Finished Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1 today. Now in the interest of full disclosure, I am a bit of a Penny Arcade fanboy, having read all the comics and newsposts a few times over, owning all the books, and listening to all the podcasts (podcasts are actually the best thing they put out, besides this game). So obviously I had high hopes for the game. My hopes weren't that high, however, since Gabe and Tycho are n00b game creators and the dev studio, Hothead, was also n00b (they did pick up the legendary Ron Gilbert along the way, though). But boy did they smash this one out of the ballpark. Best RPG I've played in a long time.
See, JRPGs have two main problems in my mind. The writing usually sucks and the combat is usually boring.
Writing) Now before you go off on me how uwesome the story of your favorite Kingdom Hearts XVII was, that's not really what I'm talking about. The overall story-plots of JRPGs are usually quite crazy, twisty, and cool with endearing characters. I'm talking about the actual writing sucking, the actual words popping up in those boxes. They're plain, boring, and simple. The Paper Marios are good examples of good JRPG writing. And now here's another (even better) example. Tycho's writing is simply fantastic. And insanely detailed. Most items in the environment can be examined, adventure-game style (the game is really a JRPG/adventure fusion), and every single one has 1-2 lines of unique descriptor text. And I mean every single one. Not like, all crabs have the same description. I mean like there's, say, 50 crabs scattered around the world and each individual one has one or (usually) two totally unique and awesome text boxes. Yes. Insane(ly pimp).
Combat) JRPG combat usually sucks too. Primarily I hate the Dragon Quest/EarthBound-style and secondarily the Final Fantasy-style. It's too simple, too boring, and highly non-interactive and non-interesting. Real-timey stuff is all the rage in JRPG these days, but those are usually too frenetic and rely on uncontrollable AI party members. But I really dug the PAAOtRSPoDE1 combat, JRPG as it is. Firstly, it removes a bunch of the annoying micromanagement of HP and MP. Your HP auto-refills after every battle and all the recovery items are % based, so even the weakest bandage never gets totally useless. There is no MP. Actions are all sequentially tiered on a constantly filling up bar. So after a bit you can use an item, a little later you can do a standard attack, and waiting longer grants you a special attack. Once you do something, it completely resets and you're back to item-only. Balanced between three characters filling like this, it feels quick and active but you still get complete control over everybody. It also makes for interesting choices (the fundamental key of gaming). Use your weak attack? Or hold out for a special, even though you're almost dead? There are also multiple summons that very slowly fill in this same way, maintaing their fill-up between battles. The system also nicks a few good mechanics from the classics. You've got defensive button pressing on enemy attacks (à la SMRPG), unique double and triple-tech-type special-attack team-ups when multiple people have specials charged (à la Chrono Trigger), items and attacks that can hit multiple enemies depending on their actual placement (à la Chrono Trigger again) and micro-games to determine special attack damage (à la Paper Mario). You can see enemies in the world before you fight (no random battles), fight them where you actually are without warping to a generic location, and corpses even actually stay in the field after battle(!). Great enemies too -- mimes, hobos, Elder Gods, barbershop quartets, what more could you want?
Futhermore) So those are the two main reasons this JRPG succeeds where most fail. But almost every other detail is superb, too. Each character, NPC, enemy, quest, and item has wonderful descriptions, stats, and attack lists in a dossier. The cutscenes are gorgeous animated 2D in the Gabe style. The music is well-done and appropriate. The voice actor is top-notch. The character creator seemed a bit limited at first, but then it turned my guy into a majorly rad 2D version and I fell in love (probably my favorite created character ever). The only small flaws are that the respawning-containers item collection is a bit weird (a by-product of JRPG system in a relatively small adventure game-style world) and that the carnival mini-games you can play are a bit weak. Oh, and if you're worried, you don't need any Penny Arcade knowledge to enjoy this. It's a self-contained world where everything just happens to resemble counterparts from a different dimension (see: Ocarina of Time vs. Majora's Mask). Not like Penny Arcade has real continuity anyway. :)
So yeah, this corn is cracklin'. Highest recommendation. Buy it. Then wait for Ep 2.
