u/Aryzal

Considering some random individuals glazing Arrowfell, saying "oh its the best game ever" or anything like that, I decided to make a comprehensive guide on whether you should buy Arrowfell or not. Read this as a drop down flowvchart.

Edited Note: "Best game ever" is a hyperbole. But copying a comment directly that I've seen, "Yeah I really liked it. I wasn't expecting all that much (got it cheap on a playstation sale) but it was a blast. Characterisation was peak, fit into canon well (enough), simple and enjoyable."

1. Do you play games (in general)?

If you have played more than 1 game in the past month, do not buy Arrowfell. As a person who has played more than 1 game, I can tell you that you probably want to play better games in general. If you only play one game in the past month, or just don't have time to play games in general...

2. What is your budget?

If your budget is <$25, the answer is no, because this falls under the indie game category. You won't be able to afford Arrowfell unless it is on sale. So how about I interest you in: Balatro, Undertale, Hollow Knight, Hollow Knight Silksong, Hades, Stardew Valley, Terraria, Minecraft etc. Most indie (or formerly indie games) have a very low price tag for literally hundreds of hours of content. Arrowfell is by default $40, so it is out of your price range.

If your budget is $25 - 50, then congratulations you can afford it! The answer is no. This sounds like a cop-out answer, but any indie game that made it is already better than Arrowfell. Just buy two of those instead. Also most Pokemon games are here, except the much newer ones. Oh yea and last year's GOTY Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is here.

If your budget is $50 - $100, then congratulations! Anyway, no. This is the AAA level of games. You can buy any top budget tier game that looks significantly better than Arrowfell, with a polish that is much better. Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077. If there is a niche-r developer you like, you can go for them too, such as Last Defence Academy, Octopath Traveller, Metaphor Refantazio etc. You can even buy an entire pack of games such as the entire Persona collection (3-5), the entire Ace Attorney first Trilogy. The entire Danganrompa trilogy. The entire Zero Escape Trilogy. Or easiest cop out answer, like 5 indie games.

If your budget is >$100, or your budget is "Screw you I want something RWBY-related" move on to the next step.

3. Can you control your spending habits?

If yes, can I recommend you Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, Honkai Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero (this one RWBY fans like for some reason), Fate Grand Order, and the new one Neverless to Everness. Gacha games have surprising amount of content and they are completely free. If you can control your spending habits, you'll get much more out of these than Arrowfell. Actually, even as a whale you probably have more fun there and have a better time/cost ratio by the sheer fact that they keep updating those games.

If no, move on to the next step.

4. Are you OK with something other than a RWBY-related game?

If the answer is yes, then literally go play any other game. They all have more content, better game design, better art, and so on which is why they made it on a larger global scale than Arrowfell, which at its peak has 140 players. For context that is worse retention than some student projects. Currently FPS Chess is sitting at 294 players playing the game as of this second, with an all time peak of 3142. Meanwhile Roosterteeth, the people behind the RWBY IP, has a million subscribers but fail to get more than 140 peak players. Even Roosterteeth fans couldn't bring themselves to buy the game, and Arrowfell sits at a 68.22% rating which is terrible considering nobody really bothered to review bomb it.

If the answer is no,

Play RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. Its basically a student project level game, and is likewise really bad from a game designer perspective, but at the very least its half the price and still has everything Arrowfell had to offer.

TLDR: No, there are better games out there. There are so few people who have ever played the game that I don't think you can justify it, especially with RT backing the IP. It was a colossal flop that isn't worth delving into.

After a lengthy discussion with a random redditor, I decided to write this short essay because I felt like trauma, PTSD and other mental illnesses is so poorly portrayed in RWBY that I want to say something about it, even if I'm shouting into the wind.

In RWBY, there are surprisingly a few cases of "trauma" shown. We have Ruby drinking tea, Yang having PTSD over her lost arm and apparently now we have Blake being groomed by Adam. For the sake of argument, let's assume these premises are true, because I want to deconstruct why they are still badly written, all for different reasons.

Ruby's case is a simple case of glorifying the actions. We are shown that the consequence of Ruby committing suicide is that she gets reborn better than ever. Her friends don't even mourn her death when she died, and then she pretty much comes back with no issues. This is more on the writer - being unable to write a tasteful way of a very triggering topic to write about, and unintentionally glorifying killing yourself. Simple example.

