Arco is a beautiful vision of a fantasy world modeled after Latin America depicted in a pseudo-8-bit artstyle that betrays the crunch time the team's graphic artist was under. Experience poignant and traumatic stories as you guide the decisions of a Mesoamerican native, a beefed-up Aztec lady, and a couple of Arabs for some reason as their individual quests for vengeance culminate in a great unifying goal to kill Whitey.
I started this game and basically spent all of my sparse free time over the five days glued to it. The story is compelling and filled with moments of suspense and adrenaline that allows you to get lost in the world over and over before jumping out from behind a rock to shoot you, and somehow it never gets old! It's like a classical Western movie with grounded modern sensibilities; even the comedic bits that increase in frequency as you make your way through the game feel natural and just silly enough to be fun without breaking immersion, but they never get in the way of the drama. Even better, if you decide to be "evil" the game appropriately punishes you without being ham-handed about it, allowing you to skew the protagonists' decisions in a way that feels natural rather than pointed. Making merciless and uncaring decisions will get you plenty of extra loot and power, but make the combat harder the further you compound your sins. Being magnanimous and thinking ahead will curb the difficulty in combat slightly, but also lead you to very different opportunities. Either way, even if the game is a touch tricky about some outcomes, neither route is going to see you underprepared so long as you still think ahead and, most importantly, think strategically.
And besides, you can savescum all you want to make up for any gaps in resources, so go wild.
The combat is a deceptively simple turn-based hybrid system that relies heavily on positioning and movement, but scales wonderfully as more possibilities and enemies are introduced. Between melee-, ranged-, and support-focused fighting styles, every character you can play with has at least one specialization, with everyone sporting at least a modest skill tree to upgrade their abilities and available options. The main characters in particular all have much larger skill trees with a slew of different capabilities, some unique, which allow you to mix and match tactics and playstyles as you progress. It would be nice to be able to respec skills in some way, but even playing for the first time you should get the hang of the skill trees quick enough that you can avoid wasting points on less useful skills for your needs.
In addition, you'll come across a large collection of items throughout the game that will allow you to bridge gaps in your strategies, or give you wild cards in some battles. Managing resources well can allow you to load up with certain items to create busted strategies that will get you through every fight with ease, but I found myself relying mostly on the character skills and still making it through with relative ease. As a general rule in combat, it can be a little frustrating in some fights with how precise (or un-precise) some of the hitboxes are, but personally I found myself adjusting mentally to the marginal kinks in the system easily enough.
Pros:
- Strong Story with branching pathways and many options for both critical path and sidequests
- Easy-to-Learn Combat that still holds surprises up to the end of the game
- Beautiful pixel art scenery and cool character portraits
- Excellent writing that doesn't take itself too seriously
- Baked-in Difficulty that scales naturally and allows for savescumming without penalty to accommodate learning
- The game world's idiosyncrasies are many and varied, which helps it feel alive and organic
- A karma system in "Guilt" that has unique effects on combat and the game world
Cons:
- Some combat aspects can get janky, possibly by design
- Trading, especially selling, is limited to specific items per trader, which is interesting, but prevents you from managing resources optimally sometimes
- Some effects are poorly explained or never explained, though this encourages experimentation (just not necessarily in a good way)
- Some parts of the game are a little unintuitive (but not too cryptic)
- There isn't enough of it
Final Score: A strong 9 out of 10. Easy to pick up and play, entertaining, and does not overstay its welcome while leaving you wanting more.
