Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Nov 4, 2021

  I only just finished the 2nd episode and it's pretty good so far. I'm enjoying it. It is a very simple, extremely charming retro fps. I love the stylized voxel sprite work. It can be fast paced during boss fights and when it throws more than a few enemies at you at once, though it feels much slower than other retro fps' on the market. I do have some complaints though. I don't like how all weapons share an ammo pool. It discourages using weapons other than the default weapon for large skirmishes, especially with the Eternal Sonata being expensive to fire and being required to navigate some levels. The level design also feels too Wolf 3D in some levels. I wish there was some semblance of verticality in the game, even if it's just an arbitrary staircase in a hallway. The secrets also feel too arbitrarily hidden. Maybe it's just my familiarity with Doom mods and games like Amid Evil and Dusk with well hidden yet labeled secrets, but it discourages secret hunting outside the boss stages, especially with the fact that secret walls seem to have no discernible difference from the regular ones. Overall, I really like this game. With how fun the gameplay can be and with how charming it is, It more than makes up for its downfalls. I’d recommend playing the demo first, because I don't think it's for everyone but it’s still a very solid retro fps. EDIT: Just finished the final episode and my opinions are mostly unchanged. Only thing that's really changed is how strongly I dislike progression being tied to secret hunting in the 4th and 5th episodes. If something is required to beat the level, it shouldn't be hidden behind a poorly hidden secret. That's just bad game design. Still, I really liked this game and would still recommend despite its flaws
• gamedeal user

  Nov 4, 2021

  I can only weakly recommend this game. It's pretty fun and has a nice aesthetic. Unfortunately it seems like the level design is very simple and that it's very short, since I blew threw the first of five episodes in just 25 minutes. I'm fairly sure every level is a one-floor maze, that is, there's no variation in height at all. I've already gotten what must be, according to the store page description, most of the weapons in the game, and they all feel too similar, which puts a damper on how fun the combat can be. None of them are satisfying to use in the way that a gun such as Doom 2's SSG is. Given all this I'm inclined to say the game is overpriced. It should probably be $5-6.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 4, 2021

  Fun retro shooter with a pretty good difficulty arc. Love the art style.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 4, 2021

  [h1] Overall Rating: 7/10 [/h1] [b] [u] Reason: [/u] The gameplay itself is fun. It controls quick and tight and the weapons feel good to use. You can definitely feel the inspirations in the way the game feels and some of the level mechanics. The levels are a little short and I'd like to see verticality in them to add difficulty, mechanics, or just utilize the ability to move the camera up and down. Otherwise, I feel as though removing vertical camera movement and designing levels with more complexity using the single-axis camera. Overall, I've only played a little but I would recommend the game. It's worth its price point for the quality that you get, and supporting indie devs is almost always good.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 4, 2021

  This is a super easy recommendation from me. This game just oozes charm and passion and is just entirely worth the play. Even if you somehow don't enjoy the awesome weapons, or the excellent enemies, the soundtrack is so amazing that any of your complaints you may have wash away. I love this soundtrack and I can honestly say it's been a while since I've enjoyed a game purely for music and this game is great for that. I love the artstyle, gameplay, and I love how cheap this game is for what you're getting. Definitely grab this game!
• gamedeal user

  Nov 4, 2021

  It's a very fun and comfy experience to play Arkos. Played it back at Realms Deep and enjoyed it, so when I saw it released on Steam, I decided to pick it up, and I had a lot of fun. The game isn't long enough for the level design to get anywhere near boring considering it's a wolf3D style of game. I'd recommend it if you just wanted a roughly 2 hour game that's nice and comfy. Small update: They are adding more content so more bang for your buck.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 5, 2021

