Arkadian Warriors Reviews

So what we have here is a dungeon crawler RPG made by a company called Wanako. In this game, you play a hero that needs to save a town from the Gorgon. That's seriously all there is to the story. It's an arcade title, sure, but no one would have been mad if there was a tiny bit of depth to the story. There is none to be had here.

It functions exactly like all dungeon crawlers do. Some dude gives you a silly quest that results in nothing more but an excuse to murder stuff and grab loot, and then you dive into the dungeon and go about said murdering and looting. The game has an abysmal amount of loot though, and the combat is painfully simple. There is nothing new here. You pick one of three classes, and that's the beginning and end of the character customization. You get a few weapon types to choose from, and 1 or 2 different types of armor, and that's it. Each class gets five skills, and they are learned naturally as you level up. You don't assign points. Same for stats. There is no upgrade system and no socketing system, and nothing similar. This game is painfully simple from beginning to end. The game's replayability suffers because of this. Once you've played a class there are no other "builds" to go back and try.

The graphics are standard, and the only thing even remotely cool is the animation for enemies when you freeze them. It looks fairly cool, and that's about the best thing I can say about the graphics. The AI is painfully bad. Most enemies telegraph their attacks enough they can be easily dodged, even when fighting them with melee. The casters and ranged characters don't lead their shots, so they shoot at where you are now instead of where you would be. This makes it easy to dodge their attacks. About halfway through the game, the enemies start doing tons more damage, I'm assuming to compensate for the piss poor AI. If you pick a sorceress and use a frost staff, it's entirely possible to go through dungeons without getting hit once you learn attack patterns. You can circle strafe this game all day with relative ease, which is doubly bad considering how simple the rest of the game is.

It's hard to find good things to say about this game. About the only thing you can say is that it gets the basics of dungeon crawler RPGs right. However, the graphics are barely standard, the enemy AI is terrible, and the game isn't all that long. Considering how bad it is, maybe that's a good thing.

A new dungeon-crawler has shown up on the Xbox Live Arcade but will Arkadian Warriors make the cut as a simpler role-playing game for the casual masses, as a diversion for RPG fans, or both?

Gameplay - 7

Diablo II is quite possibly the most revered of the dungeon-crawling games. I would be playing it today if B.Net let your character last on their servers more than 30 days. Though when creating Arkadian Warriors, Wanako Games was not aiming for a Diablo II level role-playing game (RPG), a few comparisons will necessarily be made.

Starting out in Arkadian Warriors, you select one of three character classes: soldier, archer or sorceress. Each one has unique characteristics including strength, magic and available weapons. You can go into the game in single-player, local co-op or XBL co-op. Your headquarters is a small walled-off town where you can refresh your mana and health, buy and sell and meet NPCs that will give you quests.

One of the main differences between Arkadian Warriors and other similar games is the addition of a third meter, the yellow alter-ego meter. Your alter-ego meter increases with each successful hit on an enemy. Once full, you can turn into a huge, powerful Phoenix, Lion or Dragon. This was a surprising change and especially enjoyable the first few times you use it.

Each quest takes you to a new dungeon where you must kill a certain type of enemy (a number of wild boars in one level), collect items, or defeat a boss. The unfortunate thing about this system is that when you feel the need to grind to gain a level, the only way to do it is to repeat a dungeon. While usually challenging the first time, the dungeons are often a cake-walk the second time. Additionally, the dungeons are sorted from earliest to the latest when you visit Artemis to repeat one. Since you will almost always want to repeat one of the more recent ones, you will have to scroll through a long list just to get to it.

While dungeons in Arkadian Warriors have several different possible textures, they are essentially basic mazes only complicated by the need for keys to get through certain gates. After a while, they can get repetitive. Hidden rooms are a little too easy to find because the gold in them shows up on your radar when you get close.

As in many RPGs, some weapons have magical properties such as poison or stun effects. To simplify it for the intended audience, no percentage chance is mentioned. So a Bow of Frost may have a 20% chance of freezing the enemy but the player has no way of knowing that. Some are magical but the effect is not noted in the description (Jewelled Dagger, Tranquil Bow). These distinctions are a necessity in Diablo II and missing them here left me feeling naive about how the game would play.

The three classes have different styles. Certainly the soldier focuses on close-range combat while the sorceress and archer focus on long-range. While these differences result in varying gameplay when changing classes, the alter-egos play exactly the same way. No matter which beast your class turns into, it always attacks with a slow, highly-damaging area-of-effect attack. Just turn into your alter-ego, get surrounded by as many enemies as possible and have at them. I was really looking forward to seeing what kind of powerful long-range attack the sorceress' alter-ego would have but was disappointed when it was the same as the warrior's.

Visuals - 7

The quality of the dungeon textures and of the character models is actually pretty good, the models for the alter-egos in particular. Still, repetition in the Arkadian Warriror's dungeons makes the visuals boring after a while.

The various effects, on the other hand, are beautifully rendered and help to tell the player what is happening. An example would be the green mist that emanates from you when you take poison damage.

To liven up the dungeons a bit, Wanako added a ton of decorations to the floors and walls. The treasure chests may give you gold or potions. The skulls on the walls may shoot fireballs at you. Tall vases explode for minimal damage when you hit them. Everything else, though, serves no purpose except decoration. I expected to have a chance for a little gold when I destroyed a cart and I really expected to have a chance for a new weapon when I destroyed a weapon rack. Neither ever happened.

Sound - 7

The sound effects in Arkadian Warriors are surprisingly good especially since arcade titles have a tough time adding very many. The roars of the alter-egos, the wooshes of the arrows and grunts of the boars are highlights. The music, while fitting, is limited and gets repetitive after a while. You will want to take advantage of that custom soundtrack feature on your 360.

