So, I was supposed to attend a 2-day class, but I apparently screwed up the dates in my head somehow and wound up missing the first day (yesterday). On the downside, I won't be able to take the course for about six months now. On the other hand, I discovered two whole days that I didn't know I had. And, since I had two of them, I couldn't see any good reason not to waste one of them decompressing on video games.





When I came home this morning, I downloaded the newly released "Penny Arcade Adventures - On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One" and plowed straight on through, start to finish. I was playing the 360 version, so bear that in mind when I keep mentioning button presses and so forth.

Penny Arcade Adventures is, in essence, a point and click adventure game. It has some RPG elements (such as stats, leveling and combat) but if you're expecting an RPG, you're going to be sadly disappointed. The joy to be had in this game comes primarily from exploring the environments, meeting the bizarre characters and enjoying Holkins' dark wit.





Just to get it out of the way, the game looks great. It's not a big-budget title and it doesn't pretend to be, but it very ably translates Mike Krahulik's art style. Transitioning from the 3D environments to the 2D, comic-style cut scenes is almost seamless. The animations are fluid and, in some cases, highly entertaining. The music is superb, blending into the background to the point that I honestly stopped thinking about it after a bit. Which is good, because there isn't much music to be had throughout.

The story revolves around the adventures of Gabe and Tycho in the city of New Arcadia, a steampunk setting where technology is on the rise and a belief in magic declining. The duo are operating the Startling Developments Detective Agency and have some new backstory but are essentially the same characters we've come to know from the comic.





A third character, who winds up entangled in their affairs, is created by you. There's a rather simplistic character creation system, with gender choice less than half a dozen options each for hair, facial shape and features, body type and clothing types. It's serviceable, particularly for a download title, but nothing incredible. Your character joins with Gabe and Tycho on an epic quest for revenge against a massive Fruit Fucker which has destroyed your house.

The world of New Arcadia is populated by an array of humorous characters and villains. Obviously, Fruit Fuckers play continual role as enemies but you'll also slaughter Hobos, carnivorous trash and other, more sinister threats. Along the way, you'll meet a scientist with a rather disgusting avenue of research, a humanist with questionable deductive skills and a re-imagining of Annarchy.

The dialogue is funny, for the most part, often dripping with sarcasm. There is, of course, no voice-over acting in the game and that's a wise choice. Apart from keeping the filesize down, it really doesn't need it. The writing of Penny Arcade has always sounded better in my head than when it's read to me. Besides, I'd rather keep my personal notions of the characters than have someone tell me what their voices sound like.





As you wander around New Arcadia, you're going to get into combat. You're going to get into a lot of combat. This is the part of the game that's going to garner the harshest criticism from most.

Essentially, the combat is a tiered version of the "Active Time Battle" system from Final Fantasy. Instead of only having a meter that, once filled, allows a character to take an action, each character has three dials that fill in sequence. First, Item Use becomes available, followed by Attack and then Special Moves. There's a block command you can employ to reduce damage by pulling on the right trigger just before an attack makes contact. It seems as though the intent is to keep players constantly involved in combat instead of passively giving commands, as combat sequences don't stop except during the execution of special attacks.





Each of the characters special moves work in a different way, going into a brief mini-game to determine your level of success. Gabe's game is a button masher, ending with a timed button press in a specific target range. Tycho's resembles a rhythm game, giving specific buttons (or directions) to press in a limited amount of time. Your character has to hit a button when an arrow passes through four target ranges on a dial. Special moves can also be teamed up (without their mini-games) for significant damage.

In addition to the party members, there are three support characters that become available throughout the game. They, too, have a dial that must fill before they can become active and it usually takes several battles. Each support character's attack damages all enemies on screen.

In practice, it suffers from a few flaws. Firstly, it takes a long time for that Special Move dial to fill, meaning that if you want to use it, you might as well be making passive commands for all the activity you'll be doing. Second, there really isn't much threat in battles. You might lose a character once in a while, but all health is restored after each combat and healing items are plentiful. Items in general, are as plentiful as they are useless. Except in certain circumstances, you'll have no reason to use anything but the heals (if that).





As I mentioned before, the RPG elements in the game are far from deep. Each character has four stats: HP, Attack, Defense and Speed. The first three are obvious, the last dictates how long it takes for your attack dials to fill. As you gain experience, they go up a couple of points at a time. Weapons are upgradeable and, as they are, you gain the ability to give them a greater attack bonus by Overkill. Killing an enemy with a fully powered Special Move awards you with a humorous death animation and a permanent attack bonus. But that's really all there is to it. Characters cap out at level fifteen and there's a limited number of enemies to fight in the game.

There are two other issues that could be major or minor, depending on your perspective. The game is short, for starters. There are ten quests in the game (two of which are optional) and a couple of item collection quests. I completed it in about six and a half hours, and about an hour of that was reloading my save game to keep from losing my chance at the Immortal achievement. I don't mind that length so much, as I hardly have the time to invest in long games anymore, but it does lead into the other complaint.





The game is twenty dollars, the most expensive offering to date on XBLA. Is it worth it? Well, maybe. I'm not disappointed with my investment because I enjoyed practically every minute of the game. It's extremely funny, particularly since PA's sense of humor is so frequently in line with my own. If you enjoy reading Penny Arcade, you will enjoy playing this game. If not, well, you're probably reading the wrong review anyway.