NOTE: This review was
based on the pre-release code. Some of what you may see or problems
that I have encountered may change in the final release.

WHAT’S HOT

    With 20 hours of total playtime, Arvale
stands to be quite a RPG phenom. I’ve played a little over four hours
and been greatly impressed with the amount of thought that has gone
into this game.

PROGRAM FEATURES

    First, let’s review Arvale’s features (copied
verbatim from PDAmill):

    Starting
with the menu (very slick looking, I might add), we find Continue,
New, Load, Save, Settings, About, and Quit. There is a complete
lack of a help file to be found under the main menu. Even in game,
there isn’t a help file. So if you get into a battle prior to visiting
the tutorial area, good luck!

Strangely, at the
time of this review, the About info was completely missing (maybe
the dragons ate it).

Under the settings
menu, you find the Volume levels (which can be individually controlled
and muted). Audio quality can also be adjusted here.

Difference between
High graphics and standard? Not too much in my opinion. The standard
view adds a bit of a border.

    The
loading screens. Each available level shows the location, time played,
and level of your hero. You can have three saved games and one autosave
(which happens every time you enter a new area). I would have liked
to have at least two to three more save slots (especially for reviewing,
but mostly for multiple players).

If you attempt to
save over an existing game, you will be prompted to overwrite the
previous data. Then, after a short delay, your game will be saved
and you will be free to roam again.

    When
you start a new game, you are taken through a series of splash screens,
text pages, and animations to give you the history of the world,
and explain the game itself. There doesn’t seem to be a way to skip
these screens and get directly into the game (if, say, you wanted
to play the game over again).

As it turns out, you
are playing the part of Ducan Forsythe, a witty gardner of Entoque
Castle.

Here we have our
first view of Ducan. And for being a gardner, he certainly doesn’t
have much of a tan – but I digress.

   The King,
knowing that you are slated to be the next Hero of Legend, requests
your presence early in the game to, more or less, force you into
becoming the savior of the land. But not all is as it seems. From
this starting point, you begin to sense some political intrigue
(that’s all I’ll say at this point – don’t want to give away too
many spoilers). While the storyline is linear, you do have some
choice in how Duncan presents himself via his interactions (see
the shot on the left for an example).

Once you’ve received
your marching orders, it’s time to start exploring. Movement can
be accomplished either by tapping on the screen or using the D-Pad.

    Across
the bottom of the normal gameplay screen are four buttons and your
health meter. When you approach an item that can be interacted with,
the Use button will light up. And with, any RPG, you must look at
almost EVERYTHING or you might miss something (which becomes a bit
tedious, but this part of the genre). You are kept on a pretty short
leash as far as the main storyline is concerned – so don’t worry
about (too much) forgetting something there. The menu button links
to the same main menu as shown above.

Tapping on the Zoom
button will give you an overview of the area, but you cannot move
around or interact with anything while in this view.

If you tap on the
Stat button, you are brought to your character sheet. In the examples
above, you can see the difference between level 1 and level 18 (four
hours later). Tapping the back button would return you to the game.

Tapping on the Inv (inventory) button brings up
a multi-tabbed page from which you can view stats and info on your
weapons, wands,

items, armor,

And quest.

You can use items,
armor, and quest items (outside of battle). The example above shows
me using a herb to restore 15 health points (thus lowering the available
usage from 11 to 10). You can also drop items, if necessary.

    You
travel from location to location via the world view (shown above).
In typical RPG form, random creatures (encounters) can and will
appear from time to time. You enter a location by either walking
into it (such as a forest) or tapping the use button (cities, etc).

There are also encounters within major locations
(such as this encounter with an "Evil Ent").

Or this upcoming encounter with an orc.

    In
battle mode (turn based), you can see both you and your target’s
health, a weapon indicator (in this case positive), the action area,
the results area (which lists the last two actions by either party),
and the battle control area. Note that the background does change
based upon the area you are in (forest vs desert in the example
above).

