There is no shortage of rogue-lite-style games these days, but Arboria is one of the more fun games the genre has to offer. It is a game where you play as a troll (trolls actually) and are trying to save your people. It is fun stuff and the kind of game where you will always want to play for just a little bit longer to see if you can get that little bit further.
How to Download Arboria
The game can be downloaded from Steam. Click on the Download button located at the end of this review.
The Game Review
The first thing that took me by surprise about Arboria was the story. I thought that the story about this species of trolls called, Youtunz trying to save their Father Tree which is their life source was all serious, but it has a lot of humor. Do not get me wrong, the stakes of the story are very high, but this tribe of trolls has a ton of personality to them and I found myself chuckling frequently as I played.
This is a rogue-lite action RPG. You play the game from the third person and as it is randomly generated, no two playthroughs are exactly the same. A huge reason for this is not just the procedurally generated dungeons you will be exploring. It is also the fact that once you die, you die. That character is dead and all their items, abilities, and so on are gone.
Each time you die, a new Youtunz will be born in the birthing pool. Depending on what your last character had, they will get various stat boosts and so on so they could be more powerful than the character that just died. You also get some stuff to play around with as well before you head back into the dungeon.
I know that this can be frustrating when a game does this, but it works really well. I think the way that the story is told and the combat system are what really drives you forward. Arboria has a kind of hack and slash style of combat and the way you can get different weapons, perks and so on is really cool.
However, there is an element system at play here. There are five elements in the game, fire, ice, shock, bio, and dark. Each element can trump another so fire beats ice, ice beats shock, and so on. Learning this early on is important and even once you have a solid selection of items and weapons, you lose it all when you die!
This means you have to go and loot it all again when you start a new round. Again, I know that this sounds like it could be frustrating, but it is actually not. Slashing away at enemies feels great and there is a great selection of weapons. I prefer the faster weapons like the saber as they are quick the giant blade on the other hand takes way too long to swing.
I have to be honest and say that while I thought Arboria looked fun, I was really surprised at just how much fun I had with the game. The setting, characters, and story are fantastic! However, it is the gameplay arc that I found to be incredibly satisfying here, the dying and losing your gear may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I really did enjoy it!
