REVIEW
Written byDethyan
Alex & Arty is an action-adventure built around exploration, combat, environmental restoration, and the relationship between Alex and her companion Arty. One of its most interesting ideas is Arty’s ability to transform and gain new ways to interact with the world, including purification mechanics that tie directly into progression and exploration.
There is a lot here that I genuinely wanted to like. The concept of restoring corrupted areas works well with the game’s theme, Arty’s transformations give the progression a clear identity, and the relationship between the two characters gives the adventure a more personal foundation than simply moving from objective to objective.
Unfortunately, after around seven hours, the problems I noticed during my first hour remained present throughout the experience rather than feeling like temporary onboarding issues.
The biggest problem for me is that several systems often do not communicate their state clearly enough. Quest progression can feel inconsistent, objectives do not always update in the way I expect, and I encountered situations where abilities, tutorials, and quest states appeared to fall out of sync. At one point, for example, Arty had effectively reached a new ability state before the related quest and tutorial had properly caught up. I also encountered an objective where I already had the required resources, yet the game continued directing me toward collecting them.
Controls are another area that caused unnecessary friction. With keyboard and mouse, switching abilities through the mouse wheel works, but the visual feedback for the currently selected ability is too subtle during active gameplay. With a controller, I had an even harder time understanding how to switch abilities, and the settings did not provide the kind of clear input reference I expected. When a game introduces multiple abilities that need to be selected during combat, the relationship between input, feedback, and the currently active ability needs to be immediate and obvious.
Combat itself never fully clicked for me either. It often feels stiff, and the amount of corruption effects, particles, projectiles, targeting information, and other visual elements can make encounters harder to read than they need to be. There were moments where I had difficulty clearly distinguishing the enemy, the attack, the target indicator, and the surrounding environment at the same time. I also encountered a lock-on issue where the targeting appeared to remain attached after an enemy had already died.
There are also moments where gameplay and narrative sequences do not seem properly isolated from one another. I experienced enemies continuing to attack while a narrative interaction was taking place, and I also failed during a sequence where I did not have normal control of Alex. Failure during normal gameplay is part of the challenge, but taking damage or dying while the game has temporarily removed your ability to respond feels unfair rather than difficult.
Camera and visual readability can also become problematic. Objects and effects occasionally obstruct the camera heavily, and I experienced moments where most of the environment became almost completely black while the HUD remained visible. Strong flashes and dense visual effects can also make certain scenes difficult to read.
The presentation has some rough edges as well. The voice acting sometimes has an unnatural cadence, and because characters have very limited facial animation during conversations, the disconnect between the spoken dialogue, subtitles, and what is happening visually becomes more noticeable.
None of these issues individually would necessarily define the entire experience. The problem is how often they overlap. After seven hours, I was still dealing with the same kinds of uncertainty I had during the opening hour: whether an objective had updated correctly, whether an ability had changed, whether a sequence was safe, whether targeting was behaving correctly, or whether I had misunderstood something the game simply had not communicated clearly.
That is unfortunate because the underlying ideas are interesting. The restoration concept, Arty’s transformations, the character dynamic, and the structure of exploring corrupted areas all provide a foundation that could support a very enjoyable adventure.
I also want to stress that criticism like this is not about dismissing the work behind the game. I would much rather explain what did and did not work for me as a player than reduce the experience to a simple negative statement. There is clearly creativity and ambition behind Alex & Arty.
But after roughly seven hours, the technical, UX, combat, and progression issues continued to interfere with the experience enough that I cannot personally recommend it in its current state.
I hope the developers continue improving it, because the core concept deserves a smoother and more consistent execution.
— Dethyan / Noobsnoplay