Review: Arcadia: Colony (Nintendo Switch)
Arcadia: Colony is an adventure platformer developed and published by Kibe Software House. This 2D anime-style metroidvania has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it misses the mark.
The premise of this title is that mechanical puppets are wreaking havoc, and it’s up to you – the three main characters – to save the world. In terms of plot, it’s not the strongest, but it’s fine for a game such as this. My problem with it is that it’s not executed or explained well. For example, characters speak as you run into NPCs, but it wasn’t enticing enough to make me want to read the speech bubbles. The gameplay was already so slow that I didn’t want to listen to anything the NPCs had to say. (But more on that later.)
Upon starting Arcadia: Colony, you’re introduced to the three protagonists, each with their own special abilities. Airi is a bunny who can double jump, Enji is a porcupine who can pick up and throw objects, and Tazpo is a mole who can dig and move through tunnels. The gameplay includes the player swapping between the characters based on whatever ability the platformer currently needs. Honestly, I spent most of my time as Airi because her movement was the most fluid.
However, that doesn’t mean the movement and controls in Arcadia: Colony worked well because they didn’t. The input wasn’t always responsive on the first try, or it was way too sensitive. For example, Airi would leap too far onto a platform, falling to her death in a pit. Or, it’d take me too many tries to get Enji to pick up an object. The tunnel physics with Tazpo were frustrating at best. No matter which direction he was moving in the tunnel, I had to hold the analog stick to the right, or else he’d stop. But when it came time to exit the tunnel? Then, I’d need to push the analog stick in the correct direction. Even then, he’d sit there for a few seconds until the game realized it was supposed to respond to my controls.
I died a lot. Luckily, the characters have three health and, once you lose it all, you’ll respawn at a checkpoint. Checkpoints are generously everywhere, which is great because there’s no map. The levels are huge and when entering a new place, your character simply walks off-screen only to appear in a similarly looking area. I like the art style, but it’s difficult to tell what’s part of the background and what isn’t.
As I mentioned earlier, the gameplay is slow. Weirdly, this is good, since the controls weren’t always responsive. However, I spent more of my time waiting. There are so many moving platforms, and they’re sluggish. (And no, it’s not lag.) For instance, there’s one platform that brings you from one side to the other that takes a solid 30 seconds with nothing in the background. I missed it at one point and had to wait for it to reach the other side and then come all the way back to me.
If the gameplay wasn’t frustrating enough, I had to start the game from scratch after putting five hours into it. I’m not sure if my particular game glitched, but there was no save option for me. Naturally, I assumed it autosaved. I turned off the game and, when I turned it back on again, all my progress was gone – five hours of frustration lost.
The game’s only saving grace is the art style. Unfortunately, that’s not enough for me to want to keep playing a game. The premise of switching between three characters with unique skills is cool in theory. Sadly, it didn’t work well because of the controls. Arcadia: Colony certainly has potential, but it needs a serious tune-up.