    Changing
the weapon time (magic or otherwise via the arrows on either side
of the blue circle) can change the indicator. In the examples above,
a spear will do less damage than say, a club (with the sword doing
the best damage). As the game progresses, you come to understand
by instinct which weapon performs better than others depending on
the enemy.

You can also select
magic or potions (say if you need a little fireball or healing).

Once you’ve selected
your weapon (or healing) of choice, you tap directly on the blue
circle and your action is completed. Then the target takes their
turn.

Time for a little
healing!

While you can occasionally
flee, sometimes there is no place to hide.

And attacking with
different weapons/magic produces different results depending on
the type. And the same is true when you are attacked. Great effects
abound in the battle mode (audio and visual).

Once you’ve defeated
your target, then you are awarded experience, and usually some sort
of gold or item.

If, by some random
chance (I know, the game cheated you – it cheats me all the time),
you happen to die, then you are returned to your last save point
to try again.

Collect enough XP
(experience) and you will level up.

    At
which point you get to select an attribute to improve. In the example
above, I increased my Knowledge (Knw) which, in turn, increased
my Defense. Health points and experience are also adjusted after
increasing one’s attributes.

    If
your armor is worn out after battle, you are asked if you want to
replace it. There is a bug in the game which will cause this to
appear (after loading) even if your armor/shield is fine. And if
you are wearing both armor and a shield, you will only see one message
(if both wear out).

After a long day of battling, it’s back to town
for a nice rest (which is cheaper than healing potions).

Or perhaps the local
pub for a drink.

But always remember
to visit your local arms and items shops.

If not to buy the
latest in fashion,

then to sell some
unneeded items.

Interacting with shopkeepers
is the same as any other NPC (non-player character). I just wish
that the buying and selling were consolidated (rather that separate
items for armor, weapons, items, and magic).

PDAmill
games are never without humor, and Arvale is no exception (as you
can see above). Trust me, the rest of the gags are even more amusing.

    The
game is not devoid of bugs or annoyances, unfortunately. With a
supposed 3 years in the making, I still happened on quite a few.
Even one bug in which my iPAQ 2215 occasionally would turn off (almost
as if the game wasn’t registering screen taps). Thankfully, PDAmill
is a very customer oriented company, and I anticipate that most
of these issues will be worked out very shortly.

HELP SUPPORT

    At this time, there isn’t much help/support
available (this is a pre-release review, remember) other than via
the contact link at the main PDAmill
site. I would expect support pages similar to that found for
their other titles to appear here
within the next couple of days.

BUGS AND WISHES

    I
found no fatal errors, and my wish list is short:

• Still
  some little bugs that need to be squashed
• Consolidate
  the buying and selling areas into one option each (ie weapons+armor
  buy/sell)
• Increase
  the number of save slots
• Allow
  the user to change settings while in battle
• Add
  in-game help
• Allow
  the user to skip the New game intro
• Add-on
  packs! (although there are subtle hints that point to this in
  game)

PURCHASING

    Since
this is a pre-release review, no pricing was available. But look here within the next couple
of days for the full details.

PROS

• 
  

  20+ hours of gameplay

• 
  

  Fantastic graphics and
  sound

• 
  

  Great story line

• 
  

  Huge game world

CONS

• 
  

  Still some bugs to be
  squashed (at the time of the review)

• 
  

  No in-game help

• 
  

  Limited number of save/load
  slots

OVERALL IMPRESSION

   Personally, I found Arvale to be a great
distraction over the last few days. There is just enough humor,
battles, and intrigue to keep me interested (and I’ve only been
able to play for 5 hours thus far). I have some ideas on how the
game will turn out, and am feverishly working towards the finish.
With great cartoon-styled graphics, an original soundtrack, and
well planned story, the game promises to be quite a hit with the
handheld gaming world. PDAmill, if they fix even the majority
of the bugs, will not be committing sepeku anytime soon. No, I
expect that PDAmill will be reigning supreme with Arvale. Now
if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some monsters to slay before nightfall.

Have you played Arvale?
See something that isn’t quite right? Tell us what you think!
Click on the Discussion Link below.