Arx Fatails
What would you do if there was no sun and you woke up in a Goblin prison?
Tags: Arx Fatalis Categories: Reviews, Xbox Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Dec 29th, 2003
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Arx Fatalis (title page) | |||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
Falling in the long tradition of games in the first person perspective, Arx Fatalis arrives for the Xbox. This RPG at times straddles the line between the two genres, with plenty of exploration and combat that isn’t turn based. While relatively novel for gamers raised on a steady diet of role playing in the third person, Arx Fatalis is very old-school.
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Inventory is allotted by a grid, there’s only so much that you carry. Certain items can be combined, which not only makes for a more useful item, but also helps when carrying around a bunch of things you’re not quite sure if you’ll need in the future. This is also rather old school, which makes Arx Fatalis a game that should have many older gamers feeling right at home.
The story has players waking up without any memory in a goblin dungeon. Well, dungeon isn’t the right word. The whole of society, human, goblin, troll, etc. are underground due to a “cataclysmic event” where the winter has taken over the world since the sun has ceased to give off the warmth it used to.
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After rescuing a fellow human from the goblin prison, the player is given the name of Am Shegar” which is kind of like a “he who has no name” (only without the Sergio Leone assist – go look it up at IMDB). Starting out with nothing, players will forage around for clubs, torches, gold, the usual RPG trappings of a quest where one starts out with nothing and is on the run.
Since this is a traditional style RPG, there are attributes and points to be distributed (strength, dexterity, constitution, etc.) as well as skills (such as stealth, magic use, weapon proficiency, etc.) that will increase over time as more points are earned thoughout the game.
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Combat is “real-time” and the traditional sword cut or club blow is done by pressing the B button to call up the combat “mode” (arming the player with the equipped weapon and calling up the power meter). The Right Trigger executes the attack – by holding it longer, the more powerful the attack will be, that’s where the power meter comes in. The Left Thumbstick, when moved around will execute different styles of attacks, thrusting, slashing, there really isn’t a heck of a lot of variety, and really there doesn’t need to be here. When taking on a few goons in real time from a first person perspective, there’s not a lot of time to think about finesse.
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Magic is also effective. Players can pre-load 5 spells to cast when needed. Loading a spell requires the D-pad to be pressed in a certain sequence. Sure, players can cast spells that way, but having them pre-loaded is much more effective than trying to get the casting sequence correct in the middle of a battle.
There’s also quite a fair bit of backtracking instead of straight ahead exploration. Getting the right key to open the right door will require a key, or a person that was a couple of levels back. That door, upon opening, will require the player to go ahead one level, back two, repeat. Okay, maybe it’s not that bad, but it happens enough to get a bit grating and tedious. It’s also easy when playing in small bursts (which is possible due to the “save anywhere/anytime” ability of the Xbox hard drive) to get lost or forget exactly where you on in the quest. Mapping could be a bit better, as could the mission logs.
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Graphically, Arx Fatalis is lackluster, but solid. What does this mean? The game doesn’t look great, but the quality is consistent throughout. There’s a bunch of sharp angles, a lack of textures, but the game doesn’t look bad. The overall look of Arx Fatalis is pretty dark, but that’s to be expected when the game is set underground.
It can be a little frustrating, especially early on, when trying to navigate in the first person, and you’re not sure if you’ve been through the same tunnel before (this is part of that mapping issue) but after a couple of hours of play, it’s much easier to discern where things are, and where the player has been.
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And that’s perhaps the biggest thing that will put players off the game – it does take a couple of hours to get into. There’s no immediate “grab” the way many other RPGs set out. There’s a slow burn initially, with the player getting sucked into the story and world gradually. Some players may never reach that point, being unable to get beyond the first person perspective. This is a problem with a generation weaned on the Final Fantasy style of RPG. There’s not a lot of “flash” but the gameplay is solid.
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The audio, however, isn’t as solid. There are some great ambient noises (waterfalls, footsteps, etc.) but the voices are of poor quality. The echo is horrible. Sure, there’s supposed to be some effect allowed for talking in a cave, but when you’re in a small enclosed space, and it sounds as if you’re talking in a huge cathedral, something is wrong.
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Often the voices seem stiff, and overlap. Thankfully, there are subtitles, but even then, sometimes they don’t help. In a game where knowing what people say in order to keep the quests going, you would think the developer and publisher would put a bit more effort into the audio quality.
The music is also good, but there just isn’t a heck of a lot of it.
Players who are looking for something other than the “traditional” RPG (at least by today’s standards) will groove on Arx Fatalis. Not as deep or lengthy as Morrowind, what Xbox owners can expect is a decent, and solid RPG that is a very good choice for a follow-up. Technically not great, Arx Fatalis delivers where it counts, from beginning to end.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Story + Magic system + Solid RPG gameplay + Save anywhere |
8.1 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- Audio - Mapping/quest tracking |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Defenitely a game for RPG fans to pick up. Arx Fatalis will reward players that can survive the initial couple of hours. | |
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Tags: Arx Fatalis
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Dec 29th, 2003 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
