A tribute to the old RPG Ultimate Underworld, Arx Fatalis pays its respects and delivers even more.
Full Review
Arx Fatalis Review
By, Eric Arevalo
Backdrop
.hack Part 1 Infection (Dot Hack) begins with a bang. Something disastrous happens to your character‘s real world friend, while innocently playing a 20 million-subscriber base, wildly popular online RPG game (MMORPG), The World. To unravel the mystery of your friend’s misfortune, you become an online, ingame rogue hacker, exploring every corner of The World, even some virus-infected ones.
The hero is armed with the special skills of Data Drain and Gate Hack, and some colorful, talented fellow adventurers to fill the two other available party slots. Different adventurers must accompany you depending on the plot‘s development. You have some control over the others in your party, including upgrading them through trades or gifts. You can play only a single class, Twin Blade. Other characters are from different classes, with varied strengths and weaknesses, from a mage type (Wavemaster) to a bully (Heavy Axeman).
Gameplay
Gameplay takes place in three principal areas – towns, fields, and dungeons. Towns house The World’s servers. There, the player can save the game, buy magic scrolls and useful and unique items, store items, buy equipment, and talk and trade with lots of other players in character online. One town has an unusual ranch to check out, a patent homage to an enduring feature of just about every Final Fantasy.
The town’s Chaos Gate provides instant teleportation to a particular wide-open Field, containing monster encounter hotspots, a mystical spring, treasure, and lots of mysterious food. You enter three distinct keywords, some known at the game‘s onset, and others learned through play. Whatever keywords are entered, the difficulty level of the destination is helpfully revealed. This prevents a low-level party from being massacred. Once the keywords are entered, you travel through the Chaos Gate. (You can enter specific keywords learned to continue the plot, do side quests, or do unlimited exploring. Or, you can instruct the Gate to enter random keywords, and take your chances. There‘s also an option to enter any keywords you wish from a word list.) Every Field houses a single Dungeon. The dungeons, where you spend much of the game fighting for your life, are not overly large in size, and always range between three and five average levels.
Many have compared Dot Hack to Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II (PSO) on the Gamecube. Let us gently discredit this. We feel Dot Hack has far better graphics than PSO. The Fields and Dungeons contain many colorful, over stylized backdrops and settings, including weather effects. Dot Hack’s monsters resemble the beautifully-drawn monsters of the later Final Fantasy’s. Dot Hack’s world is gigantic with a seeming infinite number of locations to explore. PSO’s world is relatively small, and plot is threadbare, with meaningless, though fun, side quests, which instill no enthusiasm in the player. Dot Hack’s plot is deep and complex, with each subplot advancing the story just a little bit further. (Remember though, the end of this game in no way comes close to wrapping up the story, to be completed in the three games to be released later this year.) One visual treat, however, was lifted directly from PSO – the cascading rings that accompany the teleportation of characters to and from different areas.
Combat
Dot Hack’s combat engine can best be described as modified real-time. Much like the action-RPG, Kingdom Hearts, button mashing can be effective to beat monsters. Monster combat icons appear as large yellow twirling landmarks. As you approach, the landmark dissolves, monsters come at you big-time, and, undoubtedly, players will feel a healthy adrenaline rush. Some of Dot Hack’s many monsters do not stand around waiting to be pummeled, rather some you need to catch. Dot Hack lets you turn combat almost into a turn-based affair. The player needs only to hit Triangle in the middle of battle to pause the game instantly. From there the player can give orders to the others in the party, anything from healing someone, reviving another, casting a spell, designating a target monster. Without jeopardizing your party from the hailstorm of monster blows, combat becomes a calmer, more strategic, experience. This will help the many action-challenged. Camera angles play a big role in successful combat. You must be facing a monster to do any damage. As in many games, manipulating opposing environmental elements, like fire vs. water, is a key to successful monster combat.
Dot Hack’s cyberspace setting provides a wealth of Wow-inducing outbursts. The Data Drain option in combat is a great example. When a monster’s approaches zero, the player can Data Drain to reduce a horrendous, gigantic steel robot, for example, into a sniveling, puny monster, easily defeated with a single blow. Data Drain always results in a nifty, rare item or essential Virus Cores so you can Gate Hack areas of The World now closed, but needing investigation. One bad side effect – if you defeat, a Data Drained monster, but a single experience point is earned. One REALLY bad side effect – if you Data Drain too often without giving the skill a rest, you may overload and explode. Game Over. In the case of Boss monsters, Data Drain works the same, but what remains is no sniveling puny monster, but a full-blooded slightly less tough monster. All of this makes for interesting and captivating combat, a large part of the game.
Fresh Features
Dot Hack is replete with new and interesting features that kept us riveted.
To start, the entire background and story of a real world gamer becoming a rascal hacker, penetrating deep into a virus-infected online game, is quite novel. Combine this with Dot Hack’s emulating the look and feel of an online game universe. (Message traffic on the web shows many gamers mistakenly believe Dot Hack is a real online MMORPG, along with monthly fees! No real Internet connection is required.)
