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

Penny Arcade's “On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One” is part of an episodic RPG released over four instalments.

You begin by creating a character to star alongside Gabe and Tycho. Your character can be created by choosing gender, facial features, clothes and colours. Set in the 1930's, your character is sweeping the yard when a giant robot crushes your house. Gabe and Tycho, founders of the Startling Developments detective agency set off to track it down. On a quest for revenge, your character accompanies them.

The game's is humorous from the outset, and the cartoon graphical style keeps the aesthetics close to the comics. The dialogue is even shown in comic strip style panels. There is only one voice actor which is the narrator who only takes part in the first 10 minutes.

Enemies are found standing in the environment and are tied to the set quests; there's no random spawning or ways to grind levels. There's a limited set of enemies that you see throughout the game; robots, homeless people, clowns and mimes. Each has different attacks, strengths and weaknesses, so the battles do play out differently.

The game uses a timed battle system like Final Fantasy 7. There are 3 options per character that power-up over time based on the character's speed. Item charges first, then the standard attack and then special attack. This means you can either use supporting items, choose a weaker attack, or delay to use a stronger attack. Each character's special attack requires you to complete a mini-game, the damage dealt is based on your performance. If multiple characters are able to use their stronger attacks, then you can combine them for an even stronger attack which does not require a mini-game.

There are some elements of luck such as critical hits. Enemies can be weak or resistant to certain weapons, or the various types of attack. When enemies attack, you are given a chance to block by pressing the space-bar. Depending on your timing, you will either receive no damage and perform a counter-attack, block the majority of damage, or partially block. Learning to block is vital to get you through the battles.

As you progress through the game, there's a few summons you can acquire. They charge up at a much slower rate, so you can only use them every few battles. There's a cat that does 1 damage but helps stall enemies, but there's other summons that deal larger amounts of damage.

Items are found in boxes/bins and are very useful in battle. There's buffs to attack, defence, speed and ones you can use against the enemies to lower their stats. You should have no trouble stocking up on items because the item boxes/bins seem to respawn.

Episode One takes about 5 hours to complete which is a bit longer than other episodic games. There are only really 3 areas to explore which require backtracking through the areas, so can start to feel tedious. It's a decent RPG, with a similar charm to Costume Quest, although due to the profanity; this game has an older target audience.