A Scrappy Underdog – Arcania: The Complete Tale Review

<p>It’s hard for titles like <em>Arcania<&sol;em> to gain a real foothold in the RPG market these days&period; With big budget titles like <em>Dragon Age<&sol;em> and <em>The Witcher <&sol;em>dominating sale and headlines&comma; mid-tier titles like <em>Arcania<&sol;em> tend to get lost in the shuffle&period; Sometimes it’s for good reason&comma; as these smaller production games are often plagued with bugs&comma; graphical hiccups&comma; and game breaking glitches&period; With <em>Arcania<&sol;em> however&comma; this is not the case&period; Coming to the Ps4 in the form of an enhanced edition&comma; <em>Arcania<&sol;em> is a budget title with plenty of meat on the bone to entertain RPG enthusiasts who are not obsessed with only playing the biggest and the best&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>After being released on the Xbox 360 and PC in 2010&comma; and then the PS3 in 2013&comma; <em>Aracnia&colon; The Complete Tale<&sol;em> makes its way into current gen systems with slightly upgraded visuals&comma; as well as with the DLC&colon; Fall<em> of Setarrif<&sol;em>&period; The visuals aren’t really the big draw here&comma; and the upgrade is nowhere near on the level of other past upgrades like on <em>The Last of Us&colon; Remastered&&num;8211&semi;<&sol;em>but everything has been given a little bit of polish to make it shine in beautiful 1080p with draw distance being improved as well as textures both up close and far away&period; The biggest improvement from a graphical standpoint&comma; though&comma; is the framerate&period; One of the biggest complaints gamers had about the original release was the terrible drop in framerate&comma; and while I never played the original release&comma; I can say that <em>Arcanina&colon; The Complete Tale<&sol;em> runs about as smooth as one could hope for&period; I cannot even remember one hiccup along the way&semi; which is impressive&comma; because this is a very long game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;83796" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-83796" style&equals;"width&colon; 660px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;scrappy-underdog-arcania-complete-tale-review&sol;arcaniagothic4-1&lowbar;0&sol;" rel&equals;"attachment wp-att-83796"><img class&equals;" wp-image-83796" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;05&sol;04225608&sol;ArcaniaGothic4-1&lowbar;0-1024x608&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Of course&comma; things start off with a rat killing quest" width&equals;"660" height&equals;"392" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-83796" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Of course&comma; things start off with a rat killing quest<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>To complement its already hefty length &lpar;between 30 and 50 hours depending on your play style&rpar;&comma; the DLC&&num;8211&semi;<em>Fall of Setarrif&&num;8211&semi;<&sol;em>has been included&comma; which can add up to another 8 hours of additional gameplay&period; The DLC is nothing ground breaking or spectacular in terms of storytelling or gameplay as it is essentially more of the same&comma; but it is a great addition to an already lengthy experience for those of us that enjoyed our time with the main game&comma; and the main game is really where this title earns its stripes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While nothing that will make you reevaluate your outlook on RPGs&comma; <em>Arcania<&sol;em> is a completely competent game that&comma; while ensconced in all the traditional fantasy and RPG tropes&comma; manages to pull everything off quite nicely&&num;8211&semi;if not spectacularly&period; As is often the case&comma; you play the role of a nameless hero fighting against evil to avenge the death of your friends&period; It’s something that we’ve seen played out many times over&comma; but <em>Arcania<&sol;em> pulls it off admirably as it does so with a bit of a smirk and a wink towards the player&period; The main character is a bit self-aware of these tropes surrounding him and he will sometimes go out of his way to not give people his name&comma; which I found rather comical&period; He’ll also moan and gripe about being an errand boy on so many fetch quests which&comma; while adding a little bit of humor to the proceedings&comma; still doesn’t alleviate some of the frustration for the player that much of your time will inevitably be spent running around and collecting random items for NPCs&period; Gameplay is solid however&comma; and dialogue is entertaining&comma; so it never becomes too much of a chore&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;83797" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-83797" style&equals;"width&colon; 1011px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;scrappy-underdog-arcania-complete-tale-review&sol;arcania&lowbar;tct&lowbar;xbox&lowbar;screenshot&lowbar;16&lowbar;med&sol;" rel&equals;"attachment wp-att-83797"><img class&equals;"wp-image-83797 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;05&sol;04225552&sol;Arcania&lowbar;TCT&lowbar;xbox&lowbar;screenshot&lowbar;16&lowbar;med&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Arcania&lowbar;TCT&lowbar;xbox&lowbar;screenshot&lowbar;16&lowbar;med" width&equals;"1011" height&equals;"600" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-83797" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">While not the most graphically intense&comma; the world is varied and detailed<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The thing I think I enjoyed most about this game&comma; though&comma; is that there seems to be a real &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;B movie” aesthetic surrounding the whole thing and it really does add to its charm&period; It actually reminded me of a slightly less successful <em>Deadly Premonition<&sol;em> &lpar;my favorite game of all time&rpar;&period; There is a serious lack of different character models on display here&comma; and it can be unintentionally hilarious to walk into a village wherein the citizens all share the exact same facial model&period; No kidding&semi; they are often 100&percnt; identical&period; The voice acting also runs the gamut from fantastic to unbelievably awful&period; The main character&comma; as well as many of the NPCs are voiced very well and to good effect&comma; but many of the NPCs you run across are so laughably bad that I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not they were doing it on purpose&period; I do not find this as a detriment however&comma; as it adds to the overall charm for me&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you don’t mind mid-tier RPGs and do not feel the incessant need to only play games on the cutting edge of technology&comma; then <em>Arcania&colon; The Complete Tale<&sol;em> might just be for you&period; It is a meaty game&comma; with solid control&comma;s and both intentional and unintentional hilarity&period; With the packed in DLC and the budget price&comma; you just might find it quite easy to look past its various flaws&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em>This review was written with the use of a review code provided by NordicGames<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;