![]() For example, the explorable areas in Dragon Age are fairly linear. Even without the aid of the minimap’s ubiquitous bull’s-eyes, there would never be any question as to where to go next. The island of Argaan may look a bit like Oblivion’s Tamriel, but it is laid out like an 8-bit Super Mario title. These skills are the extent of the character customization options in ArcaniA.Īnother joy of the genre, exploration, is non-existent. The difference is that in Mass Effect, BioWare offers multiple classes, each with its own skill tree, whereas in ArcaniA, there are no classes and only one skill tree, resulting in a very limited ability to make your character feel unique (one of the joys of the genre). The skill tree is limited to a handful of melee, ranged, and magic skills, and bears a visual resemblance to the skill trees in the Mass Effect games. The only character customization you will engage in will be the assignment of skill points (three per level) to a skill tree. Here, you play as an utterly generic farmhand from a small village, devoid of any personality or charm. This constraint can work – Geralt, in The Witcher, comes to mind – but only if the character the developers impose on you is interesting. There is no character creation – you are provided a character to play as, without even the option to name him. The simplicity of the interface and gameplay mechanics extends to the game world as well. In fact, the only thing mysterious about ArcaniA is why it is called ArcaniA. Enemies glow when they are about to attack you. Quest-giving NPCs walk around with giant exclamation points over their heads. All quest objectives appear on the minimap (even in locations you have not yet explored) as bull’s-eye icons. Any corpse that you can loot glows and has glowing flies buzzing over it. ![]() Any object that you can pick up glows and has glowing butterflies fluttering around it. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines arcane as “known or knowable only to the initiate : secret.” Synonyms include “mysterious” and “obscure.” The title ArcaniA is therefore ironic, considering that Spellbound clearly intended everything about ArcaniA’s gameplay to be as obvious as possible. Save system: Save anywhere except in combat My rig: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU 2.40GHz, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS, 2.00 GB RAMĪlso available for: XBox 360, PlayStation 3 (coming in 2011)
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