The Legend of Arcadieu

Foreword

Gameplay

. . . in a nutshell

I need to make some revisions.

out the shell. . .

I’m not a “virtual novel” type of person. As a matter of fact, I usually can’t be bothered to click through any long-strings of dialogue in any title. I’m looking at you Neptunia series! But, as of recent, I’ve been opening my mind. So, I’ve been trying games I’d normally scroll past. The Legend of Arcadieu caught my eye. As soon as the saw the artwork (and the term “sexual content”), I wish-listed this game and bought it the moment it went on sale.

Well, it’s not a bad game. The story made my laugh-out-loud a few times, and the art (again) is really awesome. In regards to art direction, this game sets itself apart. “Generic anime” doesn’t usually attract me. But, there isn’t a whole lot of art. The characters don’t make any new poses during dialogue. There’s no animation (other than some images being dragged around the screen). The facial expressions were cute though. The sex-scenes were brief, but fully-uncensored and nicely drawn.

Oh yeah, and characters. Actually, they were hardly developed. There’s a few plot twists regarding them, but the game will be over before you know it. I guess to be fair, considering the length of this game (one hour) and the number of characters (about six), that only leaves about ten minutes per person. Oh wait, I finished this game in forty-five minutes, not one hour.

Make that seven-and-a-half minutes. If I mathed-that right.

Ah! The story. You’re some (boy) kid that plays lots and lots of video-games. He has no friends, and frankly, he’s a loser. He sounds a lot like me. Then again, he also sounds like a generic protagonist. He has a game called “The Legend of Arcadieu”, which immediately breaks his PC. Thankfully, he knows an incantation from an online forum he frequents. A few key strokes and latin incantations later, he’s in the game!

As in, actually in the game.

He has to figure his way out of the game, and back into the real world. You will have to interact with NPCs and battle (or uh, ahem) them. I mean, that’s all there is to this game. There’s two endings. Wait, three. There’s a generic bad ending, and there’s two “good” endings. Whether or not you consider one of those “good” endings to be really good is up to you. But it does include the biggest sex-scene. Just saying. There’s a couple decisions you will have to make through-out the game, which affect your ending.

And I mean a couple]. With the “skip” button, you can finish this game in under five minutes. This is great for quickly unlocking unseen cutscenes.

The story is generic, but it’s a solid premise for a saucy adventure. There was a lot of missed opportunities, but I did enjoy the times when the protagonists “gamer-talk” and knowledge conflicted with the in-game world. But the world is very linear. As a matter of fact, you can’t stray from the main story, ever. You don’t explore, just go where the game says you go. That’s fine and all, but it hurts the replay value of this game. The only reason I kept playing was to unlock the full gallery.

I did buy this game on the premise of art after all.

Again, this isn’t that bad of a game. Is it good? Not really, it needed to be longer, and more fleshy. I would of liked to do more exploration, or learn more about the world and what-not. The game totally bugged out on me, making me unable to complete it normally. I don’t know what I did, but at least I got all (but one) of the gallery unlocked. My biggest gripe by-far with this game is the price.

Story

Visuals

The Goods

I know artwork is pricey, and so is game developing. But this game isn’t worth six USD to me. I payed about 4 USD, and I don’t think I really got my money’s worth. I think that this title would be more reasonably priced at two or three USD. I would not pay full price for this game, and if I were you (the reader) I would wait to buy this game until it goes on sale.

Verdict

Short game, too expensive, meh-game-play, crap world-building, awesome art. That’s what I gotta say.