I've read consistently (if not every week) for the past 8 or so years. Other webcomics have risen, fallen, gotten good, gotten terrible (VGCats), or just stopped updating (Mac Hall ). Penny Arcade, through some magical ability to not burn out, has felt fresh and funny for all this time, and the guys behind it have developed quite a lot of clout amongst gamers, it seems. It's almost as if it hit such a critical mass that somebody said "You know, if you guys think you know so much about how to make games, PROVE IT!" So they did.

If you don't want the first 2 minutes of the game spoiled, skip this section

PAA:OTR-SPOD:E1 (I just had to do that once, I'll stop) starts out pretty stoically. A disembodied voice introduces your character and gets distracted, telling you that you need to rake your lawn before he'll continue talking. While that's weird, it's a way to prompt you to learn how to pick things up... and then...

*SMASH*

a gigantic Fruit Fucker smashes your house. This is, quite frankly, the most obvious direct reference to the strip that's in the first episode, and it's one of only a few that I managed to catch. This unfortunate event starts you on an epic (read: 5 hours, TOPS, if you're slow) adventure that plays out through a thicket of well-written dialogue, fast-paced if confusing at times gameplay, and solid if easy adventure portions.

My love for you is like a lovely river of loving, love!

The first thing that I have to mention, because it's really the first thing that you run into in the game, is that the writing of the dialogue and descriptions of things is FAN BLOODY TASTIC. Tycho is a fellow polyglot, and I flat out LOVE the sarcasm that drips through so much of the game. He's one of the few people anywhere that uses italics PROPERLY. The banter between characters is fantastically well-written and snappy. Reading a sign for "Mediocre Pies. They're just alright." is unexpected and funny. The amount of laugh-out-loud dialogue moments, for me at least, were plenty.

The setting deserves mention, too. Tycho's fondness for Lovecraft isn't exactly something he hides, so to see the entire world that the game takes place in just SCREAMS Lovecraft in all directions. It's a 1920's steampunkish setting with some magic sprinkled on, and a good dose of F bombs. It's all quite well executed, and it's definitely not a setting you get to see in many games.

I do have to bring up two problems with the dialogue, though. Firstly, the fact of the matter is, if you don't like Penny Arcade's humor, you won't like the humor in the game. To the game's credit, it does feel EXACTLY like a Penny Arcade strip. There's not much here that's going to convince you that Tycho can write humor if you're already convinced otherwise. The other gripe that I have is that, while the actual dialogue is written well, the plot could've stood to be a little less linear. While that partially could be explained away by the fact that it's the first episode, it kind of makes it feel like the game's general plot structure was written and then Tycho kind of wrote on top of it. I thought he'd be good for better plot twists.

Final Fantasy RANDOM CURSE WORDS Edition

As you explore the city of New Arcadia and its various suburbs, trying to find the various pieces of the puzzle needed to move the story forward (for my thoughts on that, see the next section), you'll occasionally have to beat people up to get from point A to point B. In a strange move, but one that lends its existence to the constraints of an adventure game, while you can see all the enemies before fighting them, there's a predetermined time and place that enemies will show up. In fact, one achievement revolves around destroying every possible enemy, and I didn't manage to get it my first playthrough. Considering the rest of the stuff related to battles is quite RPG-ish, it sticks out as odd, and not in a good way.

In all honesty, the actual battles themselves are a neat, if safe, take on a typical turn-based game. Each of your three characters (Yourself, Gabe, and Tycho) will, at the start of their turn, first charge their ability to use items, then regular attack, then their special attack (various flavors of "Push the right button at the right time" minigames. Nothing too special). While you wait for those to charge, the enemies will sit there and pound on you mercilessly. Thankfully, you can pull the right trigger to block attacks. The timing for some of the attacks is a bit tricky to learn, even with the white flash on the enemy's health bar. It's almost like a couple attacks have their sensitivity level set so high that you have to think ahead to even have a CHANCE at completely blocking the attack.

Even with the blocking difficulties, however, the game never becomes hard in the slightest as long as you're running around fighting everything. Well-executed blocks, and even partial blocks, nullify enough damage to keep your characters alive, and the fact that healing items heal a set percentage AND revive people (all in one item!) combined with the neverending supply of them means you can make it through the game without Game Overing incredibly easily. It really allows those portions to keep the player engaged without getting in the way of the adventure portions. Unfortunately...

