I've heard of the webcomic Penny Arcade, which this game is based on, and have read a few at some time, but can't remember anything about them, so I went into this game blind. The setting seemed fun and the graphics are nice, but it wasn't what I expected, for better or worse. I didn't expect a character generator that is fairly detailed, even if it's far from what Bethesda have in their games. I was quite pleased with my creation, all the same.
There is some voice acting by a narrator here and there, but it's mostly just text, which is a bit of a bummer to me (I prefer fully voiced characters), even if the text is fun to read. The humor is sometimes random, sometimes simple or mildly vulgar. I personally enjoyed it, but it's not for everyone. The plot revolves around giant robots and HP Lovecraft-like ancient, dark gods.
I thought this was gonna be turn-based (like it says on the tags), i.e. where you can take your time to look over your options and then make a plan for each character, but the combat is real-time and all your abilities/attacks are on a timer. This makes things more hectic and at the start I was a bit stressed, because I hadn't taken a good look at what the different items did or how to tell them apart in the heat of the moment ("oh, so the throwable green bottles reduce the enemies' defense, but the pink bottles reduces their damage").
Once I got that sorted out it got a lot easier, but I still haven't figured out/mastered everything you can do (when to block, how to counterattack and team attack) and I can't be bothered to find out either, because the game isn't that good and you don't need to master every aspect to win every battle, fortunately. Also, if I had seen that the game had a manual before beating it, that might have answered some questions, but nowhere in-game did I see any mention of a manual and how many games come with manuals these days anyway.
I played on the easiest difficulty, because the combat in games of this kind (great source material, rich in lore and character) usually seems like an afterthought. Some people don't mind that if everything else is great, but bad combat most often equals bad gaming experience for me. That's not the case here, but it still isn't great. Some attacks from enemies do very low damage and then the next one takes off half of your max health pool. It's also good that there are only three bosses, because it takes quite a while to wear down their massive health bars. I do like that there are several combat options available, items for offense and defense as well as healing and even supporting characters that you can occasionally call in for help. You get these items by smashing containers around the areas and they respawn if you go to another area and then come back. Sometimes the containers are empty or contain an item that you can't carry any more of, but if you lack an item, you can just keep on smashing until you find it.
I started playing this game now, knowing that I could finish it in time for the Summer Sale, where I'll probably pick up the second episode if it's on sale. If it's not discounted enough or at all, then I can wait. While the game is fun, it's not that good that I absolutely must play the second episode soon to see what happens next.
