Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3

Overview

Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 pays homage to traditional JRPGs, featuring a top-down view, "retro graphics", and gameplay that largely revolves around equipping characters with clothing and weaponry, collecting items, and participating in turn-based combat. The game also features music by composer Alex Mauer.

The developers have stated that it does not require prior knowledge of the first two games to enjoy, although it does contain references to past titles and Penny Arcade lore. Additionally, it has been said that more Penny Arcade Adventure Games may be in the cards if "3" is successful.

Story

Picking up sometime after the end of Episode 2, the story starts off with an ally of episode 2, Dr. Blood, stealing the Necrowombicon from Tycho and Gabe. The Necrowombicon holds untold power to anyone but them as it appears to them as blank pages. They then set off on a chase to stop Dr. Blood from using the book to destroy the Universe because that is obviously the job for Tycho and anyone else would do it wrong.

The story is based heavily upon the episode three chapters available on the Penny Arcade website.

Gameplay

The gameplay of this title is drastically different from that of the previous episodes. Unlike the previous two games, there would be no voicework, no custom player, and the look and feel of the game would be a retro 16/8-bit throwback to JRPGs of old. Much to the style of the new developer on the series, Zeboyd Games.

The battle system takes some features from the previous Zeboyd titles and mixes them with a class system similar to Final Fantasy V. Each playable character has one default class and can equip up to two others. The classes each have their own levels but level up even if they are not in use. Upon leveling up all classes in the game to the maximum level, a bonus is unlocked. Health and consumable items regenerate after each battle. MP starts from zero each battle and increase by one each round. Battles aren't random but there are a set amount of battles in each area. Most of the time the monsters are visible on the map, but don't move so you cannot avoid the majority of them.

Fighting uses a visual representation of the active battle system. You can visually see whose turn is coming up, and there are attacks and abilities that can interrupt someone's turn. After selecting an action, the last 1/8th of the bar is when the character prepares to execute his/her turn. If a character dies and is revived, it returns to the exact place they were in the ATB line. This means if they were going to complete an action upon death, they will continue setting up for that action.

Development

This video game series was originally announced August 5th, 2006. With the developer being Hothead games. Episode 1 and Episode 2 were released, however Hothead games moved on to develop the Deathspank series. Episode 3 was officially cancelled by Holkins and Krahulik at PAX East 2010. As a thanks to fans, a series of comics labeled episode 3 were posted on their site.

At PAX East 2011, it was revealed that the third game in the series was happening again. The developer would be Zeboyd games.

PC System Requirements

• OS:Windows XP, Vista, 7
• Processor : 1.6Ghz
• Memory : 1 GB RAM
• Graphics : DirectX 9.0c compatible
• DirectX® : 9.0c
• Hard Drive : 200 MB HD space
• Sound : DirectX 9.0c compatible
• Additional : Current version of Windows Media Player