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Review - Arcane ArenaReviewed By: Erica Marceau Review Date: June 12, 2002
Arcane Arena is a "dungeon crawler" game where you start out at level one of the dungeon and work your way down, getting more powerful, fighting stronger monsters, getting better equipment, and eventually defeating the main boss for a reward. You also get money you can use to buy equipment and items that are in the town, as well as getting quests from the townsfolk. This is the game in a nutshell.
You can get money and experience either be going to the Arena (in the town) or exploring the dungeon. Most battles in the Arena cost money, but you can often make your investment back depending on what you battle. The free battles in the Arena are good to use when you're first starting out because you can better control what you fight against. If you die, you won't lose any of your items as you would if you died in the dungeon. That's right; if you die in the dungeon, you'll lose everything you're wearing and that's in your backpack. Fortunately, there's a storage center in town where you can store your extra items. It only costs 5 dinars (the currency used) to take items out, and nothing to store them. In addition, the monsters present on the level on which you die will have your items, so you have a good chance of retrieving most or all of them if you return and kill them all before too much time passes.
The magic spells are varied and, for the most part, very powerful. How strong they are depends on how much mana you use, so the more mana you have the more powerful a magic user you will be. The more intelligence you have, the more likely your spells won't miss, the more likely spells cast by monsters against you will miss, and the more mana you get when you increase in levels. Some of the spells you have are distance (energy bolt, poison, slow), augment (shield, accuracy boost, damage boost, speed boost), summon (skeleton archer, cleric healer, demon), create (water, fire, wall, poison fog), illusion (some of the summon and creation spells), and beneficial (heal, antidote, dispel illusions, teleport). There are other spells available, and most of them I use on a regular basis so there's not one spell that overrides all of the others.
Speaking of items, you can get some with very powerful modifications at the stores in town, as well as the weapon store on level 39 and the armor store on level 60. You can also increase your base stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence, speed, health, mana) by getting potions in the dungeon or at the magic shops in town. I've heard of people spending 1 million Dinars on increasing their health by buying Gain Health potions at 10,000 Dinars each that give up to 20 health points each. It can be easily argued that the value of your character depends not on your level but on how much money you have and can earn.
Overall, Arcane Arena is a pretty fun dungeon game. It's not too hard to learn, and it can be played for 30 minutes or so if you want to have some relaxation and fun. It's a simple game, but that's a good thing in this case. For $30 a year, you certainly can't go wrong with purchasing it.
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You'll notice that you have a lot of characters from which to choose when you start a new character, but it doesn't matter which one you pick because they are the same in everything but appearance. So, even though the sorcerer says that he enjoys showing off his magic, that doesn't mean he will be prevented from using weapons or getting good at their use. Press the reroll button until your three stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence) are at least 14, change your biography if you want, pick a flag and color, and start the game. There's a handy guide that will lead you through your first battle and the leveling up process, which is very helpful. After the tutorial ends, you will be free to explore the island.
Arcane Arena is a game that's best played with others, and you can form alliances in order to ensure each other's longevity. However, the money you get from defeating monsters isn't automatically distributed among alliance members, which is quite irritating. You can also follow someone automatically, which is very helpful, especially since you can't see very far ahead of you in the dungeon, and there's no artificial source of light available.
Oh yes, the quests. There are three quest threads that you can get, and they all involve going to some level, killing some beast, and getting a ring, which usually leads you to another beast on another level which has another ring that's more powerful, and so on and so forth. In addition, nearly every level has a treasure chest which contains a ring, so, by the time I made it down to level 57, I had at least two dozen rings. You can wear a maximum of two rings, and they can boost all or nearly all of your statistics. Some of the rings found on the deeper levels are very powerful, indeed. Alas, I lost them all due to a horrifying death at the hands of a boss that killed me with a 3500 Energy Bolt spell. Fortunately, Hawk gave me some of her old items and helped me smack that boss into submission, but I digress. The quests won't get any awards for originality, but they fit into the game well, and some of the rings are very nice which makes up these shortcomings.
Finally, the graphics are very clean, detailed and bright. The spells are similarly drawn and pleasant to look at, even if you've seen them dozens of times before. The only minor nitpicking points I have are that all of the characters and monsters slide instead of actually moving their legs, and you don't actually see them wielding weapons or casting spells; you just get a giant red X and a number indicating damage, instead. I don't think this is a big negative, because it helps prevent lag and keeps the system requirements low.