{"id":6788,"date":"2017-06-10T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-06-10T13:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=6788"},"modified":"2022-04-02T02:28:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-02T07:28:21","slug":"the-open-world-on-rails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=6788","title":{"rendered":"The open-world on rails"},"content":{"rendered":"

note: added a\u00a0couple more paragraphs on June 12, denoted by asterisks<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve mentioned a couple times already that I bought into the THQ Nordic Playstation Humble Bundle some time ago. Once I finished playing Destroy All Humans!<\/strong> again (which was the entire purpose of buying the bundle), I decided that I ought to give another one of the included games a go. You know, since I had them and all.<\/p>\n

First up on the list (because it’s sorted alphabetically) was ArcaniA: The Complete Tale<\/strong>. I had no idea whatsoever what it was, but I went ahead and installed it anyway. Over the course of my journeys, I discovered that it’s the fourth game in the Gothic series, which I had never heard of previous to this. That’s probably because it’s a painfully generic PC RPG series.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it seems that Arcania (I’m not capitalizing\u00a0the last A any more)\u00a0is the first of the series to land on consoles, which means it’s the only one I’ll ever play. Oh, and that’s also because man is Arcania ever generic. It feels exactly like what Fable<\/strong> would be if it had absolutely zero charm and personality. And I think Fable is really the best comparison gameplay-wise as well. Arcania has less to do and no good\/evil gimmick, but the combat is janky, and the game has a very linear\u00a0“open world” that you can only\u00a0progress through\u00a0as you hit all the proper plot triggers.<\/p>\n

**As a quick aside,\u00a0Arcania technically does<\/em> have a lot to do, because there are ten thousand random objects that you can interact with in the world. But not a one of them does anything. Not the cook pot, not the alchemy table, not the smithing anvil. Nothing. Lying in a bed doesn’t even restore HP or pass time. In fact, the “role-play elements” are so pointless that there is an option to turn them off completely. So I can’t help but be completely baffled as to why they’re even there in the first place. Why? WHY??**<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s not to say that Arcania is bad<\/em>, per se. It’s just not at all living up to its potential. There’s still fun in exploring and combat. Though I have to admit that the game’s bugginess does try its best to get in the way of any fun you’re having. Enemies will vanish and reappear behind you. Your hitbox is absolutely massive, which makes successful dodges a bit of a coin toss. If you step off the beaten path, you character will begin to slide around uncontrollably, which may end up dumping you out of bounds and\u00a0into the waiting arms of death.<\/p>\n

Actually, I think that the only reason I’m enjoying it is because I’m playing on the Super Very Hard Mode. Every battle is for all the beans in the can, and enemies in groups of more than one [1] can decimate you in the blink of an eye. It’s fun to gauge every encounter and try to figure out the best strategy for handling them. Usually the best strategy is to backpedal while firing off arrows, but I try to save that for when I’ve been killed a half dozen times by the same monster gang and need to move on. If combat were easy, I think that I would have been bored out of my mind before the intro chapter was over.<\/p>\n

I think that the thing I dislike most about the game is actually the main character. He’s a nameless tough guy who is an absolute dick<\/em> to everyone at all times. Okay, sure, he’s an amnesiac whose village was burned to the ground (along with his fianc\u00e9e\u00a0and unborn child) by the Evil Empire, but that doesn’t mean he has to be a complete jackoff to everyone<\/em>. And what’s the deal with his lack of a name? You can’t edit this character in any way, so it’s not like you’re really role-playing here. He’s always gonna be the same gruff bro in everyone’s game. It’s just the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae of Arcania’s questionable design decisions.<\/p>\n

**Speaking of which, did I mention how weird the teleportation system is? There’s no fast-travel, and\u00a0teleporters come in pairs that only warp to each other.\u00a0Most of\u00a0these warp pads are close enough together that it’s literally\u00a0just as fast to walk the distance as it would be to wait for the game to go through the teleporting animation and\u00a0load you over to the destination pad. The system is so pointless<\/em> that you can see where even the developer realized this, as the warp pads just stop appearing\u00a0three-fifths of the way\u00a0through the game.**<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’m going to keep at it. I’m at least 25 hours deep at this point\u00a0with what\u00a0looks like\u00a0the end\u00a0of the main quest\u00a0in sight.\u00a0I mean, I’ve run out of map and the game hasn’t ever asked me to backtrack to this point, so that’s got to\u00a0be it.\u00a0I don’t really want to play the included DLC campaign, but it looks like I’ll have to\u00a0if I want to\u00a0wrangle up the easy platinum trophy.\u00a0Then I can finally move on to the next C-tier game from that bundle at some point. Probably Destroy All Humans! 2<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

note: added a\u00a0couple more paragraphs on June 12, denoted by asterisks I’ve mentioned a couple times already that I bought into the THQ Nordic Playstation Humble Bundle some time ago. Once I finished playing Destroy All Humans! again (which was the entire purpose of buying the bundle), I decided that I ought to give another … Continue reading The open-world on rails<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6788"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9742,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions\/9742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}