Arkadian Warriors

Rating Everyone Genre action Publisher Sierra Online External Links Arkadian Warriors Website

Arkadian Warriors is a sorry excuse for a hack-n-slash dungeon crawler RPG that lacks imagination and fun. The game is an Xbox live title that sells for 800 Microsoft Points which converts to ten of your hard earned dollars - better spent somewhere else. Arkadian Warriors shows off its impressive N64-style graphics in one town and nineteen randomly generated dungeons. The game play mechanics are sloppy and the enemy AI is moronic. Last but not least, the multiplayer options are very limited and the multiplayer camera is broken.

Graphically, Arkadian Warriors reminds me of a few older RPGs released about 12 years ago on the Nintendo 64. It boasts bright colors with a relatively low number of polygons. The game uses a few character and monster models with simple repaints to claim their differences. Wanako Games used the same unimaginative design scheme for the dungeons themselves. As a result, the walls, doors, chest, candles, and skulls all start to look the same after a few levels.

When the game starts, the player chooses one of three playable characters, Soldier, Archer, or Sorcerer. This character is then thrown into a small town and told to take on quests. The quests in this game are all the same. You are told to kill ‘X’ number of some type of monster. You then move through a series of randomly generated floors killing everything in your path, until you fight the boss, which completes your quest objective. The monster AI is pretty stupid and most of them can be taken down by running in circles around and mashing the attack button. Afterwards, you are transported back to town, where you can sell off items that you can't use in exchange for items that you can. Your next step is to talk the next NPC who holds your subsequent wondrous adventure(a.k.a quest) . Lather, rinse, repeat.

And now, here's what you've all been waiting for... The online play! First off, the game is only two players, and yet there are three character classes. Whoever was in charge of this aspect at Wanako simply can't count. Secondly, all of the broken mechanics from the single player game carry over to the multiplayer. Lastly, the camera restricts both players to the same camera space. This means that both players will find themselves bumping the sides of the screen trying to fight each their own battles. Don't bother trying to rotate the camera to fix your vision problem because consequently it moves your partner's camera, which more than likely will skew their vision. Playing with a friend can quickly become more frustrating than fun.

Xbox Live Arcade has plenty of excellent games out there. This just isn't one of them. The substandard graphics, unimaginative level design, xeroxed quest objectives, coupled with lousy online play makes this game mindlessly brain numbing. But hey, If you're into mindlessly killing monsters with your closest friends then be my guest... ... ... NAH! Who am I kidding! You're better off with just about any MMORPG than fooling around with this disaster.