Longevity - 4 (Fairly Low)

Did you notice I've used the word repetitive several times already? Well, the 19 levels in Arkadian Warriors rarely offer anything different except tougher enemies and the occasional new one. Calling the bosses dumb but powerful is being generous. Beating the game once then trying out the other classes is certainly enough to get the whole experience. I replayed a few levels as a sorceress but that is all of the experimenting I am going to do.

Learning Curve - 9 (Easy, Perhaps too easy)

This is where Arkadian Warriors truly shines. Newbies are introduced to the concepts of RPGs slowly including inventories, health and mana meters and magic. Help is available from the main menu if gamers don't understand experience, levels, or the objects in the game. Don't expect to find any deep details, though. I was curious whether bladed weapons swing faster than blunt ones but the only way to know was to test it.

If you want to introduce someone to a role-playing game, Arkadian Warriors is a good starting point.

It became painfully obvious as I played through the first few levels of Arkadian Warriors that Wanako was not targeting the game at me. Since XBLA is generally aimed at casual gamers, I knew this title would not have the depth of a Diablo-class RPG. Still, I had hopes that the game would ramp up over time. While new RPG players will be introduced to this style of gameplay, seasoned ones will be missing vital details in the experience. I can only recommend Arkadian Warriors to the truly casual gamer.

Overall Score - 6.8

NOTE: I originally published this on Podtacular.com but with some hosting changes the reviews were removed. Hope you enjoy it here (minus the screenshots I had originally!)

Arkadian Warriors: 4/5 stars

This is a top-down, dungeon crawler RPG a la Diablo. The story is pretty standard fare with you and 2 other heroes destined to save the world from the evil Gorgon and his minions. That sums up the story, little bit on the thin side, i know but it gets the job done. The game starts out with you picking one of the three heroes for you to level up and gather new "loot" with. First being the Warrior(the easiest class to play with), next the Archer(also easy but not as many life points), and last the Sorceress(the most difficult of the classes due to weak life points and weak starting weapons). The game begins with you doing small jobs for people around the town, like saving a child from boars, collected parts of a anvil, etc. Most missions have a weapon or armor reward at the end though most times you find something better with in the level(which are randomly made each time you do the mission, no learning levels for this game.)

One of the coolest things about AW is the fact that the weapons and armor you use is shown on your character accordingly. Which is a big plus. Another really cool addition to this game is the fact that you can transform into a huge super beast once your "hit meter" gets filled up. This makes you temporarily invincible and super strong. Careful use of this ability often makes for life or death situations later in the games 16 missions. One of my biggest complaints about the game is there is only one town to explore and use. This gets quite tiresome once you get later in the game. Another complaint is the difficulty, it ramps up from being a 4 to a 10 in a matter of 2 missions, which forces you to go back and play previous missions over to get better equipment.

But what saves you from this is the XBL Co-op play. Where you and a friend(or stranger) can team up to take Gorgon down. It makes playing much more enjoyable and easier for the most part. Only gripe i have with the co-op is the host controls the camera AND the ability to pause the game. Which can make the person playing with the host very annoyed due to the fact the camera is facing directly into a wall. But for whats its worth its a very solid dungeon crawler RPG.

This is an RPG that although does not give you too much freedom, would still be classified in the category. It lets you choose three classes to play as (only one at once of course) through the story mode. Besides the story mode, there is nothing to do on the game. You can play through the game on co-op which is pretty exciting but can make the game far more challenging for each player than expected. Also, as expected, since it is after all an Arcade game, the story mode is fairly short and could be completed quite possibly within one afternoon.

There is not much else to say besides if you are looking for a game that has a great achievement to game cost ratio, then you're checking out the right game. So get cracking, buy it for $5.00 (400 Microsoft Points) and look forward to a surprisingly fun and entertaining 200 Gamerscore.

Arkadian Warriors is a game developed by Wanako Studios and produced by former PC giant, Sierra. If you're old like me, you might remember Sierra for their King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, and Leisure Suit Larry games (Actually, the Larry games continue to be made today for the XBox 360). Anyhow, Arkadian Warriors is a basic hack-and-slash game similar to a watered down Diablo or Champions of Norrath...way watered down.

The storyline is told through various NPCs who give you a series of quests as the game proceeds. Basically, there is an evil enemy known as the Gorgon who is attempting to take over the world and you're one of only three people who can stop it! Simple enough, right?

You can choose to be a soldier (pure melee character), archer (bow-user with daggers), or a sorceress (ranged spells based on wand equipped with a sucky staff). As you progress through the 19 different stages, you amass loot and sell off lesser equipment in order to make money. You will also gain money and experience through killing the thousands of monsters you come against. Again, pretty simple.

The "hook," or "gimmick" to this game is the Alter Ego system. Your character has an "Alter Ego" gauge which fills up as you deal out and take damage. When it is full, you can press the Y button to become a large beast who does at least double damage (quadruple on a critical hit) and is invincible during the short duration you are in Alter Ego form.

The graphics are kind of terrible actually, similar to a Nintendo 64 or PlayStation One game, but the Achievements are fairly easy to come by so I didn't mind too much. The only glaring problem with this game is that it is absolutely boring as hell! Nineteen randomly generated stages doesn't seem like that much, but trust me...you'll be ready to tear your hair out by the time this game is over. Still, like I said, the achievements are easy and the game does increase in value if you have a buddy to grind with.

All in all, this isn't a terrible game, and certainly not a bad one for a somewhat quick boost in Gamerscore. The only problem is that there are much better Diablo clones out XBox Live Arcade that are far less boring.