Yang's case is a simple case of forgetting the consequences. Yang's arm being cut off, and she has PTSD flashbacks for a season. The next season onwards she adopts a new personality, and her arm is never referenced again. While it can get grating to have someone constantly point out a fact, the problem is Yang goes in the opposite direction - nobody gives a shit about her missing arm, so it basically becomes a moot point. If someone skips season 4, nothing changed in Yang except she loses her happy-go-lucky outward persona, and she doesn't even thank Ironwood for giving her the arm. So it just becomes a nice ornament instead of a life-altering event, because even Yang moved past it so fast.

Blake's case is a lack of build-up. Apparently she got groomed by Adam. But besides not showing any signs of trauma, Blake was able to access the situation and perform the best possible outcome, saving Yang, escaping and leaving Adam behind in season 3. She exhibits more fear towards Homophobic Ruby in season 9 than Adam in 6 seasons, which is inconsistent with her apparent fear of Adam.

So why did I bring this up? Because of Amo from Gachiakuta.

The protagonist group of Gachiakuta is looking for the Lady of the Tower, which turns out to be Amo. This was a diplomatic mission to trade information with her, the specifics is irrelevant to this discussion. But soon, she loses her temper and begins to use her Jinki (Vital Instruments, i.e. weapons), hypnotizing the protagonists to various degrees causing them to attack each other to "protect" her. It is then revealed that her ability bring out memories of her victims' feelings that matches hers, and she in her twisted way was making everyone feel feelings of love for her to protect her.

The first point I want to point out is not everyone is affected equally. The more nonchalent characters barely feel the effects, while the ones who experienced profound love/loss were massively affected. The obvious ones are main character Rudo who was mutilated as a kid and the older Cleaner who had a wife and an entire life before becoming a Cleaner, but what is curious is Riyo who is a happy-go-lucky girl being equally affected. The characters who are more moderate like Enjin the chill mentor and Zanka the child prodigy. This is the anti-Blake moment, showing little hints and buildups of each characters' backstory, including how badly Rudo was traumatized having his parents mutilate him and his foster father murdered in front of him, and he got blamed for it, we get a short flashback about minor character Delmon who had an entire life with his wife before she died, and build up about how Riyo's cheerfulness is simply a mask.

The second point I want to make is that later, the lore revealed behind certain Jinki is that they were part of the Watchman Series, artifacts so powerful that anyone using them will go insane. - unless there is something so irrevocably wrong with the person, then they can use it normally. The main villain of the anime has one. Main character Rudo has another. And we know how bad Rudo's life was at this point. What is curious is Amo, the villain of the episode is also able to use it properly. This is a retroactive realization that Amo truly is a tragic figure because she suffered so much that she can use the Watchman Boots safely. This is the anti-Yang, because we constantly get reminders of how each character suffers, building up the lore in a comprehensible way without any headcanoning.

Trigger Warning Ahead.

And the final point I want to mention, is Amo herself. After defeating her, it is revealed that >!Amo was sold to slavery by her mother. And it turns out the slaver didn't want to traffick her, the slaver just wanted sex.!< This is depicted in the most horrifying way possible - a child's drawing depicting her "learning" what love is. This is the most effective way of smashing the point into our faces that Amo was so stunted as a child >!because the only way she learnt love was with an adult man having sex with her child self and telling her its love, after being sold to him by her own mother!<. Despite her despicable actions just one episode before, you cannot help but feel sorry for the girl and wish she can get better. Most of the scene is shown in an animated cartoon drawing, which hammers the point home harder how Amo is still a child (young teenager oldest) and >!There is no gratituous sex scene!<. This is how you do a disgusting scene tastefully. The animation did not shy away from the source material by sugarcoating it, they explicitly showed what happened, how disgusting it was and didn't go into the common route of "fanservice". Compare this to Ruby's scene, where she "drinks tea" (conveniently hiding the suicide implications), then rewards her for drinking tea when it is obvious that should never be shown in a good light. It is extremely disrespectful of the topic in every way possible, and considering CRWBY placed a trigger warning in that episode it meant they knew it and did it anyway.

I really hate it when writers take a difficult topic to talk about, and butcher it for shock value for their show, and RWBY feels like it does it multiple times - with the drinking tea, with Ironwood's semblance and with the faunus subplot. The only good one the show did is death of a friend (Pyrrha), but then they proceeded to revive Penny to kill her off again so that feels like a net zero. Basically get CRWBY away from all sensitive topics and tell them to never write any of those again, because all they can do is slapstick crude humor and not tell a deep, serious story.