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Arcania: The Complete Tale (PS3)

 
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At A Glance...
 

Formats: PS3
 
Genre:
 
Year:
 
Final Score
5.0
5/ 10


User Rating
no ratings yet

 

We liked?


Offers up a hefty helping of standard rpg fare.

Not so much?


Nothing to distinguish it from every other rpg other than its substandard graphics and animations.


Final Fiendish Findings?

Arcania: The Complete Tale gives consumers a three year old rpg that really hasn’t got anything going for it. The graphics and sound look at least a decade old, the combat and story line are standard rpg fare, and the endless (and seemingly pointless) fetch quests bog you down in boring details. With so many other really great rpg’s out there, it is difficult to recommend one that simply sticks to the path of least resistance while doing nothing to distinguish itself from the crowd. Do yourself a favor and pick up Skyrim instead.

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Posted September 9, 2013 by

 
Full Fiendish Findings...
 
 

I love me a good rpg. There’s just something about a role playing game. The hours upon hours spent leveling and upgrading your character, the endless environments to wander through and explore, the captivating story lines, and the just plain value inherent in a game that is so much longer than the average offerings. A really great rpg is something you can play and play, and still want to come back to even years later – but a badly done rpg is another thing entirely. When role playing games aren’t done right, the very length and breadth of these types of games serves only to emphasize all that could have been.

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We first saw Arcania back in 2010, with the release of Arcania: Gothic 4 on PC and Xbox360. What we have with Arcania: The Complete Tale is simply a port of Gothic 4 to the PS3, bundled along with The Fall of Serratif expansion for it – which gives you the complete tale (ah, I see what they did there). I find it rather odd that they would port the game so far off from its original release, particularly when the Playstation 3 itself is on its final descent. Still, a port to a new platform can be a great opportunity to fix bugs, update graphics, and generally give consumers a better version of the original game.

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Unfortunately, that isn’t what was done here. As you’ll notice right from the very opening sequence of the game, Arcania: The Complete Tale does not feature any sort of update graphics or optimized animations. If anything, it looks older than its three years, and could easily pass for ten years or more. Particularly when compared to the masterfully done rpgs we gamers have been treated to in the past few years (Skyrim, anyone?), the look and even sounds of Arcania: The Complete Tale are a disappointment.  Environment features flicker, characters and even enemies may appear and disappear at random, leaving you with the novelty of being able to hear something that can kill you, but not see it. Cut scenes are even more disappointing, with wooden like faces and almost jerky body movements that truly fail to draw you into the story.

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Even a game that looks and sounds much worse than it should can be salvaged if the story line and combat portions are superb enough to distract from its shortcomings. Unfortunately, Arcania: The Complete Tale just doesn’t hit the bar on those points either. While it doesn’t have a terribly bad story by any means, you are simply given a standard rpg story that fails in every way to be memorable or engaging, coupled with an almost crippling amount of fetch quests that are for the most part, well, boring. The combat also looks just like most other rpgs you’ve played, with nothing to distinguish it from the pack other than the fact that all those upgrades and spells really aren’t all that necessary to win the game – which makes working towards them less of a challenge and more something to do to pass the time in a game that offers little other reason to play.

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Arcania: The Complete Tale gives consumers a three year old rpg that really hasn’t got anything going for it. The graphics and sound look at least a decade old, the combat and story line are standard rpg fare, and the endless (and seemingly pointless) fetch quests bog you down in boring details. With so many other really great rpg’s out there, it is difficult to recommend one that simply sticks to the path of least resistance while doing nothing to distinguish itself from the crowd. Do yourself a favor and pick up Skyrim instead.


Amy

 
U.S. Senior Editor & Deputy EIC, @averyzoe on Twitter, mother of 5, gamer, reader, wife to @macanthony, and all-around bad-ass (no, not really)


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