Arboria – PAX East Preview
Arboria is a third person Rogue-Lite game where you’ll explore procedurally generated dungeons in order to heal the Father Tree so that you may restore your tribe back to the glory you once knew. You play as a Yotun, a troll warrior that is sent down to their almost expected demise. When chosen, the Shaman will have a brief ceremony complete with randomly generated dances. He will either kick you out of your sanctuary or you’ll jump on your own depending on what random cinematic happens before you out on your mission. You’ll have multiple (random) characters to choose between and, in the beginning, you’ll always leave with just your fist and an axe.
Once arriving in the dungeon, you’ll regroup, equip yourself, and then head on your way. Your goal is to repair the roots below the ground in order to restore the Father Tree. The enemies that you’ll face along the way are also random. You’ll want to clear each room of enemies before starting an event or else you’ll bite off more than you can chew.
Once the root begins to be restored, you’ll have to stay alive and fend off enemies that come your way until the root is healed. Once the timed event is over, the remaining enemies will disappear, and your health will be restored. You must be careful of your health because there aren’t many opportunities to refill your health bar. The other type of event will have you fighting off waves of enemies until they are all destroyed. There is no timer here, you just fight through the waves until they are all dead by your hand.
After these events you’ll be able to pick up some loot. This includes new weapons such as swords and scythes, shields, armor, and abilities. This is the only way to find new weapons until you find certain blueprints in the dungeons. These blueprints allow you to start each new run with other weapon types. You can buy them from a weapon dealer that you’ll also unlock as you earn experience in the dungeons.
You’re not alone on your quest though, a fairy companion is along for the ride as well. Think the Ghost in Destiny 2, only more useful. Your fairy will eat the experience that you pick up and at the end of each level will literally puke the experience out. You’ll also see your fairy getting physically heavier as they eat more experience. Puking them out at the end restores them to their original size.
Different abilities have different effects on the weapon types, so you’ll want to choose them wisely when given the opportunity. Armor will also have positives and negatives. Heavy armor will obviously block more damage, but you’ll lose a lot of mobility. One of the great defensive mechanics here involves rolling out of the way of the enemies. With the heavy armor you become so slow that the roll takes forever – leaving you more vulnerable to attacks. Medium armor with the scythe was the preferred combo for us and the developers during our playthrough.
On of the abilities that we saw during our preview was teleportation. Not only could you teleport on the surface, you could go underground and move under the surface. This immediately reminded us of Splatoon. Your movement is the same as it is when you’re swimming around as a squid in the paint.
Even in death you will be immortalized. It’s expected that you will die at times. Your fairy will return your head to the Shaman and the top runs will be remembered in a way that will make you lose your head.
Combat is Souls inspired, but not Souls like. It is very accessible to anyone picking it up for the first time. I’ve never been a Souls fan or a fan of Rogue-Lites to be honest, but the game is so gorgeous and fun to play that I loved my time with it. The third person perspective is a game changer. This is one to keep an eye on when it releases later this year. You can Steam wish list Arboria right now!
