Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode Two

November 7,2008 - Gabe and Tycho are certainly not going to stop at taking down just one god, so here’s the second episode of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. Continuing the story that they began with the first episode, Hothead Games and the Penny Arcade creators have taken care to step up their game with tweaks to fix issues during their past few months of development on this episode along with a price drop from the fairly high price of the first episode. Is Episode Two a good follow-up to Episode One and proof that this series won’t be another flash in the pan episodic series?

When we last left our heroes in the first episode, we saw Gabriel, Tycho, and yourself take down the god in charge of the mime infestation of downtown New Arcadia. In Episode Two, Gabe and Tycho have gotten back on the trail of the giant Fruit Fucker, which destroyed your house at the beginning of the series, with the discovery of a name on one of the FF machines that is none other than a famous roboticist that now resides at an insane asylum. Along your path to the end of the episode, you’ll run across more new areas, like the previously-mentioned insane asylum, a filthy rich neighborhood, a fair, and a science convention along with previous hangouts like Anne-Claire’s bedroom and your neighborhood, though the latter is limited to just the vicinity around the house. You’ll come across a lot of familiar characters, though in a fairly limited fashion since you will meet a lot of new ones, as well, including a few familiar characters from the comics that have been re-imagined for the 1920’s universe.

With this being the second episode of Penny Arcade Adventures, continuation from the first episode is key to its appeal. You’re able to bring any of the characters you made for the first episode to start at their level 15 status if you maxed them out the first time out and before you start your new adventure here, you can alter their appearance once more with some new items in the level creator, which helps out a bit, though still a bit limited compared to the other RPGs out there. If you’re crazy enough to buy this episode before the first one or just want to start a new character here, you create a new character that will start at about level 13 to give those that maxed out the first episode an advantage early on. Leveling up is easy enough here since there are more than enough enemies spread throughout the game to level up to the level 30 cap that the lower start won’t be much of an issue for long. To add more reasons to play through again besides achievements, there are variable difficulties for those that find normal easy or hard along with an insane mode that you unlock after completing the game once that is even harder along with offering a few chests around the world offering special items only for this mode.

Penny Arcade Adventures’ battle system has been revamped a bit for Episode Two, with new weapons and special moves for the heroes and some tweaks to make the battles a bit more intuitive to block. You’re still watching meters fill up for when you can use an item, use your normal attack, or go for the special attack along with the side characters’ attack meters. That all works very well and in the same way as before, though the blocking system, which uses the triggers, now has the word “Block” flash on the enemy’s health bar to let you know when they’re open to the all-important blocks or counterattacks.

Gabe, Tycho, and you carry new weapons that are similar in spirit to the weapons you carried in the first episode, with a shotgun for Tycho instead of a Tommy gun, a hoe instead of a rake for you, and well, Gabe still uses his first, but they upgrade differently with the parts you will collect from the Fruit Fuckers you destroy along your quest. Your trio now has new special moves that are more like evolutions of what they were in the first game, with Gabe’s special being a simple DDR-like mini-game using the RB and LB buttons, Tycho’s special mini-game is basically like a Whack-a-Mole game using Fruit Fuckers instead of moles, and your own special mini-game involves a clock hand bouncing back and forth between two parts of a circle that you must stay between. The battles themselves are a bit more interesting now that battles can progress so that they may move around that area with new enemies appearing in a little bit of a different manner than they happened in the first game.

This second episode shouldn’t be surprising in that its visuals are pretty much the same as what you saw with the first episode, with maybe some tweaks here and there. The issues with having to fidget with your character’s positioning to focus on certain objects has been fixed here with a toggle option to cycle between the objects in your view, which works perfectly when there are multiple items surrounding the one you need to select. Load times are insanely long for an XBLA title just to get to the main menu with 90 seconds to reach the Press Start screen, another minute just to pull up the main menu, another 45 seconds to get to the Load Game screen, and then a final 30 seconds for the game to load to your saved position, which is nearly four minutes to just get from the XBLA tab of the dashboard into your save when compared to other XBLA games. Once you do get in, the game loads quick from area to area and for the cutscenes to load, but the long waits just to get to there are a bit ridiculous.

The audio portion of this episode of Penny Arcade Adventures is quite nice, with the great narrator coming back in a much bigger role since he doesn’t call it quits after the initial meeting between you and Gabe and Tycho. It’s a bit odd that the background music from the first episode is a bit non-existent here, but replaced by the expected background noises of monkey fights, outdoor noises, and such that you’d expect in these locations. Music does show up during tense moments which are nice when that happens. Thought there is still no voice acting here, it’s a bit odd to hear what must be public domain screams coming from Gabe or Tycho when they see something that’s horrific.

The main concern for those interested in Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode Two is whether they enjoyed the first episode and want more. If you fall into that category, the $15 or 1200 MS points for the second episode is an easy choice for a game with more replay value, a great story, a more varied main quest, and more of that great humor. Though the game takes probably around eight or so hours to beat like the first, less if you know what you’re doing, it feels longer than the first episode since there are more variety in the quests that you’re given throughout the game. If only Microsoft would drop the first episode to the $15 price tag that it has on the PC and PS3, this would be an even easier recommendation to those that have waited to see if the series will pan out.

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