From De Blob to Chicory, the concept of bringing colour to a monochrome world isn’t a new one in gaming, but it is one that almost guarantees striking visual flair. Arto is the latest game to take this mechanic and mix it up with a top-down action brawler with some great environmental puzzles to create an enjoyable experience.
Your protagonist finds themselves stranded in a desaturated world with no weapons or ability to defend themselves. After a brief period of exploration, you discover a paintbrush that can be wielded like a sword and meet up with a God-like being denoted by a disembodied hand. This Divinity tells you that you are the prophesied Apostle who is tasked with bringing colour and harmony back to the world. To do so, you must free the other Divinities from their captivity and unite their powers.
Not surprisingly, given the artistic focus of the game, Arto is a graphical delight. Each biome is presented in a different visual style, from classical Japanese influenced watercolours to lurid cyberpunk neons. This variety goes a long way to maintaining a steady flow of progression – particularly as the actual gameplay is relatively narrow. Most of the time you will be taking part in arena battles with your trusty brush. Alternative forms for your weapon are unlockable and these offer up different approaches but none of them drastically change things.
There are many hidden areas across the world of Arto that contain mysterious stones covered in runes and scrawls. These are generally behind puzzles that require you to move blocks, follow colour paths etc. Once unlocked you take these runes to an NPC who translates them for you. This mechanic does encourage you to fully explore the various areas of Arto but is mostly optional. I found roughly three-quarters through my playthrough.
Defeating enemies and finding chests rewards you with a currency called Chroma. In Souls-like fashion, dying makes you drop all your currency and it is lost unless you return to your point of death to collect it. This Chroma can be used to unlock the different weapon forms and character upgrades but it took me quite a long time to discover the upgrade menu. Checkpoints are scattered across the levels but you have to actively interact with them after they are unlocked to open the menu. This meant that the early parts of the game were frustratingly difficult.
Boss fights, however, are a highlight, with challenging combat and the need to use all the abilities at your disposal. You have a replenishable healing mechanic (very Estus flask) but this takes an awkwardly long time to activate so requires some strategy to be effective. The game itself is an appropriate length, running at around 7 to 8 hours with the potential for a couple more if you are looking to get all the collectables and/or achievements. It plays well on Steam Deck but had a few frame rate stutters on a 2070-equipped desktop which surprised me. At one point it slowed to a rate that was more seconds per frame than fps – fortunately this was a one-off occurrence – although one that lost me an annoying amount of progress.
