Arcanion

Arcanion is a fantasy action-platformer following a young girl named Magi as she begins her journey to become a Warrior of Arcanion, a group sworn to defend their abbey. Her first routine mission goes awry when a mysterious hooded man steals the Dark Tome, a recently acquired treasure, vowing revenge on the Warriors and revealing a strange, familiar connection to Magi herself. Players explore ten levels in any order, utilizing aura powers and equipment to boost abilities while uncovering the secrets of their home and the identity of the mysterious thief.

Arcanion: Tale of Magi – A Forgotten Relic of Indie Ambition

In the vast, churning ocean of indie games released annually, countless titles are destined to be mere flashes in the pan, brief flickers of creativity that are quickly subsumed by the next wave of releases. Arcanion: Tale of Magi, a 2020 retro-platformer developed by Monius Productions, is one such artifact—a game born from clear passion and a love for a bygone era, yet one that ultimately found itself adrift, a whisper in the crowded halls of Steam. This review seeks to excavate its story, not as a lost masterpiece, but as a poignant case study in indie development, ambition, and the quiet legacy of games that fly under the radar.

Development History & Context

The Studio and The Vision
Arcanion: Tale of Magi was the product of Monius Productions, a small indie studio spearheaded by developer Jaymonius, with collaboration from composer AbstracttheOrigin and artist Uran. Its creation was intrinsically linked to its tools; it was built using Pixel Game Maker MV, an accessible action game creation engine designed to lower the barrier to entry for aspiring developers. This placed Arcanion within the official “Pixel Game Maker Series,” a curated line of games—including titles like Steel Sword Story and Dungeon of Nazarick—showcasing the engine’s capabilities.

The developers’ vision was explicitly nostalgic. In a Steam discussion, Jaymonius clarified the game’s inspiration was not the explorative Metroidvania genre but the straightforward, stage-based action of “old school Megaman.” This was a deliberate attempt to capture the essence of 8-bit and 16-bit platformers: tight controls, simple but challenging mechanics, and a clear progression through discrete levels. The game was also a submission to the “Pixel Game Maker MV Game Development Challenge,” positioning it as a passion project created within specific constraints, both technical and temporal.

The Gaming Landscape of 2020
Released on September 8, 2020, Arcanion entered a market saturated with indie darlings and high-profile AAA titles. The retro-platformer niche was itself fiercely competitive, home to critically acclaimed titles that often blended nostalgic aesthetics with modern design sensibilities. For a small, earnest title like Arcanion, visibility was its greatest challenge. With a minimal marketing footprint and a reliance on word-of-mouth, it was destined to be a hidden gem—or, perhaps more accurately, a deeply buried one.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The plot of Arcanion, as detailed in its official descriptions, is a classic tale of nascent heroism and mysterious lineage. Players assume the role of Magi, a young girl beginning her training as a Warrior of Arcanion, an order tasked with defending their abbey home. The narrative catalyst is the theft of the “Dark Tome,” a recently acquired treasure, by a mysterious hooded man. This antagonist not only vows revenge upon the order but also implies a “familiar bond” with Magi herself.

The core narrative questions—”Who is this man? How does he know Magi? What secrets does their home possess?”—are the foundational tropes of fantasy storytelling. They promise a personal journey that intertwines with a larger mythological conflict. The potential for themes of identity, the weight of legacy, and the gray area between perceived good and evil is present. However, the extreme brevity of the game (only 10 levels, with a 3-level demo) suggests these themes are likely introduced rather than explored in any profound depth. The story serves as a functional framework to justify the action, a common and accepted approach in the genre it emulates, leaving its deeper mysteries perhaps more hinted at than solved.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Core Loop and Controls
Arcanion presents itself as a classic “jump and shoot” platformer. The control scheme, meticulously outlined across its store pages, is a direct homage to the SNES era: dedicated buttons for Jump, Shoot, and a curiously named “SIDE” action (the function of which remains a minor mystery based on the source material). Movement is restricted to running left and right and climbing ladders. This simplicity is its greatest strength and weakness; it aims for the intuitive pick-up-and-play feel of its inspirations.

