Rise of the Argonauts [X360]

The fusion of elements from the role-playing and action genres isn't a new one. It's part of the foundation of the ancient Greek epic poetry on which Liquid Entertainment's Rise of the Argonauts is based. Heroes like Jason and Odysseus roamed unfamiliar lands, encountered bizarre and powerful creatures, and often received rewards for their trials and tribulations to help them vanquish enemies or otherwise make their travels more convenient. Such a concept beats at the heart of a wide range of modern storytelling mediums, and its success relies on observable character advancement through increasingly powerful items and improved statistics. Liquid chose a more streamlined, action-focused tack with its hybrid title, which, along with a few other factors, tend to limit its appeal.

Trimming the number-crunching aspects in which the obsessive-compulsive and RPG hardcore so ravenously revel while keeping in lengthy, fully-voiced conversations between characters and an accessible real-time combat system seems to be an appeal to the mainstream. By removing the typical RPG genre complications and adding a simple combat engine with a heavy emphasis on passive abilities and the mechanical repetition of light and heavy attacks, block, and dodge moves, the game can't fully satisfy action or RPG appetites. It feels like Liquid sacrificed too much for the sake of its genre fusion.

Propelling the game's action forward is an interesting story featuring a combination of heroes roped in from Greek mythology and emphasis on content from sources like Apollonius' The Argonautica. Jason and his companions, the Argonauts, aboard his ship, the Argo, still seek the Golden Fleece, but this time to revive his fallen wife, Alceme, who at the game's beginning is assaulted by a shadowy organization. Since the plot and appearances by famous characters from Greek mythology are some of the best bits of the game, we won't get into many more specifics, save to say you'll encounter plenty of magical beasts and demons, and the tale includes Titans, Tartarus, centaurs, satyrs, and, of course, a prophecy.

Fleshing out the characters and their motivations is accomplished through a Mass Effect-style conversation system where you're given several choices for a response while the conversation is still ongoing. This leads to a more natural flow of character speech, as instead of pausing every time it's your turn to respond to read your options, you can do so as an NPC is still talking. The responses are presented as general states of mind (suspicion, anger), so you'll never know exactly what Jason is going to say until he says it. Unfortunately, unlike Mass Effect, the majority of the conversation chains don't alter the outcome of situations, so it feels less like you're role-playing and more like you're moving along an only slightly varying linear path, and a large number of conversations just aren't that interesting and serve little purpose. Considering how frequently the dialogue sequences occur, easily encompassing about half of the approximately 10-hour experience, more variety would have been appreciated.

As much focus as there is on conversation, you'll also be doing quite a bit of combat. The game does away with experience points in favor of a deed system, where completing side quests or netting accomplishments similar to Xbox 360 achievements (kill X enemies, shatter X number of shields, use God Powers X number of times) are compiled in a list, and that list can be dedicated to Ares, Athena, Hermes, or Apollo at shrines. Dedicating deeds and choosing conversation options aligned with the gods then earns you favor points that can be used to purchase new abilities. A large portion of the abilities are passive, giving you bonuses like health regeneration or more damage against shields, and some are active and can be slotted for use on a the battlefield, though their long cool down timers prevent rapid use.

The main issue is there just isn't much reason to use anything other than X,X,Y or Y,Y attack combos. Each of Jason's tools of battle, the shield, mace, sword, and spear, can be powered up in various ways, but even at the end of the game on the hardest difficulty setting, it was a matter of using the simple two and three button press combos to vanquish pretty much everything rather easily. Part of this is due to a large number of enemies having almost exactly the same behavior in battle. There'll be guys with weapons and guys with shields, a few larger guys with weapons and shields, and that, with a small number of exceptions, is it. Combo and repeat, and they're dead. The handful of bosses in the game play out in a familiar fashion, with progressive attack patterns that in some cases require you to sit up and pay attention to timing, movement and blocking. They're certainly a nice break from the sloppy and simplistic battle arenas the game throws at you throughout each adventure area, particularly during the final stages, but they do little to elevate the overall battle system doldrums.

Over the course of the game Jason will gradually become more powerful, a result of better weaponry and armor types, but it's difficult to actually gauge how powerful. So while you'll be comfortable with the knowledge that you're enhancing Jason's abilities simply by virtue of activating larger and larger numbers of passive abilities and finding the occasional sword, mace, spear, or armor, which represents the entirety of the game's equippable loadout, you never get a good overall sense of how much you're improving. The game does provide a range of effects, from enemies moving more slowly when hurt to blood dripping from wounds to indicate what's going on during a fight, but these don't really address the ambiguity.