Arx Fatalis - Review

Added January 6th, 2004 by Joel Kownacki

Introduction:

If there is one game genre that the Xbox is in dire need of, it would be RPGs. Morrowind has been the most successful so far and it should be. It was a wonderful game. Arx Fatalis wants to help out with this lacking category. Fans of Morrowind for Xbox will want to check this game out right away. It takes some of the same gameplay, improves upon it, and melts it into a great little package that almost any Xbox fan will want to play.

Gamplay:

To begin with the gameplay, I am going to focus on the way the game controls. This is a first person RPG. So you play as the character in first person which is very different from other RPG’s like the Final Fantasy games. Combat in Arx is very simple. Pressing a direction and holding the trigger will begin an attack. While attacking enemies, gamers can move freely around the environment with the left analog stick. Once you release the trigger, the weapon will be swung. The longer you hold the right trigger in, the more damage the attack will do. Also, timing is key in achieving critical attacks, so make sure to dodge then strike the enemy when it’s vulnerable. The game is very easy to pick up and play. For the people new to this type of title, simplistic controls are a huge plus, but in the eyes of hardcore gamers who want a much deeper combat system, it might just be a turnoff. With that being said, the main reason you will want to play this game, is for the exploration and progression through the storey.

The combat system imbedded into this game might not be anything new, but the magic system is very unique. In the beginning, the player must find runes scattered throughout the world. Once they find particular runes, they will learn spells which require the use of the directional combos carried out with the directional pad. When bringing up the inventory menu, players can examine the runes and see what each one does. Once a spell is discovered, it will take the combination of the proper runes to pull it off. In order to do this, players will press X then enter the combinations quickly. Once a rune combination is entered it will appear in the top right corner of the screen, and the actual spell will be carried out. I found the magic system to be very tedious at first, but once you get comfortable with it, casting them will feel like second nature.

Throughout the game, you will encounter a variety of different mythical creatures such at the rat men and Orcs. They sound, look and feel like each of there races. The game is also very gory so it might not be the best idea to hand the controller to your younger child, brother, or sister. Whether it be walls covered with blood, torture equipment with limbs hanging off of them, or guard’s arrows sticking out of there eye balls, the visuals in this game show what kind of world you are living in.

Graphics:

Arx isn’t a new game at all; it first appeared on the PC actually. Sometimes the game can look very good with nice clean textures and nice lighting effects. Other times it can look as bad as a ps1 game. Well maybe not that bad but you get the picture. First of all the character models look blocky and flat fallowed by very choppy looking animations. The water effect in this title is probably the worst I have seen in an Xbox game. The weapons and object are well modeled for the most part. One thing that really stood out to me was the fire effect. Maybe the best I have seen on any platform this generation. The environment does a good job of sucking you into the world with very rich looking textures and ambient lighting. While the whole game is underground, the developers did a great job of mixing the overall feel of it to keep it refreshing. While it isn’t one of the best looking Xbox games, the graphics do the job nicely.

Audio:

The Audio in this game overall is pretty standard. Combat sounds are very flat and are repeated over and over again with little verity. Other then that, I don’t have any other complaints about the audio in this game. Arx supports in-game Dolby Digital 5.1 which just like in every other Xbox game adds a lot to the overall feel of the world you are playing in. The voice acting is top notch. Everyone sounds different and unique. Goblins have a very strange dialect but it suites them perfectly. While the voices don’t always sync up with the mouth movements, they still make you feel like your talking to a real person behind a painted pixel screen. Arx is a very solid sounding title with little to hold it back from being great.


Control:

Arx control system was a little hard to get into. It’s a RPG so I should have expected a few hurtles. After a while controlling the characters movements and abilities became easy. One thing that made the controls kind of frustrating to use, was the lack of sensitivity option in the options menu. I found it much too hard to handle in combat as I would always find myself looking down or up and not at the target. The fallowing controls for this game are:

Left thumbstick- Move around
Right thumbstick – Look around
Left Trigger- Jump
Right Trigger- Action
A- Select
B- Put weapon away
X- Magic
Y- Standby magic
Start- Pause
Dpad- Scroll though inventory

Replay:

Arx Fatalis is a huge game. It should take you a while to complete it all the way through. But after that, I don’t think I would want to play it again. There is a lot of backtracking which gets boring fast. But still, not everyone has the same preferences as me, so hardcore RPG fans might like it enough to play it all the way through again.

Summary:

Arx Fatalis, much like any RPG, is not for everyone. While it isn’t in the same league as other great games that fall into its category like KOTOR and Morrowind, Arx offers a more linier path to beat the game then the other open ended styles. At first I wasn’t sure if this game would appeal to me at all. The graphics don’t dazzle you, which is the first thing you see when jumping into a game. As I played more and more, I found that Arx is a very deep immersive adventure that keeps you glued to the TV screen until completion. Sadly if the development team had spent more time on updating the dated graphics, I think they could have made the game more rounded and even more appealing to people that might be interested in it but turned off by the graphics. Arx is a great addition to the Xbox RPG lineup that every roll playing game fan should take a look at.