Arco [Review]
Arco is one of the best westerns in years.
Arco. Credit: Panic
Arco, published by Panic, is hard to describe. It's a Mesoamerican fantasy western featuring a setting and story unlike any I’ve seen in games and a creative, engaging battle system. The heartrending drama of its writing, memorable characters, and incredible score push it over the top to be one of the best games of this year. Pixel art games that feel truly cinematic are rare, and this is one of them.
Arco weaves three stories that ultimately connect as four characters go on journeys of vengeance against the villainous Red Company, the corrupt militia of the colonizing Newcomers. The Newcomers have arrived with violence, taking land, resources, and lives from the native groups they exploit, the Iyo, Kanek, and Onem—fictional peoples modeled on details of real cultures.
Arco. Credit: Panic
The first character you control, Tizo, hails from the Iyo and witnesses the destruction of everything he holds dear at the hands of colonizers, not once but twice. He sets off on an epic journey through forests, plains, and deserts to find out who is ultimately responsible and take his revenge. Most of his journey takes place during one section of the game; in the other sections, you view the world through the eyes of Kanek and Onem protagonists, who go on journeys for their own reasons, but ultimately, all roads lead to the Red Company.
The story’s dialogue is presented in dialogue boxes with small portraits. You often have a choice of what to say or do, which can sometimes affect the story. Make the wrong choices, and you’ll suffer from guilt that you will carry with consequences. The writing is excellent. It’s economical, prioritizing character and emotion, helping this cinematic western story unfold compellingly with little exposition.
Arco. Credit: Panic
Lawrence of Arabia. Credit: Columbia Pictures
The characters ride on llamas through vast landscapes, which we always see in super-wide long shots reminiscent of Lawrence of Arabia. During exploration, you’ll talk to other characters, find items, and experience most of the story. When you reach the end of a town or landscape, you interact with a map icon to choose which location you want to visit next; you can backtrack with a few key exceptions that lock you out of previously visited areas. The game makes its small world feel vast on your trek.
Brief dungeon exploration sequences and all the battles shift to a more traditional top-down perspective. Fights combine turn-based and real-time mechanics. Time freezes while you issue commands to all your characters. Afterward, all the action, including enemy attacks and movement, happens simultaneously over a few seconds. It felt like playing Superhot, where when something moves, everything moves. The system makes for some epic action, where you can dodge the path of bullets, stun opponents before they can attack, and move tactically around the enemy. It’s incredibly gratifying when you can predict enemy movements and pull off a move that takes a couple of turns to activate.
Arco. Credit: Panic
Ghosts are the only exception to the movement rule. These manifestations of your guilt will appear more frequently during battle based on your actions and move during your command phase. All you can do is avoid them until they disappear; they will hurt you if they catch up with you. It’s apt how these manifestations of your characters’ feelings disrupt their actions and how their past is catching up to them.
Your characters use a combination of ranged bow and sniper rifle attacks and hand-to-hand combat. They also have instant abilities that apply buffs that can be used the same turn as an attack. Every action consumes that character’s Magia points, except for some dodges, while moving or waiting in place will refresh some Magia. Every character, including those that only join you temporarily, has a skill tree where you can unlock abilities, HP, Magia, item slots, and action slots. How you want to shape each character around their skillset is up to you.
Arco. Credit: Panic
The game’s pixel art graphics are beautiful, especially the vast vistas of the landscape. The land’s scale dwarfs characters; they’re barely large enough to read, so we must rely on dialogue to communicate all emotion, but it works here. Characters are a bit larger during combat, and when anything is killed, it creates a satisfying splatter of blood. I liked the designs of everything you meet, from caustic slugs to giant spiders, skeleton warriors, and cultists.
Arco features a score fitting for a revenge western epic. Its evocative music includes acoustic and electric instruments in pieces that encapsulate the game’s moments of wonder, drama, sadness, and violence. Some of it reminded me of Ennio Morricone’s iconic Spaghetti Western scores. It’s rare for game music to leave an impression on me like this.
Arco. Credit: Panic
I love the world created by developers Franek Nowotniak, José Ramón “Bibiki” García, Antonio “Fayer” Uribe, and Max Cahill and the characters they brought to life there. Arco is a meditative, heartfelt, violent masterpiece that will stay with me for a very long time.
Arco is available now on PC (Steam/Epic), Mac (App Store), and Nintendo Switch.
Overall Score: 10/10
Played on: Steam Deck
