BinaryMessiah American Arcadia Review

There's been an ever-increasing discourse between the people and corporate America. American Arcadia takes the worst of this and shows us the ugly side of being slaves to mega corporations. With clear inspiration from The Truman Show and Walt Disney's vision of "The World of Tomorrow" and his original vision of Disney EPCOT, American Arcadia is a dystopian trip down 70's lane with fantastic voice acting, a riveting story, and great pacing. You play as two main protagonists. Trevor Hills and Angela Solano. The game has two perspectives. Trevor's gameplay is a 2D side scrolling platformer similar to games like Limbo and Inside, and Angela's more puzzle-heavy first-person sections have inspiration from 70s spy movies, not to dissimilar from No One Lives Forever, but without any shooting. Angela is a stage tech for the corporation Walton Media (clearly a dig at the Walt Disney Company) who ends up being recruited by an activist group called Breakout, and you end up helping Trevor escape where he lives while trying to shut down the corporation. The game's pacing is fantastic. Constantly giving you new scenarios and never getting old or boring. The story is always moving and evolving as you're playing with events unfolding with each character as you play the other. A lot of times there will be cool split-screen sections in which you need to do tasks with Angela while controlling Trevor on her monitor. I don't want to give away too much plot to have this make more sense, but it's really cool and well done. Trevor and Angela are likeable characters, and while not super original, they leave an impact, including on the villains. There are sections of the game that teach you organically about the world of American Arcadia, including the lives of Angela and Trevor. Trevor's sections are full of fast-paced platforming and push puzzles. These are not super complicated, but they are fun and help break up the chase scenes. Angela's sections include quite a few puzzle types, from sliding puzzles and quizzes to some that are completely unique. This includes mostly hacking things to help Trevor get through areas. This was one of my favorite gameplay ideas. You can press a button to enter the camera mode. This changes the perspective of Trevor's sections and you must manipulate electronics around him to get past guards and obstacles. Every single scene gives you something new. I can't state that enough. There were a couple of frustrating sections in which I realized I was analyzing the scene wrong. Jumping onto the wrong platform, running in the wrong direction, etc. Nothing was ever so annoying that I wanted to quit playing. I do think the game should have given a couple of hints if you keep doing the same thing over and over and dying, but again, it's not a big deal. Visually, the game has a great sense of style. Inside of Arcadia, the world is stuck in the 70s. There are a lot of panning vistas of cool interior designs while Angela is in the present day, and it's all less interesting to look at. I'm not a fan of the character designs. They are very blocky with no noses. It's a bit off-putting, but the rest of the game looks great. I feel the biggest issue is that the game is too short. You can finish the game in about 4-5 hours, depending on how much you get stuck on the bigger puzzles. While the entire game is explained well and it feels like nothing is left out, I wanted to know more about Angela's childhood and backstory, as we get to know mostly about Walton Media and Trevor. As it stands, American Arcadia is one of the best in this category. With constantly evolving gameplay ideas, fantastic voice acting, a riveting story with twists and turns, and a fun art style, there's not much you can't like. Going between Trevor's 2D sections and Angela's first-person sections is a lot of fun, and you never know what's coming next.