Arco Steam Charts & Stats

I cannot overstate how much I recommend this game. The story is amazing and it really doesn't let up. The gameplay feels really fresh and is super fun, challenging for sure but never frustrating. Franek is my favourite pixel artist, it's gorgeous through and through. Music is banging. I really hope it ends up selling well, it deserves all the success it can get.

Enjoyed the game, good music, fun combat and dialogue. [spoiler] If you beat the final level with Tecolotl, the story still acts as though he was defeated, and you can't save his family. Took a while to beat that level, so if they added an alternative ending where he becomes the guardian of the Sacred Tree or something, that would be cool. Please let us save that pixel family. [/spoiler]

Let me get this out of the way first: This is an incredibly well made indie RPG, with a unique backdrop and really fun mechanics that wears the love the developers have for it on its shoulders. Though it can be difficult at times, I think it still remains rewarding the more you go. With that being said, there's a few annoyances that are strictly a me thing more than they are what's fully wrong with the game. This game has a kind of karma system that can block you out of cool things on your first playthrough, which I'm not a huge fan of. I don't like being blocked out of or locked into content because I did something as mundane as kill a dying sheep. Maybe a nitpick, but I'm just not someone who wants to do back to back to back plays just to experience everything there is to experience. Edit: As I've continued playing a lot of my annoyances became less and less annoying as I've realized how important the idea of choice is to this game. There's so much to experience here, through the eyes of multiple characters and that replayability is something most games now don't have. I'm really glad I finally picked this up. Overall though, a seriously underrated gem that deserves more love.

What a journey. Great writing, keeps you hooked till the end and doesn't overstay its welcome. Loved it.

This game has it all. quick tactics action and revenge.

I'm just at the start of Arco (<2hrs play time) but it is surprisingly excellent. The dialogue is characterful and well edited, the story and characters are compelling and moving, the combat is unique, engaging, and well paced. The music is great. The graphics are charming. Highly recommend.

A very good tactical rpg with minimalist yet charming visual. The music for me was the highlight of the game, of course at fights were very fun but there's something about the dry guitar oh! The game is not incredibly long but all your choice matter with the guilt system. The only thing I thought was weird is the very high amount of items the game gives you, i'm not a hoarder by any means but the final fight is somewhat quite cheese-able if you just throw all your big AoE damage + Stun items hah! Overall a rock solid experience with a very unique vibe!

the game is ok. Its carried by the story and soundtrack mostly. the combat isn't as smooth or intuitive as I would have hoped and its extremely frustrating to have (restart/ R) right next to all the other key binds...

If you were scrolling the reviews to see if this game is worth it, just buy it. You will not regret it. This game is STELLAR. RPGs tend to use a lot of tropes, but the biggest trope that people tend to borrow from is fantasy (typically tolkien-esque fantasy). Arco is a BRILLIANT game that invents its own kind of fantasy. Instead of borrowing from the fantasy tropes of Tolkien, which in turn borrowed from the mythos of european legends such as Beowulf, Arco uses Mesoamerican stories and legends, and the worldbuilding is colored with the perspective of the oft-neglected victim side of the colonial wild west. The encounters all paint a wide and storied picture of what the wild west of the colonial era was, and the game doesn't shy away from the distinct brutality and cruelty of the events of colonialism. There are (fictional?) clans, such as the Iyo and Kanek filled with myths and traditions and holy magic. I've heard that your choices matter a lot to the outcome of the story, though I haven't completed multiple runs yet so I cannot verify whether this is actually true. What I CAN say, however, is that the writing is extremely well done. I consistently forget where I am when I'm playing this game. It just sucks you into the world. It feels so real. The gameplay consists of navigating dialogue choices, exploring scenic 2D pixel vistas to find items and complete quests, and quasi-real time turn-based combat encounters. Each "turn" plays out a couple seconds of real time and then the game freezes to let you make a choice on what to do next. The combat has this feel of physicality where the elements on the screen interact with each other organically - bullets might set off environmental traps, which in turn hurt the player or enemies on screen. It certainly isn't the standard turn-based fare of selecting a move and rolling a dice to see damage output. You can see exactly how you take damage and how to fix it. It's much less about numbers and more about spatial reasoning. The combat is accelerated with ghosts that move even when everything else is frozen, forcing you to get out of your own head and make moves. In summary, the combat is very good!! The soundtrack is phenomenal. Light acoustic fingerstyle guitar follows your journey during the moments of peace, while heavier rock strengthens your resolve during more intense combat encounters. There's a push and pull to the experience that is underscored by an evocative traditional-sounding soundtrack. It's really good. If you saw the trailer and liked what you saw even the tiniest bit, GET THIS GAME. You will not regret it. Much love to the devs, you've got something really special here :D

I really like the pixel artist that worked on Arco, so I very much wanted to like this game. And while the backgrounds are beautiful... the game is just not all that good. Since the reviews are "overwhelmingly positive", I thought some warning is in order. It's not terrible and depending on your tastes, you can enjoy it. I gave it about 5 hours, so maybe the combat gets more fun later, but it's just too frustrating to continue grinding. First off, I'm personally no fan of random-click-stories. It starts with the dialogues that are often just random info bits and then have only one option to choose from... why? It continues with choices that lead to the same outcome or are of unclear consequences. Sometimes you lose items, without feedback if that was good or bad. Sometimes it's bad, but you can't go back. So maybe you have to learn what options mean by replaying. That's not fun in my book. You'll have to run around on the locations to find points of interest, which needlessly stretches the game. You for example find a clothing line, that prompts you "clothing hangs to dry"... ok, thanks, I guess? When you travel around, you have to watch the llama walk through all the locations for no added value. Why is there no fast travel? There are many such little frustrations that add up. The worst is the keyboard layout that puts a "restart combat" key right next to the most common action keys. Get a bit erratic fingers in a heated battle? Well, you'll just have to redo the whole thing, no confirmation box to save you. There's no option to change the hotkeys either. That's frustrating especially with battles that are a mix of repetitiveness and random luck. Despite being turn-based, it's not always easy to predict moves. And some special ghosts break the turn-based model and thereby the option to plan in a relaxed manner (they can be turned off if you enable the "assist mode"). The battles can be fun at times. Yet the balancing makes some super easy, while others need 20 restarts. Some random elements border on harassment of the player. The music is very immersive and enjoyable. Maybe the best part of the game. The backgrounds are fantastic. The characters lovely. But then sadly, the animations are mixed. I dunno why some llamas just walk with an animation-less wobble, while there are walk-cycle for others. It didn't blend well and was distracting. With the extremely minimalist style, this is a bit hard to justify. As are the loading times. Why do I have to wait a minute to start a game that has specs below 90s pixel games? So overall: - Great graphics create a beautiful setting with music that adds to the atmosphere. - There's a mystical story that is too cliché, but might go to interesting places later... - yet the way it is told plus the many frustrations and harassing gameplay elements make it hard to keep at it. - The battle mechanic isn't novel nor polished enough to be fun - and that is the center of the game. Worth the money if you're into some of the elements, but a missed chance with some polish and more care for the player.