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Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3
PC (Steam)
Zeboyd Saves the World... or at Least This Game.
4.5/5 stars
I first played the opening episodes of “Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness” waaaay back in 2008, when the PS3 and Xbox 360 were new and digital gaming on consoles was still filled with unknown promise. Unfortunately for me, I learned fairly quickly that digital games on consoles are a rip-off, and the first two episodes of the “Penny Arcade” RPG didn’t do anything to help refute that fact. Originally developed by Hothead Games, these first two episodes featured slew of problems (which will be covered via comparison/contrast throughout this review) which lead me to grudgingly finish “Episode 1” and only play a couple of hours into “Episode 2” before dropping it like a hot potato in order to play something I might actually enjoy.
Four years after the apparent discontinuation of the series, two new (concluding) episodes surfaced under the new management of Zeboyd Games, the Indie developer behind “Cthulhu Saves the World” and “Breath of Death 7,” whose existence is the sole positive legitimizer for Microsoft’s ill-conceived Xbox Live Indie Games environment.
In 2008, MeltedJoystick didn’t exist, and I hadn’t started writing reviews yet, so my assessments of those episodes when compared to the subject of this review – “Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3” (henceforth… “Episode 3”) – will be done solely by memory.
Presentation
Episodes 1 and 2 (from memory):
When Hothead Games was in charge of the “Penny Arcade” RPG, they went with a mid-range polygonal look, some cel-shading, and a customizable ‘main’ character who was meant to portray the player and act as a Mary Sue within the existing world of the “Penny Arcade” comic strip and its extant characters. The games looked and sounded okay, but the animation wasn’t great and there were far too many terrible static environments with static camera angles.
Episode 3:
“Episode 3” looks a lot like Zeboyd’s other RPGs. It apes the top-down, 2D, 8-bit styling of NES RPGs, but with more color, crisper edges, and sometimes-animated enemy sprites. Some of the character portraits – specifically those of the main party members – are illustrated by Mike Krahulik (a.k.a., Gabe), who draws the comic strip, while NPCs and unimportant folks have their character portraits illustrated by Zeboyd’s own barely-adequate artist. In both cases, the portraits are pixilated and slightly blurry to match the style.
The soundtrack is pleasantly catchy enough, and in certain chapters/areas does a great job of invoking the non-“Penny Arcade” IP the game is spoofing (yes, there is spoofing).
Story
Episodes 1 and 2 (from memory):
The first two “Penny Arcade” RPG episodes feature a story that is drawn from the pages of the “Penny Arcade” comic strip itself. Indeed, the strip’s writer, Jerry Holkins (a.k.a., Tycho) frequently intersperses the strip with bits and pieces of incomplete fiction stories that exist outside of the strip’s own continuity. In this particular case, the story revolves around an alternate version of Gabe and Tycho (the two main characters of the strip) living in a Steampunk version of the early 20th Century. This version of the guys run a paranormal detective agency and get swept up in a number of cultic schemes involving occult magic and Lovecraftian elder gods. “Episode 1” features an attempt by the Elder God of Mimes (whose name escapes me) to come into the world bodily with the help of a Mime Cult. And of course Gabe and Tycho kill all the mimes and their god. “Episode 2” is sketchier in my mind, as I did not finish it, but I do recall an attempt at taking over the world with giant robots that resemble the comic strip’s deviant fruit juicer. In both of these episodes, the guys are accompanied by the player’s mute, useless Mary Sue character (who apparently lives in the same neighborhood and is the guys’ ‘friend’).
I found the writing in the first two episodes to be merely adequate, and not nearly as funny, clever, or witty as the “Penny Arcade” comic strip.
Episode 3:
“Episode 3” resumes right where “Episode 2” left off. Apparently the latter portions of “Episode 2” feature an evil scientist/supervillain named Dr. Blood who was apparently behind the giant robot invasion. Only now Dr. Blood is intent on gathering the scattered pieces of the Elder God of Doors in order to bring about the end of the world.
