Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark

 PlayStation 4
User Score
6.7

Mixed or average reviews- based on 40 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 40
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 40
  3. Negative: 12 out of 40

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  1. RatchetClank111
    Aug 9, 2022
    7
    For the price along with the DLC including I'm giving it a 7/10, but if I paid full price for all would probably give a 6/10.

    I think that the main issues that hamper this game come down to core mechanics and story. Although nothing terrible, the AI can be annoying at times when in some battles they obviously get the way better positioning while all your units get placed in one corner    For the price along with the DLC including I'm giving it a 7/10, but if I paid full price for all would probably give a 6/10.

    I think that the main issues that hamper this game come down to core mechanics and story. Although nothing terrible, the AI can be annoying at times when in some battles they obviously get the way better positioning while all your units get placed in one corner of the map. The mechanic for the injury penalty is annoying at best, and a waste time overall, as you can just go back to the first area so you can get your unit back at full stats, as your unit has to wait a battle to "heal". just a dumb mechanic but thankfully you can turn that off. Fights also can really drag on for awhile as the enemy easily can also revive units at times or heal, or just runs to the corner of the map, so the battle can drag on. At first I had it at the standard difficulty which was fair, but there's some crazy difficulty spikes for one of the boss fights and then the last 20% of the game it gets difficult. Also, as some may of stated, they turned down the difficulty just to finish the game and move on. Honestly, I feel the same way as towards the end it just gets really repetitive facing the same types of enemies at the end.

    That also ties in with the story, the story at first is somewhat interesting, but then it really just gets dumb, and what I mean by that is that the text/tone is really dumbed down like it's just basic dialogue and just doesn't really go into any depth to explain stuff and goes into only limited backgrounds for some of the characters. Towards the end they just do a bunch of lore dump, but I think some of that should of just been stated at the beginning of the game. Also the big surprises aren't really that surprising and would of just made sense if the arbiters were also aware of what the group of immortals know too. Also, if the main character gets along with the Kawas so well, wouldn't have they told her the information already that was surprising. I got the bad ending for the game, but after reading up what the good ending was, I actually prefer the bad ending as it's more interesting and that storyline could of easily lead to a direct sequel. I doubt there's going to be a sequel at this point since it's been many years already, but you never know. Overall, the story is just good enough to keep you playing the game, but there's several things I would of changed, including making better party banter/dialogue between characters and enemies, as there's even a dumb scene where the main character is like we got to get to the next place, when the enemy learns they are arbiters they are like oh nvm just pass, then our main character Kyrie STUPIDLY states no u all bad we still going to battle, then after that battle, they stupidly state that oh yeah that was a waste of time and slowed us down............ IF THE ENEMY WAS GOING TO LET YOU PASS JUST PASS THROUGH THEN AND THEN COME BACK LATER, was honestly so stupid dialogue/scene.

    Other complaints were that the portraits for the characters don't really match the rest of the design style of the game, and the music although good is repetitive.

    Gameplay goes easily 30+hours, but I don't see much replay value. Game gets somewhat simple after awhile and difficulty spikes are put in to make it annoying. AT least the DLC helps somewhat with leveling up characters, and adds some flavor to the game

    Decent game but only get this on sale    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

14
#14 Best PS4 Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
86

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. GameCritics
    Jul 8, 2019
    85
    Even with a somewhat steep learning curve and a frustrating final sequence, I enjoyed Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. Solid design and wonderful storytelling more than made up for the annoyance and grind.
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  2. Video Chums
    May 25, 2019
    86
    As a fan of retro turn-based strategy RPGs, I'm very impressed with Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark as it really hits the nail on the head while also offering plenty of cool innovations to the classic genre. If you enjoy these kinds of games, you definitely need to play this epic SRPG.
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  3. DarkStation
    May 20, 2019
    80
    Gorgeous hand-drawn art fits perfectly the game. The colors are vibrant and the sprites are extremely expressive and detailed. However, the animation and battle effects look really stiff and rough. The worst are the spells effects, as they look more like animated stickers playing over the target than real devastating magical effects. But this is just a small nitpick and doesn’t affect the overall experience. Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark may lack polish and grace but it remarkably pulled off a rewarding gameplay loop that will keep you coming back to it for hours. Pick it up if you’d like to experience a well-made tactical RPG reminiscent of the golden age of the genre.
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