Just like in the real word, Dot Hack replicates your excitement level when “New” appears before a popular forum or on your email screen. Some of the game involves receiving emails as the plot develops, as well as new, crucial information surfacing on The World’s Board. (Look out for emails challenging you to a strange game of Tag.) The online game world looks very familiar with a bunch of characters wandering around the game’s towns, with the ubiquitous balloon icons talking typical “trash” to each other, even criticizing “newbies“.
Combat grippingly called for surprisingly strategic decision-making to succeed, not related to the usual attack or defend choices. Do you go for experience and upgrade your character or try for some special equipment or a Virus Core, vital to Gate Hacking? The innovative control of other party members became second nature to us after some practice. The game rewards a player taking chances, like entering a Field or Dungeon rated 5 levels above the player’s current level. On the other hand, the game scoffed at players entering areas much lower rated the their current level, by awarding negligible experience points for victory.
Dot Hack takes progress reports to a new level, by slowly unlocking books that contain much in the way of statistics and information. There’s even a monster compendium with tips for defeating them.
Some might complain about the minimal “Save Game” ability, but we thrived on it. You explore a very hostile cyberspace environment without the facility to save. Only in a server-hosting town is saving possible at the local Recorder. We may be a solitary voice in the Wilderness, but we like this throwback to the good old RPG days. Those of you old enough to remember the Wizardry series, may recall those fingernail-biting multi-combat treks back to the Castle just to save the game. In case you’re really stuck deep in a dungeon, a common item will teleport you to the outdoor field, from where you can simply gate back to town from the command menu.
Many pieces of equipment come with distinctive powerful attack, healing, and status skills, essential to combat dominance. The player must tradeoff whether to equip something that will raise defense or offense or something less vigorous that lets you use a powerful skill. Trading is the most successful way to upgrade equipment.
In a first, Dot Hack comes with a 45 minute anime video. This gives some great background on what’s going on in The World, as well as provide clues for completing the game. In a nice twist, voiceovers for game speech can be set for Japanese or English presentation. Listening to the authentic Japanese voices really keeps you glued to the game.
Though some may scoff at what follows as meaningless, we liked the game’s unlocking of some nifty new “toys” to like, some only available when the game is cleared. You can unlock many different background music play lists. Tired of creepy tunes, just switch to something more upbeat, or futuristic. Just like real world gamers, who constantly change their desktop wallpaper, new and different wallpapers are unlocked along the way. Some are concept art of characters, while others are full blown anime renditions of the characters. This makes for great fun, and seems to pump additional energy into the game. As you progress over a dozen special cut scenes or movies will become viewable after defeating the game.
Though Dot Hack’s extras and new wrinkles enhance the RPG game experience, much of the gameplay will ring true to those who enjoy RPG‘s. Expect plenty of exploration in a huge 3D world, frequent monster combat, tons of treasure to earn and discover, upgrading your character’s weapons and armor, and needing to level before tackling pivotal story dungeons. The status screens for the characters and all equipment are well laid out and easy to grasp.
Time for Completion
Game length in hours always concerns many purchasers. A short RPG normally takes a lot of flack, and many online are asking about Dot Hack‘s time for completion. (Some have questioned whether Bandai should have released a single 80 hour game for $50, rather than four 20-hour games for $200 for a single story. This matter is beyond the scope of this review, but our high opinion of this game as a standalone is obvious.) Our experience, playing the plot without doing side quests or extra exploration, is in the 12 to 15-hour range. Players side-questing and extensively exploring, aside from the main plot, can expect to spend 25 hours to complete the game. You can even continue to advance your character, after game completion, to get a jump start on Part 2 due in May. In the next game, your character can be imported from Part 1.
Furthermore, imagine trying to explore every nook and cranny of the fields and dungeons accessible by a large number of 3-word combinations. Doing that would put the game in the 50-hour range, if not more. However, at a certain point, new items dry up, and a single experience point is earned for any defeated monster, no matter how tough.
Shortcomings
While, as is evident above, there is much to recommend in Dot Hack, certain concerns to varying degrees deserve mention.
From the “Why oh why did they leave this out?“ File. Pregame game board traffic and information about the Japanese version released months ago had many salivating for replaying the game in “parody” mode. This mode apparently converted all Dot Hack’s game world characters into satirical comedians. Sorry to say, this highly-anticipated feature is missing from the version released here.
The game requires massive amounts of button pressing. Every item or treasure uncovered from combat victories or exploration (opening chests, searching expired adventure remains, collecting food for Grunty’s, as examples) must be confirmed with a button press. When there could be 50-100 such occurrences in a single dungeon or field, over the course of the game, finger cramps seem inevitable. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance also required lots of bashing for buried treasure and chests, but the items literally flew into your inventory, a much better way to handle this.
The manual is woefully terse and lacking in some crucial information and guidance. While the ingame tutorials fill in many of the gaps, one extremely important gameplay feature is missing from both the manual and tutorials – instructions on control your characters directly during combat.
