Zwei: The Arges Adventure

Zwei: The Arges Adventure for PC is a Japanese RPG developed by Nihon Falcom, a studio popular for such games as Tokyo Xanadu eX+, the Ys, or The Legend of Heroes series. The game constitutes an improved version of Zwei!!, which debuted in 2001 on the PC in Japan, and never had an english-language release.

Plot

The game is set in a fantasy world and tells a story of half-siblings – a boy by the name of Pokkie and a girl called Pipiro. They live in Puck, which is a small village located on a continent floating among the clouds – Arges. Their idyllic existence filled with jokes and ends with the arrival of a masked villain – at night, he steals six holy figures from a local temple.

The villain is the archduke of Argos; he is willing to give back the stolen artifacts, but only once he receives a huge ransom – the sum he wants exceeds the capabilities of the humble villagers. The main characters decide to reclaim the treasures on their own – Pokkie wants to do it for fame, while Pipiro is after the money they would get as a reward.

Mechanics

Zwei: The Arges Adventure for PC is a jRPG featuring strong dungeon-crawling elements. The player explores the game world, as well as numerous dungeons, gathering items and completing quests. One controls either Pokkie or Pipiro at a time; the other sibling is controlled by the AI. The player can switch between the characters at any time.

The game places a large emphasis on skirmishes fought in real time and feeling very arcady. Differences between the characters play a significant part while in combat – Pokkie prefers melee combat and Pipiro specializes in spell casting. The game offers a system of combos, allowing the player to chain attacks together.

As in any serious RPG, the player can develop the characters, though the system has an unusual form in Zwei: The Arges Adventure. Defeated enemes drop different kinds of ingredients. One can eat them, which gives a quick, but relatively small increase to the statistics; gathering a larger set of ingredients and bringing them to the cook in the village is another way – the meal they can prepare grants a significantly larger bonus than offered by the sum of ingredients eaten individually.

The experience is diversified by regularly appearing puzzles. Furthermore, the creators prepared a lot of mini-games. Among them, one will find a shooter inspired by old-school shmup games, an arcade game that makes the player faster at typing, and a simple adventure game revolving around the development of an animal accompanying the player during their adventures.

Technical aspects

Zwei: The Arges Adventure for PC comes with alluring 2D visuals presented in a cartoonish graphic style. Compared with the original release (Zwei!!) the game offers higher resolution, support for wide-screen monitors, as well as an improved head-up display.

Last updated on January 17, 2018