It's like Monkey Island, if Monkey Island telegraphed clues a mile away and let you do things out of order.

...the adventuring portions are easy, incredibly telegraphed, and disorganized. The entire thing consists of "Find item A in area B for person C." Over and over again. Then person C gives you item D which person E was looking for. Wash, rinse, repeat. The actual things you're collecting (so as not to spoil the best one, I'll just say that hobo meat is the least of your worries) and the shock value related to them helps disguise the fact that the game is a neverending series of fetch quests. I didn't even really connect the dots until after I finished the game, myself. It's really disappointing that the actual adventure portions, which were, from what I gathered, the more highly advertised portions, weren't a little better.

Options? We don't need no stinking options!

One quick rant: The character customization is next to zero. For your male character, you get 3 outfits, 3 body types, 3 faces, 4 types of eyes, and something like 5 hairstyles.

It's justified somewhat by the fact that your customized character shows up in EVERY comic-book-style cutscene in the game how you designed him, but the small number of items is still a bone that I always pick with games that offer that feature.

Ending spoiler.

Spoiler:

The fact that the game wrecks your save by making it a "Look at what you did" menu after you beat the game is ANNOYING. I want to go back and get other stuff WITHOUT starting over, dammit!

:words: are only half the battle.

The problems with the adventuring also help to really sum up the game as a whole. Tycho is a brilliant writer. Unfortunately, the game uses that as a crutch, in some respects, infusing every pore of the game so much with excellent writing that it uses it to fill actual gameplay gaps. The adventuring is engaging not because of what you are actually doing, but because of the prospect of another hilarious dialogue sequence around the corner. The battles are fun not because of the battle system, but because a mime using an attack called "Now I'm Throwing a Boulder At You" just SOUNDS funny. And looks funny.

Yes, the game costs $20. That's a huge sticking point, and one that even I have to agree with. The game is great, but because of its length, $20 doesn't seem justified. $10 would be optimal, $15 I could understand because of the M rating combined with the lack of "gettability" outside of PA fans. $20, however, seems a bit much for a game that pushes 5 hours only if you're slow. If you're a PA fan, of any stretch, I'd at least play the demo to see if you'll like the full game. The writing really does sell the rest of the game, as good or as bad as that may be.

tl;dr version:

-Amazing writing that feels exactly like a Penny Arcade strip brought to life.
-Amazing writing that will NOT appeal to anyone who doesn't like Penny Arcade already.
-Amazing writing that saves an otherwise boring series of fetch quests arranged in a pseudo-linear order. (I'm hammering home the writing because it's THAT FANTASTIC)
-A safe take on a ATB turn-based RPG game that works well enough, but needs some tweaking.
-A safe take on a ATB turn-based RPG game that needs some depth added to it to support an entire series of games. It felt "done" even with how few things you end up having.
-Short game that has no replayability unless you're an achievement whore. And trust me, you're probably not getting the achievements on your first playthrough without a guide.
-Short game that packs a LOT of content into its small frame. It's just hard to justify going through the whole thing twice, believe it or not.


Jam it back in, in the dark.

=0 Huh! I didn't know if this was some gimmick release or not. Guess I'll try it~

Also, I like VGCats ;( Given, their updates are as rare as hell.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I played the demo on the 360, and I have to say while the gameplay bored me a great deal, I just loved the writing and the whole setting so much I didn't even realize it until after I finished the demo. It surprises me that the adventure game elements are a bit shoddy because of Ron Gilbert's involvement--you'd think he'd make sure it was all top notch.

The only thing I really don't get is the 3D stuff. Maybe it's just me, but it looks pretty terrible. Since the game also includes a lot of 2D (all the dialogs are in 2D, and look fucking fantastic), why not just make the whole game like that? I guarantee it would've looked about 5 million times better, and more true to the Penny Arcade pedigree as well.

Anyway, I'm a little hesitant to spend the $20, but on the other hand I enjoyed the demo enough that I'm probably gonna cave sooner or later. Thanks for the review Mo0!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

This up for half price next week on Xbox Live. 800 points

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?