If you're anything like me, you've watched many rubbish adverts on your mobile. In Such adverts, the player is constantly moving forward, shooting at enemies in front of them, and periodically getting the option of a boost by moving left or right. These inevitably always show somebody lacking the grey matter to make even the simplest of decisions in a way to lure you in as you shout at the screen, "You *beep*ing *beep*, why would you *beep*ing do that you *beep*ing *beep*ing *beep* *beep*". I never play the games they advertise because they are never that game; they're usually some money-sink fake town-builder. Arrow A Row is that game, and you know what, I played it.
I played it enough to do a review on this website. A review for a free game on Steam, one that is a rip-off of the fake adverts you keep seeing on your phone and thinking, "LET ME SKIP THE AD YOU *beep*ing *beep*, *beep* SAKE, I JUST WANT TO DO THE THING". Go figure.
You can do the thing here. Arrow a Row is an endless auto-runner. Your character shoots forward automatically, and your task is simply to move left and right, choosing to fight or avoid the smaller enemies and which of two boosts to collect as they appear. These boosts range from increasing the damage, speed, frequency or range of arrows, the damage, cooldown, range, and amount of swords you also have, or your speed at moving left to right, or finally, offering a single health boost.
In addition to these intermittent rewards, you can pick up smaller rewards from killing the regular enemies on the way. More important, however, are the significant rewards you get every time you beat a sub-boss and eventually the end boss. I say end boss; it's an infinite runner, so you return to the loop. Finally, you will be overwhelmed by even basic enemies that tank hits and deal damage like you're made of tracing paper.
Until that inevitable end, your job is to see how far you can get, killing as much as possible and getting as many points as possible. You also get gold for killing enemies, which can be spent in the in-game store to boost you at the early stages or used to re-roll the sub-boss and end-boss rewards. There are also no actual money transactions, and I was at the stage where I'd throw a couple of pounds their way after playing it more than I've played games costing £50+
The task is simple, but it can force you to plan your way through, making quick decisions on which boost to pick and even more critical decisions on the major upgrades. Theorycrafting, that's what it is. It may not be on the same level as the much more significant games, but I promise you, the perfect tactics are out there. My favourite is to pick the blue bow upgrade, increase the number of arrows I fire, and focus on improving the frequency and damage - all while having the upgrade that gives me life steal. I was blasting through enemies for a long time, gaining tens - even hundreds of thousands in HP.
Still, all good things end, and the endless cycles got to my army of arrows, dogs, and dragons - also with magical swords, which is another build I want to improve on. So, what am I doing reviewing a free-to-play game that is just a copy from the countless billions of sham adverts? I'm reviewing it because it's fun and engaging for what it is.
The English is broken, so your theorycrafting will take a little time (frequency for arrows means the speed at which you shoot them, whereas speed is about how fast they travel), and the stats of your character are always hidden, but maybe that's part of the charm? The same could be said for the exceptionally low-fi visuals. I wouldn't be shocked if they came right from asset packs. The fact that I will give this a score alone baffles me, but I will give it a score that will be positive.
Finally, here are my high scores so far.
Arrow a Row is a free-to-play game that can be found on Steam.
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