The different gameplays, each specific to each character, and a captivating scenario really keep us hooked until the end.
The design, atmosphere and graphics are stunning. There are a lot of details creating a great immersion.
Plus, there are a whole bunch of pop culture references, I’m always a good audience for that.
For me, it’s a very good mix between a platform and narrative game.
The design, atmosphere and graphics are stunning. There are a lot of details creating a great immersion.
Plus, there are a whole bunch of pop culture references, I’m always a good audience for that.
For me, it’s a very good mix between a platform and narrative game.
American Arcadia is a side scroller based on a very interesting story that's best played without being spoiled.
It's rather complicated to talk about the gameplay without spoiling things, but the game includes puzzles and fairly classic side scrolling where you sometimes have to make the right choices and use the right elements in order to move forward.
Visually, the game has a fairly classic look for a game of this genre, with low-poly 3D. The scenery and characters are quite pretty, without necessarily being breathtaking. Don't be a fool. But the visuals suit the game rather well.
From a music and sound design point of view, the game is pretty good, with well-tuned music that adds to the different scenes.
Finally, from a story point of view, which I think is the most important and interesting aspect of this game, despite the fact that the story has already been told in other media, the developers have done a very good job of coming up with a coherent story with slightly endearing characters.
In conclusion, I think American Arcadia is a pretty cool game with an interesting story that's well worth the money.
It's rather complicated to talk about the gameplay without spoiling things, but the game includes puzzles and fairly classic side scrolling where you sometimes have to make the right choices and use the right elements in order to move forward.
Visually, the game has a fairly classic look for a game of this genre, with low-poly 3D. The scenery and characters are quite pretty, without necessarily being breathtaking. Don't be a fool. But the visuals suit the game rather well.
From a music and sound design point of view, the game is pretty good, with well-tuned music that adds to the different scenes.
Finally, from a story point of view, which I think is the most important and interesting aspect of this game, despite the fact that the story has already been told in other media, the developers have done a very good job of coming up with a coherent story with slightly endearing characters.
In conclusion, I think American Arcadia is a pretty cool game with an interesting story that's well worth the money.
This review contains spoilers
American Arcadia is fine. It's better than fine in a couple respects. The visuals are great, not in the sense of the most stunning graphics, but just good art, a lively colour palette and a consistent and coherent 70s theme (bar those portions of the game set in the present day). The music, including original songs like Don't Be a Fool is great. The voice acting is pretty good, even.
I liked the story just fine, too. It was amply sufficient to draw me along for the game's brisk 6 hour runtime. It had a couple nice beats to it: I like how reprogramming Trevor to be less afraid so he can follow through on escaping also makes him courageous and rebellious enough to try to free everyone. There was a twist at the end, but it wasn't particularly mind-blowing, and in any case I don't think the whole story depended on the shocking reveal to be effective.
But as a game, it's just OK. The puzzles are perfectly OK. Mostly they're speed bumps, but there's a few that are slightly more difficult, and take just long enough to be almost irritating. The exception is some of the stealth sections, where you have to time running between cover based on whether guards are looking in your direction. That's fine, but it's easy to fail these sections because you're a few pixels out of place. That's fine, too, but occasionally you run into poor checkpointing, such that you have to listen to some line of dialog many times before you get to attempt the tricky part again. That gets annoying. None of the puzzles felt particularly original, nor did I feel the kind of "ah hah!" solution moments you get in something like Baba is You.
Besides puzzles, there's platforming, and it's fine, but not particularly good. In particular, Trevor's movement feels... clumsy. Admittedly that's consistent with his character, but it's not exactly fun. You can't expect every game to feel as tight as Celeste, but they could have done better here.
I think the best comparison for this game is Playdead's Limbo: it's kinda a platformer, you're stuck on a 2D plane and you do some light puzzle stuff. Though obviously this game is much less bleak than Limbo, and the first-person sections bring some welcome variety.
It also reminded me of Double Fine's Headlander. I think their colour palettes and esthetics are similar, though Headlander was more creative and had better puzzles, as I recall.
I got this game on sale, and it was a mere six hours, so I have no problems with it. I had played the developer's previous game, Call of the Sea, and liked it for what it was, so I wasn't expecting anything earth shattering here. At the price, this is a perfectly good palate cleanser in between longer or more involving games.
I liked the story just fine, too. It was amply sufficient to draw me along for the game's brisk 6 hour runtime. It had a couple nice beats to it: I like how reprogramming Trevor to be less afraid so he can follow through on escaping also makes him courageous and rebellious enough to try to free everyone. There was a twist at the end, but it wasn't particularly mind-blowing, and in any case I don't think the whole story depended on the shocking reveal to be effective.
But as a game, it's just OK. The puzzles are perfectly OK. Mostly they're speed bumps, but there's a few that are slightly more difficult, and take just long enough to be almost irritating. The exception is some of the stealth sections, where you have to time running between cover based on whether guards are looking in your direction. That's fine, but it's easy to fail these sections because you're a few pixels out of place. That's fine, too, but occasionally you run into poor checkpointing, such that you have to listen to some line of dialog many times before you get to attempt the tricky part again. That gets annoying. None of the puzzles felt particularly original, nor did I feel the kind of "ah hah!" solution moments you get in something like Baba is You.
Besides puzzles, there's platforming, and it's fine, but not particularly good. In particular, Trevor's movement feels... clumsy. Admittedly that's consistent with his character, but it's not exactly fun. You can't expect every game to feel as tight as Celeste, but they could have done better here.
I think the best comparison for this game is Playdead's Limbo: it's kinda a platformer, you're stuck on a 2D plane and you do some light puzzle stuff. Though obviously this game is much less bleak than Limbo, and the first-person sections bring some welcome variety.
It also reminded me of Double Fine's Headlander. I think their colour palettes and esthetics are similar, though Headlander was more creative and had better puzzles, as I recall.
I got this game on sale, and it was a mere six hours, so I have no problems with it. I had played the developer's previous game, Call of the Sea, and liked it for what it was, so I wasn't expecting anything earth shattering here. At the price, this is a perfectly good palate cleanser in between longer or more involving games.