  Firstly, this is a game that's going to appeal to two types of people: those who enjoy Wolfenstein 3D, and those who have nerdgasms over voxels - it's a doomer shooter, yes, but the influences that it takes from Doom/Quake are minimal. It's also the only game other than Half-Life 2 to make tasteful use of bloom - there's a reason that it's enabled by default. I think the criticism that vertical mouselook is unnecessary is unwarranted as several enemies are on the ceiling or are shorter than others, and both are often used in unison. In a Wolf3D tribute, verticality is not something that I would expect. The art style is definitely unique. It's pixelly (duh), which is a bit of a meme with indie games, but they're *voxels*, and that makes it stand out in the ocean. There isn't a single game that I've played that looks similar. This is an incredibly inventive way of approaching a look and vibe that I'd otherwise say is overdone. The music is A+. Imagine Heretic mixed with Duke Nukem II. That's the Arkos soundtrack. The tracks seem to be carefully selected for each level, and they fit. I'll be purchasing it, no question. This is the one-man developer's first FPS, but there's still some issues that I must mention: - A backpack item to increase your ammo carrying capacity would be useful. Even at full load, your character still picks up ammo potions and wastes them. - Hard difficulty seems like a bit of an afterthought. This is related to the first problem, and that's that it's not really balanced for hard difficulty or beyond very well unless you fall back to the pistol equivalent (which has infinite ammo) way more than you otherwise should. I enjoy ammo management in these sorts of games, but there needs to be enough to deal with the spongy enemies on hard and above. Perhaps double the amount of ammo that pickups give when playing on hard? - There's no map, in a game made up almost entirely of mazes. Where is the map?
• gamedeal user

  Nov 6, 2021

  I do not mind simple or basic gameplay if its well done, even in Shooters. Project Warlock is such a game, but the guns it has are massive fun, heavy in impact sound and feel and the gameplay is quick and vicious. Arkos looks really nice and it was its Voxel visuals that gave me some interest and made me try the game. After giving this game a good hour i am just bored by it. The enemies cuteness gets bland very fast. Their actions are also rather basic as well. Level design goes into the same direction, ie, not interesting at all. Is has some ideas but it does nothing really good with it and in fact does even something bad with it. All staffs use the same ammo pool except for the starter weapon which has infinite ammo. Issue here is that at least one of them is a important tool, the teleport staff. It using the same ammo as all the other. In certain levels this soon leads to the player avoiding using anything else but the basic staff since you NEED the ammo for the rest to navigate the level. But the worst thing that greatly hinders the game are that the weapons you use, the staffs, neither sound nor feel well to use. Using them is just flat an boring, with no impact or heft to them whatsoever. I am disappointed to say that it's just not very fun beyond the visuals, which get old very fast. Arkos needs to get back into the oven for another go over. A game that does this concept of a simple but engaging Retro Shooter much, MUCH better is the aforementioned Project Warlock.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 7, 2021

  Imagine Hexen on a flat plane like Wolfenstein 3D, but on a much better-looking engine comprised entirely of voxels. That's my best one-line summary of Arkos. It's a pretty straightforward game, you have a wand that shoots fireballs, there are enemies that need fireballing, and you need to find keys and ultimately the exit to escape the level. There are a handful of levels per episode, and 5 episodes each of which ends with a boss fight. It won't take that long to get through on Normal difficulty, which really doesn't start to get challenging until Episode 4. Although this kind of thing has been done before, it's never quite looked like this, and the dev has hit that "one more level" formula on the head. Wands aren't that satisfying to fire, but enemies sure are satisfying when they explode in a shower of voxels, painting the ceiling, walls and floor with voxelly ichor. After a big fight the entire room is daubed with voxel splatter like a child gone mad with a dozen pots of paint. The music is pitch-perfect, sounding like something straight out of Ultima Underworld, Heretic or indeed Hexen, as though someone reinstalled an AdLib sound card in your PC. Even better, each level has its own piece of music, it's like an old game! The sound effects are functional but they tell you everything you need to know. There are secret doors to find, subtly marked with a little visual clue, and not so hard that you can't ever find them. The wands all appear to get progressively better as you go, but you soon learn the strengths and weaknesses of each, and environmental effects and design encourage you to swap them around at times. Bosses are bullet sponges, but they're extremely satisfying when they pop. There's no procedural generation, so once you've beaten the game the only option is to try again on the two harder difficulty levels. On Normal you rarely have to worry about running out of ammo (a shared mana pool between weapons), but on Hard you need to carefully watch it and how you use it, because enemies need more fireballing and yet you don't get any more mana than you do on Normal. There are more supplies in secret rooms, so finding those becomes important. Insane difficulty is... well, I guess you'll be running out of ammo a lot! Anyway it's a great little retro shooter, highly evocative of the early-mid 90's PC DOS period, except with an engine and look that could only be 2021.
• Golden_Fryingpan

  Jan 6, 2022

  Quite short and yet it still managed to be extremely boring. Get ready to spam E on every wall and try to destroy every piece of object you encounter in some levels if you wish to progress. Also episode VII's monsters are way too unbalanced, like killing a cyberdemon with a shotgun, 5 times back to back.