Final Word
We got a kick out of Dot Hack. The feeling of “just one more dungeon” dominated our lives for the 3 days to completion. The engaging environment held our attention without much effort. The strategic nature of combat, plus the convoluted plot kept us going for hours on end. The constant unlocking of both frivolous and important gameplay features created a “what’s next” anticipation. Now, if I could only read Japanese better, Dot Hack Part 2 is already out in Japan!
Final Grade: B
A Homage to the Classics
One who plays in the world of Arx Fatalis will admire how it pays homage to classic RPG’s such as Ultima Underworld. Presented in a first-person perspective, Arx Fatalis brings an interesting story, an intense interaction with the game world as well as other engaging features. Recently published by JoWooD Productions and developed by Arkane Studios, Arx Fatalis will please RPG gamers in many ways.
Your Quest
In a quest to find your identity, you are thrust into the underground depths of the world. All the races that once dwelled upon the world have moved underground as the sun has died out which causes a bitter winter to now ravage the surface. You begin the game imprisoned within a jail cell, one you must eventually escape before your adventure begins. As if that were not enough, you must find and destroy Akbaa, lord of destruction, who plots to destroy all life in the underground lairs of the world. In a quest to find your true identity you must eventually become the hero that your world needs in these most perilous of times.
Gameplay
When you first begin Arx Fatalis, you will need to distribute some available points among several skills such as stealth and intuition. You can have the game randomly generate these points or you can manually do it yourself. Using a first-person perspective, you can see all that lies before you and when in combat can see your character’s hands attacking with any weapons that you may have equipped or magic that you have unleashed. You will come across many weapons and armor as you traverse the world. Once you begin the quest, you can only use a bone for attacking, the only weapon available at the start, and a grim reminder of those who have died and been sacrificed before you. You will eventually find many more powerful items such as daggers, swords, shields, as well as powerful rings that will aid you in your quest. Your items will eventually break after heavy use in combat unless you have them repaired. You will need to have the right weapon and armor as well as the right skills to go up against the many creatures that you will come across. You will fight and come across many different and diverse creatures such as trolls, rat-men, mummies, to powerful golems, giant worms and eventually even face a dragon.
Interaction with the Environment
I must admit to having lots of fun as I escaped the jail cell and the adventure had begun. You can interact with almost any of the items you find in the world. Find some rope and a wooden rod along the way and you can combine these items together and make a fishing pole which you can use to fish in many areas. When you catch these fish, you must build a fire to heat the fish as you can’t eat them raw. Other combinations of items will allow you to make potions that will replenish health or magic as well as make other unique items that you must discover for yourself. I find this such an intriguing feature in the game and I wish other games utilized such elements. You literally look at each item you find along the way and try to figure out what you can make with the newly acquired items. You will appreciate how the intense interaction with the environment will help you in finding many things to create or how some creatures can be killed without the use of a weapon but by posioning them instead. The interaction in this world is very intense and an RPG player will enjoy the excitement that it offers.
Story/Puzzles/Magic System
Other features worth mentioning are the mural approach to story telling, the varied puzzles that are seen as well as the type of spell casting system implemented in the game. The first cutscene is memorable and well done as you are told the history of the world of Arx. Slowly, in this cutscene, you move across what seems like an ancient manuscript depicted with various important images of events that have led up to the current crisis. What an interesting way to tell a story and I applaud the designers with its use. You will also need to figure out some interesting puzzles as you progress through the game. Sometimes the answers may not be evident as you attempt to find certain hidden locations, a key to open a particular door or an item needed from a particular area. The player will find a world waiting to be explored to its fullest as you come across these puzzles within the game and attempt to figure them out. Magic is done differently than in other games as well. You will find magical runes along the way, each of which has a symbol upon it. Each spell has specific magical runes attached to them. In order for any spell to be cast, one must draw the correct pattern of magical runes on the screen for the spell to be cast. You will cast many diverse spells from basic ones that create fire and light torches to lightning and incineration spells that can deal heavy damage upon your enemies.
Worth Considering
Arx Fatalis is an RPG worth your time if you can overlook some of the problems. For one, the graphics engine used for the game while being able to display some interesting visuals is very dated when you compare it to recent RPG games. Yet, graphics are not always the most important factor one considers in these games, but certain areas are inexcusable and lack polish such as the quest logs which look horrible, as more care should have been taken to their organization and design. I do not like the spell system as well. I know that they wanted to try and introduce an interesting way to cast spells but it is tiresome to have to repeat specific patterns when it would have been so much easier to just cast a spell by clicking on it. You can often make this easier through memorizing spells in which you perform the desired motions and save them for later use, but continuing to repeat these specific patterns over and over is what I find frustrating and not to my liking at all. The novelty that this type of spell casting brings wears thin after awhile. There is light at the end of the tunnel though. I have to admire the fact that the developers of Arx Fatalis are trying to fix certain bugs and problems with the initial release and implement some additions to the game as requested by fans through patches, the current which is 1.15 and can be downloaded at the official site. If you can overlook these problems, you will find an RPG that while not being at the level and quality of other RPG’s released this year will still enchant you. You will discover in Arx Fatalis an RPG that will welcome you with its story, intense interaction with the environment and many intriguing puzzles!
Final Verdict: 85%
