Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode 3 Review
FINALLY the saga continues for Tycho and Gabe. It might have taken a couple of extra years, and the developer and style might have changed, but in the end we finally have the third installation into the series. You will once again take part in trying to get to the bottom of what gods are left in the world, and what is corrupting the land. With a new developer you're going to notice that there's been some changes, changes that I think might have actually made for a better game.
Graphically this game looks like it was headed for an 8-bit console and then at the last second jumped through a time vortex and landed on the PC. You'll have to deal with an overworld map that kind of makes me think of Super Mario Bros. 3, the areas that you'll be exploring remind me of Dragon Warrior, and the battle system reminds me of Final Fantasy.
The music also has that 8-bit feel to it, and yes after a while it does get a bit repetitive, but to be honest that really didn't bother me all that much. Sadly there is no spoken dialog in this version of the game, but if there were I think it would have ruin the gentle embrace of nostalgia.
The controls are very straight forward. You're going to have two options, play with a controller, or play with the keyboard. Since I couldn't find my controller fast enough, and really wanted to give this game a spin I just used the keyboard. You're going to find that you're going to use the arrow keys (or WASD) to move, enter to select, Tab to go to your inventory, Shift to sprint, and Q to pull up the option menu.
The first two entries into this series were fun, but I had issues with them. This one, though, I think maybe because of the wait, mixed with the fact that it was more about game play and not character design, I really sunk my teeth into. I probably would have finished the game even quicker if I didn't run into a bug with my Steam account which made the game unplayable for a couple of days.
You're out to destroy yet another god, and there's someone out there who is trying to resurrect this god and bring him back to power. You're going to have a set amount of battles in the game (which is saddening for me), unless of course you venture into the arena which gets replenished constantly. The one thing that I didn't really like about the battles was that the longer the battle took the stronger the enemy got, but the bigger the chance my characters (4 to a party) were going to be weakened. I had to slug my way a couple of battles praying that I would make it through the encounter. The really nice thing is that at the end of the battle everyone does get resurrected and everyone gets EXP for the battle. A nice twist the the game was the dual class system that allowed for added flavor in the game play. I'm going to be honest I tried to find the best fit for each character and then never touched any of the other class pins.
I think having now played through three of these games, I'm hooked, I have to have the fourth one now, which is always a good sign, and I think that this is by far my favorite. Sure there was some serious foreshadowing that made me scratch my head, but at the same time I wanted more. So for those out there who have played the first two, you need to pick this game up. For those out there who know of the series but have never had the chance to play it, it might be a good time to check out the series. At the end of the day if you like the humor of Jerry Holkins then you're going to enjoy the game. I give this game an 8.9 out of 10.
