Yeah, that game is criminally underrated. Penny Arcade Adventures 3 is easily the best work Zeboyd has ever done. I like it quite a bit more than the more simplistic Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World.

And then I think they got a little far off track in Episode 4 with the Pokemon-esque system, because they also pull the JRPG trick of "your party is separated", which means your pocket monsters are always split between the two mini-parties you have, which means you only have access to like 3-4 monsters per party for most of the game, which defeats the whole purpose of making a Pokemon-esque game. A lot of the problems with that 4th episode are due to the story that Holkins wanted to tell, in that it necessitated splitting up the party, to unveil different revelations about what is going on. Maybe? Or maybe it was intentional for gameplay reasons, which would be bad. Also the story in that 4th game is just so bonkers compared to the first 3 episodes that I just found it kind of hard to get into.

@bisonhero: PA3 really finds a great balance between comedy and re-purposed/ evolved jrpg mechanics. I think the riff on the job system is a lot more effective than the riff on Pokemon in 4 because the characters in 4 all have a consistent class that grounds them and 2 empty slots to customize with. This allows you to play around with small tweaks and interesting configurations without completely tearing your team apart. You also end up with 4 characters that can each perform 3-4 combat roles if you spec correctly. In 4, each creature you use is a single, immutable character that only really fills the space of one of the PA3 classes. So you go from a game where you have up to 12 classes at your disposal in any given fight at all times to having 4 slots that you rotate creatures into as you need them. I think having 4 psychotic Swiss-army-knives is more fun that having a bag of monster tools.

@thatpinguino: I think you meant to say "the characters in 3 all have a consistent class", but yes, I agree. While 4 was weirdly true to its Pokemon roots (in that who you select as a "trainer" is sort of like EV training in Pokemon, allowing you to guide what stats are gained on level up), you're absolutely right, each character is totally immutable, and all you gain are a couple of abilities from the trainer (which aren't all that interesting compared to all the ways you could make custom characters in 3).

4 just felt kind of silly, because instead of being loosely grounded in the steampunk-ish world of the other 3 games, the setting requires about as much consistency as Alice in Wonderland, and the story is kinda hard to follow because it seems to assume the player has been learning a lot about prophecies, and the history/goals of the Brahe family, over the last 3 games, and I really hadn't been. But apparently the ending of 3 and all of 4 assume you care very much about all that stuff. I mean, it ends on a pretty good note, but man, episode 4 just didn't do a lot for me.

@bisonhero: Yeah that was a typo. I meant 3.

The story in 4 moves a whole lot faster than in 3 so I thought the game was going to end like 3 times before it did. That game really wants to tell a specific metaphysical story that kinda clashes with the goofier aspects of the moment to moment dialog. Tycho's grand scheme is not as whimsical as the wall punching and mime-o-puses would lead you to expect. Also the Pokemon direction in 4 just really made me wish they had instead returned to the drawing board to make a new crop of fun classes. The classes in 3 were so inventive in how they combined rpg cliches with comedy and innovative design I just wanted more. That class system did so much work for them and they threw a lot of it away. Applying the same 4 classes to a bunch of pokemonsters was not as fun as applying a bunch of classes to 4 already unique characters.

Penny Arcade Adventures 3 is maybe my favorite JRPG I've played in years. It figured out how to get directly at the bones of RPG combat, and streamline it directly to that. Combat resembles a kind of floating puzzle more than a duel of off-screen spreadsheets. You have a lot of tools and options and it's heavily about effectively processing data than it is about grinding your spreadsheet to be really big. The rising strength of the enemy increases the puzzle aspect, and it made the brilliant move to turn potions into a strategic resource rather than an economic resource.

Penny Arcade 4 gets a little lost, and I never finished it. But I loved the third game.

@brodehouse: Removing random encounters also removed grinding entirely and allowed Zeboid to scale every enemy encounter to be fun for a fully powered team. I think that PA3 should be required playing for modern JRPG developers. The 4th game is good too, but I think 3 is on another level in terms of its design.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the co-pilot thing? This was my first video with someone else sitting along for the ride.

