Zwei: The Arges Adventure Reviews

Mixed feelings about this one, sadly! I won’t pretend to put on my researcher cap as this is my second Falcom game besides Gurumin, but there’s a sophomoric feel to Zwei that is at least partially verified by looking at the developer credits to see that it’s much of the creative team’s first forays into game design, scenario and direction etc. I think it really shows in the ways that matter to me, charm-wise, multiplied by how fascinatingly of-its-time it is. The early-2000s design quirks, the MMO-like UI, the anachronistic rhythm mechanic, it all gives the game a unique texture that, while frustrating, is at least interesting, and Interesting is in short supply these days. The 2018 localisation did a decent job retaining the tone and humor you’d expect from a JRPG of that era, and that alone makes it a fun curiosity piece. As most of the reviews here can attest to, this game can be painfully dull lol. Combat is functional but there’s not much going on - a sole dainty attack that is only modified by your equipment. Mentioned the rhythm mechanic earlier but it’s so out of place? Gurumin had one, too, but it was at the very least timed to the BGM, here attacking on the “clap” is just something I started accepting as happy accidents to coincide with critical hits. The dungeons themselves are at the very least short and punchy, lots of micro puzzle rooms that use the game’s few mechanics in inventive ways, but it rings hollow when there’s little challenge besides damage checks. I truly wanted to preface this review with a few pointers for anyone curious to play it, but this really is just a case of a companion guide being a necessity - signposting here is woefully inadequate 😔. One weird focal mechanic here is the fact that you don’t get EXP from killing enemies, rather only from eating food. The game has an exchange mechanic where you can swap ten of any one given item for a superfood that has higher EXP yield than the sum of its parts - and can continue the exchange for even higher level food. It kind of hooked into my brain as an oddly satisfying routine of only eating what I needed to meet the bare minimum stat requirements to push me through a dungeon, snowballing my pantry in size as much as I could. My poor guys were staring at a mounting pile of bone in meat and I was swatting their hands away with a large ladle. The whole game is just very carried by charm points, but at least it has a lot of charm to give. Characterful flavour text absolutely everywhere dependant on the character you’re inspecting the environment with. Unlockable widgets that stay on the screen permanently, like a clock and a pet minigame. NPCs that walk around the town independent of you, changing their routines and dialogue at story milestones. A downright adorable art direction that is, to me at least, uncannily MapleStory or Trickster Online, right down to the UI.. Lovely character art and environments. If you would permit me a bit of strange and very personal praise; I hate menus in games more often than not because they don’t feel very tactile. One thing that struck me when I was playing Animal Crossing (GC) last year was that much of the daily routine wasn’t only the tasks themselves, but the labour of inputting and fulfilling them via the menus. Picking up items, dragging them through slots, scrolling through sub-menus, on screen keyboards. There’s a memetic heft to that that becomes a valuable part of a game’s texture to me. Zwei is a game that bafflingly has a very MMO-like UI without many niceties - there’s a scroll bar that is entirely too long and tricky to use, you can’t hold to use or exchange multiple items so every action is another button press. Character interaction is weirdly finicky (an NPC literally walks in front of you while you’re speaking to the food exchanger so you constantly need to adjust to let her through or correct the context sensitive action). I’d get back to the village after a dungeon, bag full of goodies and shit - and crack my knuckles knowing I had a very fidget sensory push toy button few minutes in front of me. “Quality of life” would take all of that away from me lol. ;;;;