Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Solid"

Penny Arcade is a webcomic that has been going for over 10 years. Known for it's very satirical sense of humour largely at games and the game industry, having it's own game series puts it under pressure to really perform and for the most part it certainly does.

Penny Arcade Adventures is essentially an RPG released over 4 downloadable installments staring you, Gabe and Tycho, the main characters in the comic. Your starting character can be customized as you please, gender hair, clothes, colour etc for quite a variety or your previous character from episode one can be moved over if you have a save file for it to make it easier.

The story starts after episode one with Gabe and Tycho coming back to recruit you into helping them again in tracking down the giant robot that eluded them the first time around with big game hunters, insane asylums and boring scientist conventions all to come.

The story is somewhat ludicruos, imaginative and surreal at times but always interesting and above all funny, matching the comics fairly brutal humour. If you are a fan of Penny Arcade the webcomic then this game should be right up your street in the comical flair department.

The battle system to PA: episode 2 is essentially the same as the first. The game is real time turn based, with enemies running at you as you are trying to decide what to do. There are 3 options per character that charge up in a little wheel depending on that characters speed. Item charges first, then attack and then special attack, so weighing up immediate action or waiting out for a stronger attack can make quite a difference.

There are a set amount of enemies to be found in the game so level grinding is not an option, mastering how to block is. As enemies swing at you, their health bar flashes, depending on your timing when you hit the block button you will either receive no damage and counter, block most of it, block a little or take the full blow.

To help you in battle some extra characters similar to Final Fantasy Summons can be called on to help. They charge up much like your normal attacks though at a much slower rate. These include Tycho's niece, a robotic monkey, an old gramophone among others.

The game is graphically identical to the first part as you would expect with a couple of locations re used such as the nieces house as well as your characters street. The graphics are all cell shaded mimicking Penny Arcades comic book style and look pretty nice for a download title.

One of my gripes from the first title was however fixed and i feel it worth mentioning. Locking onto items to search and people to talk to is now a lot easier as your character can now scroll between objects they are vaguely facing till you get where you want. In the first episode you had to stand in the exact place or it wouldn't highlight what you were looking at.

The sound is pretty solid with some nice background music fitting of the scene. There is only one voice actor present though being the narrator, but he does a good job so can't complain.

Penny arcade episode 2, like the first is pretty short with some backtracking but the great humour present in the dialogue as well as a surprisingly fun battle system more then make up for it's other shortcomings. If you are a fan of Penny Arcade and like RPG's you can do far worse then this though really the first part must be played first, roll on episode 3.