What kind of game it is
The Girl from Arkanya is a top-down treasure hunting RPG in the spirit of classic 2D Zelda games. You play as Marisa, a treasure hunter from Arkanya, a city at the edge of the world, and she travels into the jungles of Amazonia with Kapi, a magical capybara called Ka'apiuara Yum Kaax by the land around them. The game is a pixel art action RPG that draws on Minish Cap and Four Swords Adventures, and it leans into that same mix of exploration, puzzles, combat, and loot.
The world is split into 7 hand-crafted overworld zones, each with people to meet, landmarks to find, and treasure to dig up. On top of that there are 6 dungeons with their own themes, and each one plays a part in the story while handing Marisa a new spell. Spells are activated through sacred dances and give both Marisa and Kapi new powers, so progress opens up the more of Amazonia you get through.
Playing together
The game supports local co-op, with a second player able to drop in and out at any time. Marisa and Kapi are both playable characters, and swapping between them is central to how the challenges are built. Some puzzles, fights, and routes only work when you take advantage of the character swap, so two people can split the work, hand roles back and forth, and chase the best way through a room together.
There is also Remote Play Together available, which means a second player can join over Steam's remote play feature from their own machine.
What to know before starting
Expect a collectathon alongside the action RPG parts. Dozens of artifacts are scattered through Amazonia, each one adding a piece of the land's history, and 15 equippable tools open up puzzles, traversal, and combat options, with some upgradeable into stronger versions. That means a decent amount of backtracking and searching if you want to fill things out.
The setting is fantasy with mythology woven through it, and Marisa is the only female protagonist, hunting treasure to build her reputation and carry on her family's legacy while dealing with the trouble that pushes her and Kapi together. Both the overworld and the dungeons lean on exploration and puzzle solving rather than pure combat, so expect to spend as much time working out a room as fighting through it.