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Arco Review

Review

Aug 14, 2024

I’d be lying if I told you Arco was an easy breezy game. Don’t let the beautifully bright and vibrant colour palette fool you, this is not a short story. At five hours in and I’m still slinging arrows and getting shot to bits repeatedly through Act Two. Very few of the fights you’ll land yourself in are a walk in the park, requiring multiple attempts and differing strategies, learned from your previous failures. This is no souls-like, which seems to be the new rubric for when a game is hard, but instead a quasi-turn-based-bullet-hell of an adventure in strategy. It’s a wild combination that on paper sounds incompatible, but works amazingly well in practice. Taking your time to dodge incoming projectiles, while also trying to get your attacks in and your magai recharged makes each combat situation a carefully crafted puzzle.