“Episode 3” does a hell of a lot to flesh out the back story for the Steampunk versions of Gabe and Tycho, and further introduces a Steampunk version of Tycho’s wife and a semi-undead version of Jim Darkmagic (Gabe’s first D&D character) while completely ignoring the existence of the player’s Mary Sue character from the first two episodes. The backstory for Tycho alone provides an enormous boost to the quality of “Episode 3’s” script over the first two episodes. Of course, when combining the witty humor “Penny Arcade” is known for with the witty humor that Zeboyd demonstrated with the first two RPGs, it stands to reason that the results would be pretty darn good… and they are. “Episode 3” does a far better job of capturing the comic strip’s trademark humor and turns of phrase than the first two ever did.
“Episode 3” is unapologetically linear, but then most good narratives are. The characters end up visiting a number of occult locations (and some goofy videogame reference locations) across 10 chapters (and about that many hours), have amusing discussions about the plot’s happenings, and ultimately bring the story to a thrilling climax… before it ends on a cliffhanger for “Episode 4.”
It also bears mentioning that “Episode 3” has a short-and-sweet prelude that is separate from the main body of the game. In this prelude, we witness (and participate in) the events that caused the player’s pointless Mary Sue character to be completely absent from “Episode 3.”
Gameplay
Episodes 1 and 2 (from memory):
The first two “Penny Arcade” RPG episodes featured a combat system that looked like “Dragon Quest 8,” but played more like “Paper Mario,” with a huge number of timed button presses required to deal adequate damage and avoid fatal effects. Toward the end of “Episode 1,” the amount of timed button presses that were thrown at the player at the same time became overwhelming and put a huge damper on my already dampened enjoyment of the experience. When “Episode 2” failed to dial-back the finger-based “Dance Dance Revolution” required in every battle, I couldn’t take it anymore.
Another hallmark of the first two episodes was a lack of grinding. There were a set number of enemies, and if the characters’ stats and levels weren’t high enough to compensate for the player’s lack of “DDR” dexterity on the timed buttons, the player was simply SOL.
Episode 3:
“Episode 3” is like a mashup of the combat and mechanics from the first two “Penny Arcade” RPG episodes and Zeboyd’s earlier games… miraculously keeping the best parts of BOTH! There are still a static number of (visible) enemy encounters in “Episode 3,” but there is also an arena where the player can go to grind if they feel the need for more levels (I didn’t). Each battle is a finely-tuned strategy puzzle, pitting the player’s full-powered team against a reasonably challenging foe. Since the party recovers full health and all of their consumable items after each battle, the player is never presented with the typical battle of attrition that so many RPGs fall prey to, with stupid-high encounter rates that aim to wear-down limited resources by the time the player reaches a boss battle.
Like in Zeboyd’s other games, enemies increase in power the longer a battle wears on. Unlike Zeboyd’s other games, “Episode 3” uses a “Grandia” style turn meter, and even features a number of attacks that can interrupt an enemy and send them backwards on the turn meter. Also unlike Zeboyd’s other games, the party doesn’t regain MP based on how quickly they finish a battle, but instead start every battle with 0 MP and gain one (or more, depending on skills) MP per turn. The MP system is incredibly elegant and allows for heavy use of character skills at all times, which is the way a good RPG battle should play out.
Completely new to the “Penny Arcade” RPGs and to Zeboyd’s games is a weird type of Class System that employs equippable pins. Each character has a base Class that cannot be changed, but over the course of the game the characters each gain the ability to equip two Class Pins that grant them additional skills, passive abilities, and stats. Mixing and matching Class Pins with characters’ base classes is fun, and can lead to some great results for min/maxers. Perhaps my favorite part of the Class System in “Episode 3,” however, is the fact that ALL CLASSES GAIN EXPERIENCE AT THE SAME TIME! Even Class Pins that are not equipped by anyone gain XP and level up, but slightly (barely, hardly, inconsequentially) slower than equipped Pins.
Overall
With its combination of overhauled and completely new mechanics, plus the loving care of Zeboyd Games, “Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3” is an immense improvement over the first to episodes developed by Hothead Games. After the first two episodes, I’d written the series off as yet another terrible licensed game, but Zeboyd has breathed new life into the once withered husk and reincarnated the series into something fantastic.
Presentation: 4/5
Story: 4.5/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Overall (not an average): 4.5/5
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