I think it's a very good idea. You guys are friends right? You guys were a little stiff/formal I thought. That's pretty normal though. That will loosen up with practice. Just be yourselves, that's kinda what works and what is popular these days anyway. Your voices sound a little similar, so allowing your personalities shine through a bit will help to make it clear who is talking to a new watcher/listener.

btw I played through PA3 a couple months ago. I didn't like it much, but then again I haven't liked any of the Zeboyd games to date despite thinking everytime I'm going to. I will say I thought it was the best of their work I had played.

The best part of the game easily, was the bestiary imo. Those were some pretty amusing designs and names. That's where the PA humor was at its' best.

I like the combat systems ok, but somehow it always ends up feeling like a chore despite some really neat mechanics in there. The Class system which you guys covered, their trademark enemies gaining strength the longer the fight goes mechanic,their trademark live for today mentality most fights have by encouraging you consume everything you've got, the regenerating magic points etc. But the quibble I have it was not the individual fights, but lack of contrast in tension and despite them not being random battles. I think for me it was the curse of having every battle having weight to it. I don't care for the trash mob/super boss mentality mainly old JRPGs had, but one positive thing that style does have is it gives the player some enjoyable contrast. The problem with a million nearly identical battles with high tension battles over and over is that it becomes one note and it all blurs together.

Not too mention that enemies are visible on the map , yet you can't avoid most of them. It just turns a fun system into dull work. As much as random battles can be irritating, at least there is some suspense to what can happen. In the old SNES Final Fantasy games There's a mental math you have to run on treasure finding vs trying to run to the Final boss. Every step carries a risk there since death means lost progress. But in PA3, since you can save anywhere, you regenerate basically everything after a fight, death just sets you right outside the battle you just died in, you can see the fights in front of you and yet can't avoid them, All you are basically doing is holding a thumbstick for the next task to clear to get to the Boss. That's not fun.

I was sad that Zeboyd didn't include one of my favorite mechanics from their previous games, the ability to turn off encounters after you've cleared an area of enough of them. I think that would have made navigating the map more interesting, while still allowing the player a more modern sensibility on random encounters.

but just everything else about the game annoyed me.

I think Zeboyd storytelling is usually not very interesting, with poorly developed plots and flat dialogue. So they were smart to bring in outside help there. Having Tycho write the game definitely helped, but having a main cast which is half taken up by a mute brain and a brainless brute really limited where the story could go imo. Not too mention allowed the Tycho character to more or less act in a social vaccuum free from normal social reprecussions. Which isn't interesting, or could be but they didn't approach it from that would make it so. Moira was easily the most interesting person in the game (although Annarchy had potential) and they barely used her meaningfully. I really had my hopes up that she would act as a meaningful foil to Tycho given their supposed backhistory, but instead she quickly become an accidental passive unquestioning snarky passenger on his mad journey. For whatever reason I didn't feel like the PA humor translated very well to the gaming medium either.

I haven't played 4 yet so I'm hoping they do a better job with that.

I thought they were also smart to let the PA guys aid with the character designs. Zeboyd's style to me looks like a deviant art version of 80's anime. The character portraits looked good and being able to switch genders etc was amusing.

I thought their overworld was boring and mostly pointless and the music was pedestrian.

I often feel conflicted about games like this. On one hand I have a ton of respect for the Zeboyd team,if you've ever read their blogs you can really see some very interesting creative and thoughtful processes there, which is why I keep buying their products. These guys are incredibly versatile and skilled to produce what they do with so few people. But on the other I find playing their actual products to be a very mediocre experience.

@slag: Yeah it was our first time doing a video together and it was his first time doing a video of any kind so we had to work stuff out. I'm hoping to do some more muli-person videos in the future where we both know the game really well. In this one I knew the game, but he didn't so that kinda created a quick look setup rather than what I'm going for.

As for PA3 I think some of the fights can be much easier than others depending on how your party is configured. The easy fights might not be the same from person to person based on your party, but some fights were definitely easy for me. I think Jim and Moira are underutilized in both of the games I've played and its a bit of a shame. The overworld in 4 is better done than in 3 so there is that to look forward to. The overall gameplay and story take a little dive in 4 though.