Recent reviews by non_zero

Once again the community is what draws me to a game.

ARC does not have an explicit non-hostile mode but they do a lot of stuff under the hood to make it more likely that you are playing with like-minded players. If you want to do quests, gather, and fight the bots in peace most of the time you can do that and often other players will help you out. If you want to fight other players you can do that too.

It's also a more simple loadout system compared to other games like it, so I can get into a game faster. Combat also feels good; I've never gone down after just one shot and I usually know where the shots are coming from thanks to the sound design and diegetic visual indicators. The bots also have unique strategies to learn about fighting them or avoiding them that don't feel overly technical.

If you play extraction shooters and want a little less of the constant gear fear, this one might be for you.

It has come to my attention that some players were allowed to purchase the Junji Ito Collection but their country did not allow this so their DLC was revoked and the company refused to even give a refund in in-game currency. Do not accept this behavior from BHVR, this is unacceptable. Look up Scott Jund on YouTube for more details.

Great game, with a really positive player base. Had so many good experiences with random people. The meta-narrative is so strong that you almost can't talk about it without being in character. FOR SUPER EARTH!

An imporvement on the Stick of Truth in almost every way, although it's very apparent that this game was made with the Xbox and PlayStation in mind since the mouse support in the game is kind of glitchy. Instead of just being able to easily click on a menu option or select an enemy in combat, the mouse kind of snaps to different items and the cursor doesn't even initially start moving for a while. It's clear the developers would prefer you just use a D-pad to select things, for no good reason.

On a related note, the inventory menu is overall more difficult to navigate and everything is designed to be more compact and stylish, which makes it difficult to read and analyze.

However, I liked the improved and more interative combat, the random encounters and special boss battles. And I like that they made the random scraps that you find around South Park useful for crafting instead of literally doing nothing like in the Stick of Truth.

I also like that they separated costumes from stats so that you can design your character however you want. Although, the artifacts system is a little cryptic as to what they actually do and I usually ended up just choosing stuff with higher numbers.

The story and the humor also stood out more in this game. I especially liked the stuff related to your identity with the rednecks and Mr. Mackay, the blend of social inclusion and satirism in this area felt just like an episode of the show. And all of the time travel callbacks to Stick of Truth were really cool.

In conclusion, the game offers about 10 more hours of gameplay that Stick of Truth and buying it actually includes a copy of Stick of Truth, which I didn't expect. Definitely recommended.

Overall a very faithful recreation of the South Park universe with satisfying simple turn-based RPG combat.

Criticisms:
- Combat gets old toward the end, and you're stuck with the class you chose at the beginning of the game.
- There are a lot of collectibles and achievements that are impossible to complete if you don't do them at a certain part of the game.
- The random items that you find around South Park are mostly useless except to trade them for pocket change.