After suffering through at least one delay, Rise of the Argonauts was suddenly released with very little warning or fanfare at the end of 2008. Partially due to this, the game flew in under most people’s radars. The question then is: should it stay there, or is it one of those titles that’s worth taking a look at?
Setting & Story
With a name like Rise of the Argonauts, there’s no ambiguity in what one is to expect. Presented as one of its major drawing points, the foundation of the game is its setting, based on Greek mythology, in particular the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece. This well-known Ancient Greek legend tells of Jason’s quest to become king of Iolcus, to which purpose he must find the Golden Fleece with the help of a group of heroes referred to as the Argonauts, which included Heracles, Atalante, Orpheus, and Peleus the father of Achilles.
Jason is the rightful king of Iolcus and his tale is heroic in that sense, but the story does contain many elements that would not sit well for many these days. Even ignoring Jason’s tendency to sleep with every woman he meets, one of the legend’s most evocative segments is where Jason escapes Medea’s father by taking her brother on board his ship, the Argo. Jason kills Medea’s brother, cuts his body into pieces and drops the pieces into the sea, obliging the father to stop to fish them up (as you need a complete corpse to perform burial rites), allowing Jason to make his escape.
I can understand Liquid Entertainment would feel little need to take on these elements of the tale, but perhaps unsurprisingly they change the story quite a bit more than that. Rise of the Argonauts presents us with a thoroughly American and thus sanitized version of Greek mythology, much like many recent films have done. The morality is clear-cut, the main characters are unambiguously good and dedicated to core American values to the point where Jason, rather farcically, becomes angry when talking to an implied slave master. How much harm there is in such reimagining of ancient legends is up for debate, though you can’t help but feel sorry to think that some people might only ever know this version of Jason’s tales.
You see, the plot Liquid Entertainment created to replace the original is just not that good. It is a rather cheap love story in which you’re expected to work hard to find the Golden Fleece to resurrect a badly setup love-interest, Alceme. This is combined with a battle against a shallow, one-dimensional evil cult of Blacktongues, dedicated to Hecate the Goddess of Childbirth, only now she’s some kind of Goddess of Evil.
Surprisingly, the characters, a good chunk of the dialogue, and quite a few set plot events (such as the end of Jason’s first encounter with Achilles, or the whole segment surrounding Medusa) are really quite good. The four Argonauts Hercules, Atalante, Pan, and Achilles are enjoyably recognizable archetypes, and the characterization is well fleshed out in banter and dialogue. It is not of high quality throughout, but it has quite a few attractive moments. Since the characters are fairly divorced from their mythological roots, you can’t help but wonder if Liquid Entertainment would not have been better off dropping the idea of calling this a version of Jason’s tale, and instead building on a setting based on Greek mythology to create a whole new plot with a new set of heroes.
Graphics, Sound, Technical Polish
The graphics are decent, but they don’t stand out compared to other games released in the past several months. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 3, and I’ve certainly seen prettier games running on this widely used game engine, such as BioShock and Mass Effect. The world design is quite good if a bit uneven, but where the bottom kind of drops out is in the character modeling and animations, which range from acceptable to just plain weird, accompanied by a bevy of graphical glitches.
The music supports the mood per location well enough, and the various weapons and sound effects are all fair to above average. The voice acting suffers a bit under occasionally stiff writing and sounds slightly disinterested at times, but is pretty good overall.
The technical polish is poor in more ways than one. Stability issues aside the game crashed to my desktop more than once the biggest issue this game has is a very poorly thought-out interface for the PC, smelling strongly of (consolitis). The game has poor menu functions, such as having to go through the pause menu to get to the map or aspect screens. Other interface issues include the double use of the third mouse button as a weapon selection and shield attack button, the absence of an option to freely remap keys and the wonky mouse sensitivity setting that cannot be adapted. This game screams (not made for PC) throughout.
