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When I first dipped my toes into the world of tabletop RPGs, I was amazed at how much I didn’t need to know as a newbie player. A talented game master can guide rookie adventurers on an epic journey, making sense of their requests while working within the game’s rules, even if the players themselves aren’t entirely sure what’s happening. Worlds of Aria aims to capture that feeling, presenting itself as a Dungeons & Dragons-inspired game that’s easy to access but with an engaging twist on traditional tabletop RPGs.
You can embark on this adventure solo or gather up to four friends, playing either locally or online. If any spots in your party remain unfilled, the game uses placeholders that you’ll end up managing yourself. It means that if you’re flying solo, you’re essentially running the entire crew on your own. When my wife and I played, we simply divvied up the remaining characters between us, each taking charge of one.
The game unfolds through a series of narrative snapshots. As the dialogues progress, you’ll get chances to make decisions that push the story in different directions. Picture this: you stumble upon a guard. You can choose to brawl, bribe, sneak by, or even offer a drink. What’s interesting is that everyone doesn’t have to be on the same page; each player can take their own path. The success of these actions hinges on your character’s stats, shown as a percentage next to their icon, signaling their chance of success. Some choices might depend entirely on the actions of other party members, opening up a myriad of outcomes.
The game determines success through skill checks using percentile dice (pairs of ten-sided dice). Higher stats grant better odds of success. For instance, if you have a 75% success chance, you’ll need to roll that number or lower. It’s straightforward and easy to grasp. Characters also have unique abilities that spice up the rolls, usable just a few times throughout the campaign. My wizard could pull a card with a number affecting my roll, for better or worse. My wife’s pirate character had a similar skill but it required a gold coin for each use. Another character could guarantee the best result on a roll but only three times during the campaign. While there are no intricate combat mechanics, just simple percentile rolls for each situation, this simplicity keeps Worlds of Aria accessible to all. Part of me did yearn for a bit more complexity to liven up some scenarios, though.
The user interface, unfortunately, stumbles a bit here. Designed primarily for mouse and keyboard, it feels a bit off with a controller. Sometimes you control a free-moving cursor like on a PC, while other times it doesn’t play nice, awkwardly locking onto UI elements. Aiming at small buttons or inventory items became a hassle occasionally, snapping to everything but what I needed. This was mostly just irritating but was particularly tricky during time-sensitive decisions where we fumbled our characters into the right spots due to managing multiple ones per person. Additionally, I had moments when I mistakenly dropped items behind the UI, making them unreachable because the interface blocked access.
Overall, Worlds of Aria is an incredibly welcoming, well-written, tabletop-themed journey. It’s a blast with friends and a perfect intro for newcomers to RPG gaming. More seasoned players might find it a tad simplistic, but complexity isn’t the aim here. The game truly shines with a group of human players, as AI slots merely afford more characters for players to juggle. Despite the somewhat clunky UI that takes a bit of adjusting, Worlds of Aria delivers a delightful adventure, skillfully merging the worlds of tabletop RPGs and party gaming.
