That bloody title is a mouthful (Steam link). The only reason I know that this game exists is because I have been reading Penny Arcade since the early 2000s. Penny Arcade has introduced tons of great characters and story arcs to their comics over the years. When they announced a game that would have all those wonderful characters, I was ecstatic.

As for Hothead games: I believe this was their first game and for a first-round, this was a job well done.

Story:

The game is heavily story-oriented. The game starts with the custom-made player character having his house flattened by a giant robot. While in shock the player character sees two men chasing after the giant robot. On the narrator’s orders, he follows the two mysterious men to find out what that giant robot was all about and get revenge on it.

As he catches up to the two men they introduce themselves as Tycho Brahe and Johnathan Gabriel of Startling Developments Detective Agency. To get a new lead they go to meet Tycho’s niece Anne-Clair who tells them to go around New Arcadia to look for clues.

The story from here is the player, Gabe and Tycho trying to find clues about the giant robot while investigating strange occurrences throughout New Arcadia.

Sound:

Overall, the sound has what feels like the standard mysterious soundtrack. It’s not bad and only plays in the menus. Each level has a soundtrack as well but these simply play when the levels are loading and not otherwise. While exploring the levels instead of music playing in the background there are a bunch of little sound effects like birds chirping, a record player spinning and so on that keep playing in a loop in the background. I like this more than background music since it feels more natural. In combat, on the other hand, there is music playing as soon as you enter combat.

As for the sound effects, there are tons of them. There are sounds of walking, things being broken and so on. In the combat there are the sounds of a dice roll as the combat starts, each item has a unique sound effect as it activates and offensive items sound great. Even the standard attacks from each character has a different sound effect which is nice since that effort is usually only taken for special attacks.

Graphics:

Penny Arcade has slowly improved their art style over time and the graphics are ripped straight from the comics. All the characters while being 3D models are ripped straight out of the comics when it comes to their art style. Everything looks drawn including the levels. The little things like damage taken or the block pop-ups are comic-like as well.

The cutscenes are really good. They look like a Penny Arcade comic came to life as they start out moving and freeze to what would be in a comic panel. The dialogue trees are ripped straight from Penny Arcade including the text bubbles.

Gameplay:

The gameplay has the standard old school RPG style where you can explore the world freely till you get too close to an enemy at which point combat mode is triggered. Since both these modes are significantly different to each other I will talk about each of them separately.

Exploration:

The exploration is typical of most RPG games. You use the mouse to point at the place you want your characters to walk to or click on things you want them to interact with. While exploring the world you can break boxes, crates, trash cans and the like to discover inventory items though you should be careful since somethings in the world spawn enemies. Defeating miniature robots in combat gives you parts that can be used to upgrade a character’s weapons.

During exploration, you can also interact with side characters who open up discussions. The discussions are just information gathering and as far as I can tell there is no way to fail a discussion. Most discussions give you clues or quests that you need to complete. There is no such thing as a non-mandatory quest in this game. All quests need to be done as they move the story forward.

The only thing I didn’t like with the exploration is that it is not always clear what to do next but since the world is small and densely packed you don’t get annoyed wandering about trying to find what to do next.

Combat:

In combat, every character has equipment, an attack and their special attacks. The abilities prepare themselves sequentially to the order mentioned in the last statement.

Combat starts with each character involved rolling a 20-sided dice. If a character lands a 20 all their abilities are ready and good to go. If no one lands a 20 then the highest number is ready to use their item and basic attack. Unless another character’s action is already in use you can use an action whenever ready.

There are quite a few items, some improve resistance, armour, attack strength or are offensive weapons and traps that can be used. There are also inverse variants of these weapons to be used on enemies. The problem with the items is that if you leave an area and come back you can find more items so their value is heavily reduced as you don’t worry about using them whenever you like.

Each character has a standard attack and three special attacks. The special attacks involve using skill and quick reflexes to pull off and become harder according to the damage they do. The only exception to this is Gabe’s special attacks which are frustrating button mashing which annoyed to all hell. It annoyed me further since I love Gabe’s innocent stupidity here and in the comics. Along with each character’s special attacks are assisted attacks from Anne-Clair and a cat that you can call.

Different enemies are weak or strong against different types of attacks so it is up to you to figure out the best attack for the current line up in front of you. Picking which attack to use on which enemy while planning the use of the special attacks is enough to win most battles. To win every battle however you have to get the timing of blocks correct. Blocks are carried out by hitting the space bar at the right time, hit it too early you either miss the block or only block a bit of the damage, hit it just short you will block most of the damage while when you hit it perfectly all the damage is blocked and the character will counter the attack.

The exploration and combat together in a densely packed world make for some fun gameplay. I fear that if the game was longer I would get bored of it but as it stands it is completely lovable.

Conclusion:

There are 4 episode for Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness and if they all keep up the pace, humour and fun factor of Episode one I don’t know why we aren’t approaching episode 20 today

Pros	Cons
Fun Story	No failure dialogue
Graphics are Cartoony	Occasionally feels old
Natural sound effects are used instead of music	No voice over except the narrator
Fun Combat	Annoying button mashing specials for Gabe
Supports exploration	Items respawn on each visit, devaluing them