Rise of the Argonauts (PS3)
Crap of the titans.
12/22/2008 6:08 PM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3
What's Hot: Some interesting takes on mythology; Great concept for skill trees
What's Not: Endless dull dialogue; Placeholder combat; Feels quite unfinished
So you don't want to skip too much of the dialogue, but that means sitting through a Metal Gear's worth of cut scenes in which you'll stare at homogenous character models acting out a script that plays like a first draft. There's so much unnecessary, extraneous detail that I'd swear no one ever took a red pen to the massive script.
Killing blows lead to slow-mo camerawork. It's nice the first time. Less so the thousandth.
And yet, on the story side, I have a fond respect for
Argonauts. In how many modern games will you duel a mini-boss in debate? How often do you hear "Pure sophistry!" used as a taunt? When most games can barely manage to cobble together a well-structured story,
Rise of the Argonauts is proudly dense with interwoven tales from Greek myth. It's not all straight from Edith Hamilton; in some ways this is the club remix of mythology. Some of the heavily reworked details come across well, as when Medusa's vanity proves to be her undoing. Others are difficult to fathom. Why are Perseus and Medusa brother and sister? Why is Atalanta raised by Centaurs?
(Ancient game history trivia: Atalanta would only marry the man who could beat her in a race, which led Hippomenes to strike a deal with Aphrodite to win. He was given golden apples to drop on the track, which distracted Atalanta and cost her the race. She was therefore the first person to lose at a game of Mario Kart.)
Currying favor with gods never felt so much like average RPG leveling up.
For all that narrative detail, the leveling system -- which has Jason dedicating Deeds to his patron gods (Ares, Apollo, Hermes and Athena) -- feels too arbitrary. Certain conversations allow you to choose dialogue paths to please one god or the other. Being aggressive and militaristic favors Ares; hewing to a strict sense of justice puts a smile on Athena's face.
Furthermore, completing quests and dominating enemies earns named Deeds, which can be given over to any of the four gods for points of Favor, which are then spent on new skills and "God Powers." (The "shadow Jason" tactic I mentioned before is one early God Power.) How to dedicate some Deeds is obvious -- ones earned by defeating enemies should obviously go to Ares.
