RWBY: Arrowfell [Review]

RWBY: Arrowfell has been out on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox since November 15, 2022. I've watched Rooster Teeth's RWBY here and there, so it was interesting to note that this game is canon to Volume 7, right after the eponymous team were formally inducted as huntresses.

Before I get started with the main review, here's a disclaimer: I did receive a free code to try this game out. Overall, I would recommend it more for people who are fans of the RWBY series and would like additional details to fill in some of the story from Volume 7. Honestly, if you're looking for a side scroller beat 'em up like Scott Pilgrim vs The World, this might not be it for you.

Game Mechanics

Controls for the game were quite intuitive, and I felt like there was no need to change any of the button mapping. The tutorial made it easy to figure out the controls, and once I got the hang of it through the gameplay, it pretty much stuck.

I liked how the game incorporated Semblances to solve areas of the map. (For those who aren't familiar with RWBY, Semblances are the special abilities of the characters, varying between super speed like Ruby or creating clones like Blake.) The mechanics of doing so to reach sections were also a good detail, like using Weiss' glyph platforms, switching to Ruby, and then speed vaulting to the other end of the map.

Navigating the game required the use of fetch quests. Rather than going from start to finish in a specific area for each chapter, you're in a safe location with NPCs or other storyline characters who ask for something (i.e. a book, pickaxe, soda). Once you complete a fetch quest, you might receive another item for a quest or have a location of your map open up to progress in the chapter. 

As you progress, there are areas on the map where you fight enemies, both human and Grimm. Each time you leave and return, they respawn. The purpose of these hunting areas was definitely to complete the objectives, and to also earn money to buy support items. 

The save point locations weren't hard to reach once you knew where they were. My main problem was that if you leave the hunting area to go to a safe area and then lose all of your hearts after going to a new hunting area, you didn't respawn at the safe area you might have reached prior to leaving. Instead, you respawn at the last save point you actually used, making the auto-save feature a moot point.

Another thing I found lackluster was that the safe areas didn't heal your energy bar or restore your hearts. It's in line with the setting that you would technically spend money on resources for your next mission, as a team of huntresses. However, I would prefer not to have to spend it on items both to heal and help out with the missions.

As for the enemies, fighting them felt tedious. I felt like you really needed to get a good feel of where the hitboxes started and ended. For instance, if I were to jump onto a platform waiting for an opportunity to strike the Grimm below me and then jump down, 90% of the time, I would be caught within the hitbox and take damage myself. I don't even think I was within the hitbox, but the game apparently thought so. It definitely made it hard when there were multiple enemies because you would get staggered, and by the time you got out of your stagger animation, the next enemy would be geared up to hit you.

All in all, the gameplay was not my favorite, and I wouldn't really consider this worth replaying. Once I played for an hour or two, it felt like it was enough time to consider taking a break, and trying to play more took a bit of push for me.

Music

I really enjoyed the song playing in the background of the tutorial chapter/prologue. As it was produced by Casey Lee Williams, who did the music for the show itself, it was a great one to include. It also fit the energy of RWBY, and the loop for the song was seamless throughout the chapter. For the rest of the game, the background music doesn't include vocals and isn't as in your face. Overall, I considered the music to be a positive factor; I could still enjoy the game without feeling like I needed to replace it with Spotify.

Art

The art style of the game is very cute. It has a decent blend between the source material and the style that WayForward, the developer, has going on. My favourite part of the game's art is when I would find a save point. All of the members will come out and do a little cheer animation, and it's definitely something I would consider a highlight. The 2.5D graphics of the game were pretty well done, and I wouldn't be opposed to getting more games in this style.

Storyline

While I enjoyed what I saw of RWBY, I'm not a diehard fan. It's been a while, and the last volume I legitimately watched was Season 5.

That said, the story is what you would expect from RWBY. The characters are true to the main storyline and the new characters introduced for the game were really interesting. Since the original writers were involved with this game, it shaped up as a nice side story.

Specifications

Finally, here are the minimum requirements to play this game, per the Steam store page.

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core 2 Duo E7500
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 or equivalent
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 5 GB available space

If you're interested, for comparison, here are my laptop's specs when playing and keeping the default in-game settings.

OS: Windows 10 Home 65-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
DirectX: Version 12

Final Scores

Game Mechanics: ★★★☆☆
Pros:
- References to the source material was relatively well-executed within the game
- Learning the actions and mechanics was intuitive from the get-go
Cons:
- The hitboxes of the enemies and staggering made an annoying learning curve
- Functionality of the safe areas and the save points wasn't ideal, in my experience

Replayability: ★★☆☆☆
- Playing an hour or two felt more than enough for one sitting
- Didn't feel very inclined to keep playing and it was a trial to push myself to play more

Music & Art: ★★★★☆
- A song produced by Casey Lee Williams felt very much part of the RWBY universe
- Didn't feel the need to replace the background music while playing the game
- Art style was very cute and enjoyable to see through the dialogue
- Cheer animations were a highlight to watch

Storyline: ★★★☆☆
- Having the original RWBY writers involved was cool
- A nice side story to the main RWBY universe

RWBY: Arrowfell is out now for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.

This is a Tokyo Otaku Mode review by Alice.

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