Arrest of a Stone Buddha Review

Arrest of a Stone Buddha takes place in November 1976 where players are in the shoes of a professional killer where you’ll need to complete a handful of specific assignments all the while experiencing mundane day-to-day living.

Arrest of a Stone Buddha is a 2D shoot’em up/Sims-like game where you’ll need to fend off enemies, various enemies, with a mildly decent arsenal of weapons all the while trying to live a normal life by going to the pharmacy, movie theater, etc… . The way the game is built is most of the time, you’ll wake up in your own apartment and need to figure out a way to kill time between your assignments.

So given that ammo is limited, you’ll need to find more! The way to do so, while frustrating, is actually pretty fun. When near an enemy that’s attempting to kill you, simply get as close as possible to disarm them by breaking their arm and taking their gun. You can also crouch to shoot, but the movement is delayed.

As you’d expect, especially if you look at the score already, nothing is perfect here. The first problem, being a big one, is the game’s pace and character movement. It is incredibly slow. A tortoise would win a speed contest against a speedrunner who speedruns this game. To make matters worst, it’s one of those where do I go/what do I kind of game? Being a a slug to play is one thing but not knowing where to go on top of that is just pure torture. Slow movement also makes for clunky and cheap combat

If there’s one thing that Arrest of a Stone Buddha has going for it it’s the presentation side of things. The game features a pixelated 16-bit visual reminiscent of classic games from the Super NES/Genesis/MegaDrive era. Each area features a dark, seedy overtone giving it an appealing visual. The soundtrack is a soothing instrumental score (which won’t stop you from passing out from the boring gameplay) that fits the environment and visual design.

I hate saying this because the presentation definitely has a unique appeal to it and could *almost* be used as an argument for the video games are art debacle, but I absolutely cannot recommend Arrest of a Stone Buddha. It’s a slow, tedious, and boring where the f*ck do you go kind of game. It can take roughly 3 to 4 hours to complete if you use a walkthrough or if you’re a medium and know exactly what to do to feel like you’re progressing. Given the number of indie games available out there, don’t waste your time and money with this.