I'm going to start doing a weekly XBLA review thing. Most of these games are going to be already reviewed, but i'm going to do some new titles as i see fit. Like this one.



So i recently downloaded Penny Arcade's new XBLA / PC / Mac(?) foray into the world of episodic gaming, and have played through it nearly to completion. With that in mind, here is my take on On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 1

First of all, I want to talk about the style of the game. The graphics of the game holds true to the feel of the Penny Arcade comics as it damnwell should, and that's something i love. It plays like you're walking through the panels of a PA comic, with all of the humor, wit and idiocy (in a good way) that comes with it. All of the dialog (which i assume was written by Jerry Holkins) is bang on. The characters banter well, and all of the pre-fight threats are quite funny. The story that's being told while you play through is also suitably rediculous but it really just gives you a reason to be there and i didn't find it life-altering or anything.

The mechanics of the game are pretty standard RPG fare. Its got the ATB-style turn based thing that most Final Fantasy games use, along with the interesting quirk of how the characters use special attacks. You always have the ability to use one of your special attacks, but in order to gain access to it, you need to wait about twice as long as you would for a regular attack. These special abilities are upgraded every so often, and consist of some sort of minigame to pull off full damage (mash the button to fill the bar etc.) which reminds me a lot of Sabin's Blitz attacks in FF6. Also, there's a Chrono Trigger-esque mechanic in which if two or three characters have their special ability at the same time, they will perform a combo attack. This is something that i really enjoyed from Chrono Trigger, and i'm glad they've implemented it here. There's a bit of strategy involved with the combat, with stuff like "Enemy X is weak / strong against player's x/y/z attack", which has been pretty standard in RPGs since the dawn of time. Also, I found a lot of the enemies throw debuffs, so you have to counterbalance that accordingly with buff items or use debuffs on the enemies that you're facing. Basic stuff, but it works well.

One thing that i liked a lot about the item system (specifically the healing items) is the fact that all of the healing items can ressurect characters once they've been defeated in combat with varying degrees of health when brought back to life. It eliminated a lot of the "Oh shit, Tycho died and i dont have a Phoenix Down...but i have all of these health potions" moments, which is something that really bugs me about RPGs in general. Also, the item timer is the first one that is ready, so you can always bring a teammate back quickly, provided you have the items.

In the game, there will be a number of quests that you have to complete (as is the modus operandi of RPGs) ranging from "Go find me this stuff" to "Kill x number of whatevers" which i found to be rather standard, some of which (especially the kill quests) seemed very WoW-ish. This may turn some people off, but since I'm a WoW addict it didn't bother me too much. I did find that the pacing of the quests was kind of strange. You will aquire a bunch of quests through your travels in a certain zone, and most of them will resolve very close to the resolution in that zone (Boss Fight, what-have-you). I found myself wanting the quest resolutions to be a little more spaced out, so i could mentally gauge my own progress.

One of my only gripes about the game in general is how you interact with items strewn about the world. If there are a lot of items in the same place it can be kind of difficult to interact with the item that you want to interact with. I'm reminded of one specific instance in which i needed to speak to someone, however i kept on selecting one of the three items that were right near him which was somewhat frustrating.

All in all, Precipice delivers on its price tag, and is totally worth dropping the cash for. It's a solid 6-8 hours of RPG goodness and the writing is everything you'd expect from Penny Arcade. The gameplay is smooth; Not too complex, but good enough to keep you interested for the game's short length. If you're a fan of Penny Arcade, this is a must buy. If you're not, but enjoy games with excellent dialog, give it a shot as well. Either way, you wont be disappointed.

Unless you're ddf.

Dickey's Un-Official Totally Non-Sanctioned Score: 8/10