Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness franchise has faced problems in the past, add into the fact that the game's development has now been passed on to a different company and you have yourself an interesting predicament. The major differences from Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 to the rest of the games in the franchise is going from a 3DPenny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness franchise has faced problems in the past, add into the fact that the game's development has now been passed on to a different company and you have yourself an interesting predicament. The major differences from Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 to the rest of the games in the franchise is going from a 3D adventure RPG to classic style, 16-bit era console RPG. Unlike the previous two games, you, as a player do not directly participate as a character, as you did the last two games. The graphics are "good" for the game, anyone knows that at the end of their life span, the Super Nintendo put out some truly mesmerizing 16-bit RPGs, some of the best art I have ever seen in that era of gaming. Unfortunately this game isn't one of them, it's a mix between Final Fantasy 5 and Final Fantasy 6. The art isn't terrible, but it could have been a lot better. It kind of reminds me of those cheap RPG Maker games. The combat is generally slow and tedious, I constantly find myself wishing there was a way to fast-forward though the fights. They try to make it more interesting by adding random rules to some fights, like double damage, or "everyone starts off with 7 mp", but in the end, it doesn't really add to the gameplay.
The game has shops in this version, but everything is so expensive, you won't find yourself going there very often. Unlike a lot of RPGs in the era they are trying to replicate, there are very few items. Many classic RPGs in the early and late 90's had tons of items to collect, buy and sell. In this one, you get, a dozen, at best.
There is a class system, but I find myself using the same classes over and over again. They try to be funny and unique with their concept of classes, but a lot of the times, I find myself just asking "why?". A lot of the character classes are really almost non-functional. You level up in this game, but not as the characters. Your base stats stay the same, instead you level up classes as you progress through the game by collecting experience points, this unlocks new skills and abilities. In order to actually enhance base stats at all, you have to collect items, which are few, far between and crazy expensive. It gives the feeling of character growth a very slow and tedious task.
The game is also really, really linear. There are a very few sparse spots where you can travel off the beaten path, for a few moments, but it all quickly leads back to the main game. I feel like I am being forced at gun point to progress the main story and just get it over with. Does anyone else remember the engrossing games of the 16-bit era with multiple stories, multiple endings, and all of the extra stuff you could do?
In the end, it's a pretty basic RPG, they try to do some things to spice the game up, but it just isn't doing it for me. In trying to replicate the concept of a classic 16-bit RPG, they actually emulated the bottom of the barrel RPGs, they did a mediocre job and produced a mediocre RPG. They could have done a lot more with it, they just didn't.… Expand
Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode ThreeYour Score0 out of 10User Score
