Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

Nintendo Switch (4) 2018

Genre: RPG

Developer: bluffman games

Publisher: Playism

It’s always a good idea to start a review off with a complaint. Who doesn’t thrive on negativity? For whatever reason I don’t like the name Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX very much. It’s always hard for me to remember, and I kept hitting the home button just to remind myself. I can’t stand playing a game if I don’t know what it’s called. Maybe that’s just a personal problem, but I don’t have a ton of complaints about this game so I have to make due with what I got. 

(Obligatory town shot. The other party members are mostly for show)

Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX is a retro-styled RPG that is supposed to harken back to the original Game Boy. It’s supposed to scream Final Fantasy Legend but instead it reminds me of Zelda 2. This is definitely a good thing because Zelda 2 is a much better game than Final Fantasy Legend. It has the same setup of flat overworld and side-scrolling battles. It also has darkened monster icons of various strength that roam the map and prompt the battles. It’s weirder than Zelda 2, but mostly it’s the interesting kind of weird and not the “what were they thinking” kind of weird.

It’s a game with plenty of quests, but it’s mostly about the character building and exploring. The unusual battles are action based with the little character constantly in attack mode. There’s not sword swinging involved. You can just run into the monsters and either they die or you do. Of course there are the artifacts of the title which will give you a whole bunch of other abilities to use which is where the real meat of the battle system comes into play. I did my usual thing and just picked the first three good ones I found and used them forever, but I am sure that mixing and matching is fun to. I also enjoy the pacing of character progression. It’s easy to tell when you have stumbled into the wrong area because the monsters will destroy you, but I never felt like I was too far away from getting stronger. Levels are gained fairly quickly and there is money to be found everywhere for upgrades and it’s all very fun. I didn’t have to grind too much either because there was always a new quest or unexplored cave. I actually like grinding, but I also have 2200 games in my backlog so it’s nice when I don’t have to.

(Combat picture. Hey I'm a writer not a photographer)

My one other complaint is the silly decision making mechanic. Every quest has an important decision you have to make which will effect its outcome. It’s obviously influenced by Bioware games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. In those games, however, you can usually see where the outcomes are going to lead. It’s more about deciding between two paths which will have both positive and negative consequences depending on how you want your character to progress. In Artifact Adventure the outcomes seem completely random. With many of them I felt like I made the right decision only for it to turn out to be wrong for no logical reason. It doesn’t help that at the end of the game it slowly recaps all your decisions even though the outcomes are already known by revisiting the towns after a time jump. I don’t need to be reminded again that I was stupid and made the wrong choice. You’re really not helping my self-esteem, game.

This is still a small complaint, however, as the quests themselves were fun and I still got plenty of goodies for completing them even if I did some of them wrong. Isn’t it all about the goodies anyway? So this is a very good retro RPG that is especially good for one that takes less than 10 hours. It was short but still felt like a complete game. It’s very comfortably going into the seventh slot for now because it’s not quite Pac-Man but it’s definitely worth checking out. We’re starting to see a lot of green on the list which means that I need to stop being so easy on myself. I need to start playing some bad games again. Maybe I should dust off the ol’ Jaguar. That would certainly keep Metro-Cross in the top 10. Also after my forth Switch review it has still managed to stay out of the bad column with a record of 2/2/0. I know you can’t really prove much with four games, but I’ve got a good feeling about it overall.

1. Super Mario Odyssey

2. Galaga

3. Donkey Kong

4. Exodus: Ultima III

5. Pac-Mania

6. Pac-Man

7. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

8. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

9. Metro-Cross

10. Gaplus

11. Dragon Spirit

12. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

13. Red Sea Crossing

14. Baraduke

15. Gamma-Attack

16. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

17. Galaxian

18. Evoland

19. Defunct

20. Gyruss (2600)

21. Looney Tunes Racing

22. Birthday Mania

23. Bad Street Brawler