The RPG Review

The RPG is an… RPG, developed by Dionysus Acroreites and published by Catoptric Games. Well, it’s more accurate to call it an RPGlite. It’s described as “Minimalistic The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim + West of Loathing + Supraland”, this is an affectionate parody of open-world role-playing games that are barely considered playable, and promises to simplify the genre and deliver an experience that will make you feel like the murderhobo you’ve always wanted to be. To be honest, it reminded me of this one mod called “Skyrim 76”, which made me laugh and I just had to try it out.

An Adventurer Is You!

The game begins with… well, the usual Skyrim opening that has been memed to death and back again. Caught crossing the border, “Hey, you! You’re finally awake”, the dragon appears, you escape, blah blah blah, adventurer is you. However, the dragon seems to be a little… glitchy, causing all sorts of problems throughout Adventure Island. Now you’re on a quest to find out what’s going on and hopefully find a way off the island. Or don’t, I’m not your dad. That being said, there is something more going on. The Cool King isn’t as cool as he seems, monsters are getting tired of being EXP piñatas, and the Glitchy Dragon isn’t that bad of a guy.

The story is fine overall. It’s a simple, lighthearted narrative that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and there are branching paths depending on your actions that change the game. That is more than what bigger budget titles actually do when it comes to choice. It also has some fun and weird justifications for some mechanics. Why does bread heal you? No, it’s not because you eat it. You stuff baked goods into your wounds to somehow save your life. I personally didn’t find the humour to my taste, but it elicited a few chuckles here and there… and one jumpscare. By the way, arachnophobia warning! There are spiders in this game, which it doesn’t warn you about, and there is no way to make them any less… spider-y.

Dammit, again?

As for the graphics, it’s also okay, but it’s apparent that there are quite a few store-bought assets being used. I do like that all humans and horses are marshmallow people (complete with optional nipple censoring!), but you can see where the developer didn’t put in the effort, like when designing Adventure Island itself. You can see where they simply raised the terrain and nothing more, leaving jagged edges and stretched textures. Although, to be fair, maybe that’s the point.

But how does it play? Well, like any Bethesda game in the past decade and a half, but massively simplified. The general mechanics you’d find in RPGs have been streamlined to make it as approachable as possible (and satirise their very concept). You don’t have to worry about dozens of stats, comparing equipment, and even what loot you should be grabbing. Anything you buy (either with money or with skill points) just makes you stronger, and looting everything that isn’t nailed down is expected, extremely easy to do, and has barely any consequences. Guards have very short-term memory, and dying will only send you back to your last checkpoint (represented by bonfires) and respawn enemies. It’s safe to say that I sort of indulged in bullying NPCs here. No one dies, so feel free to stab some folks in the head. They’ll just think it’s the wind when they wake up.

Suuuuuuuure...

And what can you use to bully the townsfolk (and monsters sometimes)? Well, after you’ve gotten yourself a nice… stick, you can swing it, charge it for a heavy attack, and hold it up to guard attacks. If you time your guard right, you’ll perform a perfect block and stun the attacker for a moment. The window for perfect blocks is pretty generous, so you can theoretically go through the entire game without losing HP.

Unfortunately for everyone who likes to play as stealth archers, you can’t crouch, and bows are banned by the king, but someone does toss you a mushroom gun. It shoots mushrooms and is surprisingly really good if you put in the money to get its upgrades. And if that’s not good enough, you can always buy bombs to solve problems quickly and explosively.

Horse models? Just make people horses!

Combat is serviceable, and did lead to a few chuckles as I headshot a goblin into the stratosphere, but it wore on me as the game went on. Swinging your weapon felt stiff and lacked impact no matter how many better weapons I bought, and armour did little to stop my HP from getting drained in two or four hits in the later areas. It’s also pretty annoying that a health bar doesn’t appear unless you’re in stabbing range, which makes it hard to see if you’re doing real damage with the mushroom gun. And, my god, some enemy types and bosses can be unreasonably tanky. It's fine for what it is, but there is plenty of room for improvement.

But you aren’t just some lowly adventurer. You’re… a player character in a world that frequently breaks the fourth wall and wears its inspirations on its face. You also learn Dragon Sh- Screams. Dragon© Screams, not the other thing. They range from freezing your enemies (and NPCs), boosting your speed, and even slowing down time. To be honest, they didn’t feel as good as they should have. Freezing and Burning were my go-to throughout my playthrough. They work fine, and are even useful for things outside of fighting, but the other three didn’t live up to the ominous(ly low budget) chanting that preceded learning them.

Untz untz untz

Slow Time does slow down time, but it also slows you down, so you feel sluggish and unable to react to anything. Speed Boost, in contrast, makes you go uncontrollably fast, so it’s only really good when you’re standing still to rapidly execute charged attacks. Frenzy, in particular, is a unique kind of worthless, as it only causes NPCs to aggro, and they’re usually aiming to kill you regardless. Fun to use in town, but not so great in combat.

And that’s not even taking into account the ear-piercing sound effect used. It’s like slamming two microphones together on the highest volume setting and recording it with a different mic. The sound mixing needs work, and speaking of audio, there wasn’t any music when I fought the toughest bosses in the game.

Bring it on, ya oversized lizard!

Unfortunately, The RPG is fairly glitchy itself, and not in the cute meta way. Enemies sometimes don’t respawn properly and stay in their death pose, yet still follow you around, getting you stuck in places. There were even a few quests that were rendered incompletable, though they have since been fixed. The most annoying part, though, was trying to collect items. You have to press the interact button every time you want to pick up treasure, and you’ll be looting a lot. You also can’t buy multiple items at once, so you have to mash the button to buy mass quantities. It started hurting my fingers after a while.

You should bring brown pants... or pants in general.

I enjoyed The RPG, but I won’t be coming back to it. It has some good moments and jokes and I liked the gameplay well enough, but its glitches and game design issues drag it down to being somewhat of a slog to play the longer it went on. Still, if you’re looking for a cheap laugh here or there, you won’t be disappointed. You can beat the game in around eight hours, and that’s including doing most of the side content. I won’t call it great, but I will call it a nice comedy bit.