Archmage Ricka is an anime-styled dungeon crawler with a real identity crisis. It offers two completely different gameplay experiences, both of which are on the high end of the mediocre spectrum. Let’s dig in, shall we?
Right off the bat, I’d like to acknowledge that the character art is very good, whether it’s Ricka herself, or the various monsters she fights. This is clearly where the majority of time and resources went,and it shows. Of the three Otaku Plan-published games I’ve reviewed, this is definitely the best looking. The sound is rather generic fantasy game fare, and I didn’t feel strongly about it in either direction. There is voice work here, and while I don’t speak Japanese, Ricka’s got a pretty good “anime cute” voice. The translation is also mostly good. While there’s some odd syntax here or there, I didn’t really notice any true “Engrish” or complete nonsense.
Things get a bit weird when you launch the game, however: you get the option to launch Ricka or Ricka 2. One is a first-person dungeon crawler that has a single floor and a boss to beat in turn-based combat. Ricka 2 is an auto battler, with visible enemies and a bit more of a plot, along with a third person, multi-level dungeon. You can level up in the first game; in the second, you do not. They’re two drastically different games, and you’re likely to have a distinct preference between the two. The gameplay in either one is extremely simplistic, and both are fairly short. I completed all of the content in the game in 1.3 hours, according to Steam, and I wasn’t trying to go fast. There’s just very little here.
On top of all of that, the advertised adult content requires a patch that is not available through Steam. Steam has already been more than accommodating about allowing adult content WITHOUT requiring a patch from elsewhere. More than a few games have also had the 18+ content available as free DLC through Steam. The insistence that we need to go elsewhere (and therefore place trust in a third party) is outdated, inconvenient, and needlessly obtuse. I literally will not do this, and therefore cannot make any assessment of the quality of the H-content for the game.
The game retails for $9 USD at full price, for less than 90 minutes of gameplay. While the art is very nice, everything else is low-effort. They couldn’t even be bothered to pack in the adult content, nor could they make that content conveniently available on Steam. I’m giving this game a C Plus rating, and would advise it only be bought on 50% off sale or greater, given the lack of play time you’re likely to get out of this. It’s not broken, but there’s better options for your time and money.
CLICK HERE TO BUY ARCHMAGE RICKA ON STEAM