Progression and Systems
The game incorporates two key progression systems:
1. Non-Linear Level Order: A feature directly cited from the start, players can tackle the game’s 10 levels in any order they wish. This suggests a structure similar to early Megaman titles, where mastering a level grants an ability that might be useful in another, encouraging experimentation and replayability.
2. Aura Powers and Equipment: Throughout the game, Magi can obtain new powers and gear that “boost your abilities.” This implies a light RPG element, allowing for character builds tailored to a player’s style or the specific challenges of a chosen level.

The Intended Experience vs. The Reality
The developers pitched an experience of progressive mastery—learning levels, gaining new tools, and overcoming challenges. However, the stark reality that the game garnered only three user reviews on Steam throughout its entire lifespan suggests that very few players ever experienced this loop. The discussion around its mechanics is virtually non-existent, leaving its execution—the feel of the jump, the satisfaction of the combat, the balance of the power-ups—as one of gaming history’s quietest unknowns.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Visual Direction
The art for Arcanion was provided by Uran, whose work lends the game a classic pixel-art aesthetic. While the provided sources lack actual screenshots, the described setting of a fantasy abbey and the promise of varied levels imply an attempt to create a cohesive, if simple, fantasy world. The pixel art style was a conscious choice to align with the game’s retro ambitions, aiming to evoke nostalgia rather than push visual boundaries.

Soundscape
The soundtrack was composed by AbstracttheOrigin. One of the only shreds of player feedback available, a comment on the itch.io page, specifically praises the “victory music,” indicating that the audio design successfully hit the right nostalgic notes for those who heard it. The music likely aimed for the catchy, melodic chip-tune tracks that defined the 8-bit era, serving to enhance the atmosphere and provide audio cues for the action.

Atmosphere
The intended atmosphere was likely one of classic adventure: a lone hero setting out against a mysterious threat in a world filled with fantasy tropes. The success of this atmosphere is, like much of the game, lost to time, known only to its handful of players.

Reception & Legacy

Critical and Commercial Reception
The silence surrounding Arcanion is perhaps its most defining characteristic. As of the latest data:
* It has 0 critic reviews on aggregator sites like Metacritic and MobyGames.
* It has only 3 user reviews on Steam, all positive, but far too few to generate a score.
* It has no ratings or reviews on its Nintendo Switch release page.

Commercially, it is the definition of a niche title. Its price point—often dropping to a mere $1.09 on Steam—positions it as an impulse buy, yet it failed to capture even that market in any significant numbers.

Evolution of Reputation and Influence
Arcanion has no reputation to evolve. It did not achieve cult status, nor did it become a so-called “hidden gem” rediscovered by later audiences. Its legacy is one of obscurity. Its primary historical value is as a data point in the “Pixel Game Maker Series,” a testament to the hundreds of games created using accessible tools that serve as practice grounds for developers. Its influence on subsequent games or the industry is negligible.

However, its existence is a microcosm of the indie game ecosystem. For every breakout hit like Hollow Knight, there are countless Arcanions: passionate projects that are completed, published, and then fade into the background. The game’s follow-up, Pixel Game Maker Series Arcanion Magi Side Story, announced for a 2025 release, indicates that for its creators, the world of Arcanion was more than a forgotten project; it was a learning experience that fueled further creation. In this, its truest legacy is personal, not public.

Conclusion

Arcanion: Tale of Magi is not a good game, nor is it a bad one. It is an unknown game. It is a title that represents the pure, unvarnished essence of indie development: a vision executed with the tools available, released to the world, and met with a resounding, silent shrug. Its value to a historian is not in assessing the quality of its platforming or the depth of its story, but in acknowledging its existence as part of the vast and often unseen tapestry of the video game industry.

It is a reminder that for every game reviewed and debated, there are countless others whose stories are told only in their code and in the private satisfaction of their creators. Arcanion aimed to capture the spirit of a bygone era and, in a poetic twist, achieved a similar fate to many of the games from that era: it became a relic, waiting for historians and archivists to piece together its story from scattered digital fragments. It is a fascinating, albeit incomplete, artifact of ambition in the face of obscurity.