Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3

Genre: RPG, Indie

Developer: Zeboyd Games

Publisher: Penny Arcade Inc.

System: I played it on PC, but you can also get it on Xbox, iOS, Android, and the Mac App Store

I would like to begin by saying that this review may not be entirely accurate. Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 is an incredibly dialogue heavy game and I am not the fastest reader. Add to that the fact that I have an uncontrollable urge to look at and talk to everything and everyone presented in the game and you may begin to realize that my experience with this game may not match yours. So please try not to take my awesome, flawless, and utterly indisputable opinion at face value.

Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 is the third installment in the Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness series and I’m beginning to understand why you don’t see many people reviewing it. I have played the first two games and like its predecessors it follows the story of Tycho and Gabe of the Startling Developments Detective Agency and Penny Arcade fame. The series is set in the 1920’s and is steeped in H.P. Lovecraftian cthulu-style lore.

Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3* is built as a traditional top-down RPG where you control a party of up to three characters, each with their own set of skills, in turn-based combat. Though the actual gameplay does not change much from the original two games, the style and artwork are quite different. The change in developers from Hothead Games (Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 1 and 2) to Zeboyd Games (Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3) makes a dramatic leap from a series that is highly animated and smooth to a game that is pixilated and action-less. I find it confusing to take a series backward in time in terms of animation, but forward in time in terms of plot and it hurts my head. The combat is mostly the same, but the lack of animation shows characters punching on one side of the screen while the enemies take damage on the other, presumably from air displaced by said punches. That being said, I only got to play through one fight so…maybe it gets better?

Of critical importance in this series is comedy. Once again comparing it to its predecessors, Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 continues to have a generally comedic dialogue. However, I didn’t find it to be as funny as the previous games. There were a few moments that made me smile, laugh internally, and even guffaw once (I really just wanted to use the word “guffaw” in a review), but nothing really made me – as the kids say – “rofl.” I was really disappointed at this. Maybe I’ve come to expect more from Penny Arcade, or maybe I just didn’t get far enough in for the comedy to penetrate the laugh center of the brain (it’s a real thing), but nothing stuck out that I would want to go around quoting like the “mime, mime, bo-bime” bit from the earlier games.

Happy Thoughts: I like Penny Arcade and the game still seems like it will be fun to play through. Plus, the game is like super cheap on Steam so it’s hard to argue with that.

Sad Thoughts: Sometimes at night I sit staring out the window at the stars and realize just how alone we all truly are. Also, I can’t usually see the stars because of how cloudy it is.

The Bottom Line: Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 has a really long title and it makes my hands cramp up when I write it. The game still feels like the older games of the series, but it feels older in style than the older games of the series. I will likely play through it as I have a “completionist” complex. Also, as a side note, I could not for the life of me figure out how to quit the game without alt+tabbing. If you figure it out (and I don’t mean from the title screen, asshole) please let me know.

*If I was getting paid per word to write this I could retire on this game review alone.