Gameplay
Rise of the Argonauts tries to copy Mass Effect. I can’t stress enough how much of the game is described by this statement, and not just in defining its overall gameplay approach as in stressing the word (tries). Some examples of this can be seen in your ability to carry a steady set of three interchangeable weapons, the dialogue system that is based on four different (attitudes), the fact that you have no choice in who goes along with you in your journey but can pick who goes along on individual adventures, the linear isolated (islands) where you play, and, to a lesser extent, the fact that you can only fight when the game allows you to. This isn’t a unique hack ‘n slash – it’s Mass Effect with swords, in mythological Ancient Greece.
The basic setup of the game is that you follow its linear introduction and ending areas, and in between you can choose between three major areas that you need to get through. The game varies heavily in how much it asks you to fight, as many locations – a good chunk of Iolcus (the starting location) and Mycanae, or Saria – are combat-free.
Combat itself is enjoyable but doesn’t really shine in any meaningful way. Interface issues tend to discourage you from experimenting too much, not to mention most of the standard fights are fairly easy, meaning there is nothing to stop you from just click-click-clicking your way through them. The use of executing moves (when you finish off a shield-less opponent with a powerful right-mouse button attack) and God Powers (special powers granted by character progression that can be used in intervals) do offer some respite. More importantly, the game features a handful of boss fights which are occasionally quite interesting, like the fight with Achilles or Isisyphus, but sometimes it’s kind of unclear what the game wants you to do, or the fight is just plain boring, like the battle with Medusa or the game’s final confrontation.
Inventory and character systems are simplified about as far as they can go. Inventory essentially doesn’t exist, with the game only handing you new items when it feels like it. There is never any freedom to loot items from your dead foes or buy them from a merchant. You can switch your armor and your three types of weapons (spear, club, sword) aboard the Argo (your ship), but there is no inventory system outside of that point. Why an action RPG would be missing a core element like this is a head-scratcher.
Character progression is wrapped into the game’s aspect system. Four Diablo-like skill trees are available, one for each god: Athena, Apollo, Hermes, and Ares. Each god represents a certain combat style and favored weapons, Ares being brutish and favoring the club while Hermes specializes in dodging, speed, and using the sword. You can gain points to invest in these trees by making the appropriate dialogue choices or by attributing personal achievements to the god of your choice whether it be finishing a quest or killing 10 soldiers.
This is one of the few elements of Rise of the Argonauts that could have conceivably been interesting. However, you can’t lose favor with gods and the dialogue choices rarely lead to different outcomes, meaning they’re just (select your favorite) options. Equally, you can dedicate any deed to any god, so Ares will be just as pleased with you dedicating (found boy a happy family to be adopted into) to him as he is when you dedicate (knocked down 20 opponents) to him. Rather than a linear XP scale, this favor system could present you with difficult choices in winning or losing favor, and in-game decisions actually pleasing one god and displeasing another. Instead, a potentially unique system ends up being nothing more than an XP-and-skill tree system disguised as something else.
You spend quite a bit of time outside of combat. A good chunk of this game is spent in dialogue, which either gets you information or quests, or it serves to gain favor with the gods. The lack of actual consequences to most of the dialogue choices means the dialogue becomes functionally equivalent to monologue. Coupled with the fact that it is often not particularly evocative or well-written, this makes dialogue a chore rather than a positive part of gameplay.
The rest of your non-combat time is spent walking. The game is designed to be linear and the world is designed around that linearity, giving it a constricted, claustrophobic feel even when you’re outside. The wonky camera and overly sensitive collision detection mean the walking back and forth over tracks you already covered is yet another chore to deal with.
Conclusion
The odd thing about Rise of the Argonauts is that it is not really a badly executed game. It does what it was designed to do fairly well. The problem lies a step below that; what it was designed to do doesn’t really work in the first place. Take the basic design of Mass Effect, put in a functional but not particular inspired combat system and make the rest of the gameplay uninteresting, without offering enough narrative strength to make up for any of it. No doubt it wasn’t planned like that, but it doesn’t seem set up to focus on making any one part of the game particularly enjoyable.
As a result, not a single element of design is strong enough to carry the game. However, switching between normal fights, boss fights, dialogue, and walking alleviates some of the tedium and the handful of boss fights and gameplay moments mentioned above help to redeem the game a bit more. But even so, I lost interest in the game long before I reached the end, and I have a hard time imagining that many people will enjoy this game all the way through to the finish without getting bored.
