Arcane Quest 2

This is a fun and entertaining game well worth the two bucks to get the full version being that it cheaper than a cup of coffee to get full access. Quick learning curve as well and each adventure in the typically 3-4 part dungeons takes only about 10-15 minutes so it’s a fun time killer on a work break or anytime you have a few minutes to spare. Still you can save your progress at any point during the dungeon so if you don’t have to worry about finishing up all at once. Fun to watch your characters progress and become more powerful as you go, earning gold to buy better gear. So if you like the old style pen and paper type rpg’s this is a great one to get.

Arcane Quest 2 is a solid dungeon crawler with a few notable issues. Those who played the first game will immediately notice the vastly expanded scope. Characters now level up, improving their stats and abilities over time. Magic users unlock additional spell slots as well, giving you access to new builds. Spells, like weapons and armor are purchased with gold earned by completing dungeons. More advanced gear requires higher level characters. All pretty standard fare but implemented well enough. The dungeon crawling is heavily inspired by pen and paper role playing games. Die rolls determine everything(except, thankfully, for movement, the best gameplay change over the first game). You explore a grid based dungeon, fighting enemies, navigating traps, and collecting loot. The game’s major flaw is that the combat is unbalanced. Enemies and characters tend to have way more defense than attack power. This leads to situations where I spend 15 minutes fighting a single enemy, as neither of us can damage the other. This isn’t an issue of difficulty, mind you. It’s an issue of poor balance. My other complaints are about the story and visuals. The story is simple, which is fine, but it is poorly translated (or written by a non-native English speaker) and often descends into gibberish. The visuals, meanwhile are also simplistic. Their main issue is that the developers use a white overlay to indicate your movement points, while also using white and tan floors. It can sometimes make the experience hard to parse, which can be especially damaging on the occasional missions with a turn limit. Overall I consider this to be an improvement over the first game but still not perfect.

Retro gaming at it’s best. I enjoy this game a lot, it reminds me of a “Hero q___” board game I played as a kid.