A resounding "EH"
This game is nothing special. Its a mediocre RPG, which does nothing to stand out in an overcrowded room full of RPGs.
Ok, thats not entirely true. It does stand out in a few ways.
First, your main character may be the DUMBEST and most mentally inept main character ever. As I sat through the dialouge listening to his comments and questions, I couldnt help but wonder how he remembered to breath without someone stapling a note to his forehead reminding him to do so. His competence and observation skills can be accurately compared to a blind drunken monkey with ADHD.
Second, the VOICE ACTING. UGH. Now, the combat voice overs are just fine, as the characters yell out their various elements, attacks, or thank one another for blocking damage for them. However the voice acting for scenes and dialouge is EXCRUCIATING! Everything sounds so painfully forced. The dialouge itself is pretty aweful in that it repeats itself OVER AND OVER! For example, the game may tell you your next goal is inside that cave 30 ft away, as your camera focuses in on it. And by tell you, I mean bombard you with disasterous voice acting untill your willing to do whatever they ask if only they'll make the pain stop. Its clear where you need to go, but after walking over to it, the game will stop and play a nearly identical scene, complete with horrid voice acting, telling you that now you actually need to go INSIDE the cave. INSIDE the cave? What an idea! And here I was planning to LOITER AROUND OUTSIDE IT FOR 3 HOURS. Although, based on the dialouge thats about all your main character is smart enough to do on his own anyway, so its probably a good thing he has a slew of self-proclaimed tour guides following him around.
The combat system, while actually somewhat fun at first, is TERRIBLY unbalanced. Most of the time, battles about as evenly matched as a rabid lion in the ring with a one legged chicken. In normal fights, and about half the boss battles, your party is the rabid lion. In the other 50% of boss fights, however, you become the chicken, as the boss mercilessly and horribly violates your party before you get your first turn. And you cant resurect your party members mid-fight either. The game TRICKS you into THINKING you can, but this is a misconception. Any attempts to resurect a party member in any fight that they could concievably die during, will simply result in them being almost INSTANTLY re-ganked before they can even get a turn. This creates a vicious cycle of resurecting on your turn and your character dying on the enemies turn untill eventually you run out of VP and EP (vitality and ether/magic).
Worse still, is the grid movement system. Its as if at the begining of every fight, your enemy draws a line in the dirt and tells you, your not allowed to cross it, and your character being too mind-numbingly stupid to protest, just blindly follows this rule. Essentially the battle area looks more like a dodgeball court then a warzone, as you hurl attacks across the center line at your opponents on the other side. Did I mention your main characters good attacks are all short range, meaning both he and the target have to be standing next to the center line? And that nearly every enemy in the game after the first 30 mins or so, refuses to do anything except stand in the very back on their side of the court and hurl long range attacks at you?
How about the "rock paper scissors" sounding element system? See, in this game water beats fire, but then again fire also beats water. And every opposing element works this way, so as soon as you realize this, it suddenly stops being about strategy and starts becoming about whos rock is bigger.
And lets not forget the cover system. This is where you can place one character in front of the other, so the character behind suffers less damage from certain area attacks. It sounds great, untill you realize that in every fight where this might actually matter, the opponent COMPLETELY ignores this rule, and rapes both characters in one attack just for being close together. On the other hand, bosses can use this against YOU. Theres even a few bosses that hides in the far corner of their side of the dodgeball court, and place respawning enemies in front, meanwhile hitting your entire party for large damage every turn. Hiding in that far corner means your characters need to cluster together in the front corner of your side JUST so HALF of them can attack, meaning your tightly grouped when those respawning enemies decide to attack with their area moves.
Finally, theres comboing. Comboing is where you decide that one rabid lion isnt enough to thoroughly maul that defenseless chicken, so you call your 3 buddies over for a gang bang. This only really sees use in boss battles, and late game fights. Normal enemies CAN do combos too, but almost never get the chance. However, certain bosses can, and coincidently enough, also seem to delight in tempting you into hurling your xbox controller through the TV screen out of frustration. If you see an enemy begin a combo, you can accurately calculate your odds of survival by pausing the game and fliping a coin. Heads: your whole party dies. Tails: one party member survives long enough for you to make a futile attempt to resurect your teamates before sharing their fate.
Perhaps the only half decent element of the game could be the story itself. While hardly original (main character has a mysterious power, that he must discover more about as he progresses in the game which he will ultimately use to save the world) its not poorly done.
The characters, however, make up for the game almost havign a decent story. In short, your main characters a bumbling idiot, your other 3 permanent members are annoying, and the only decent and likable character in the game leaves your party after the first 15 mins of the game, and never rejoins. Also, and half naked homosexual follows you around for the better part of the game, and your main character cant recognize its one of his fellow students and best friends, because he wears sunglasses, a different color jacket, and changes his accent.
In conclusion, the experience of this game can be simulated by having your spleen removed while simaltaneously hitting your hand with a sledgehammer. If your a masochist with some free time and 20 dollars to spare this game is for you. For all others, do yourself a favor and buy Lost Oddesy instead.
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Enjoyable, albeit not perfect
Enchanted Arms is a classic Japanese RPG. Though not 100% groundbreaking or original it isn't exactly like any one single other game. Unique or not, it is quite an enjoyable game and well worth it for anyone who likes RPGs.
If I had to choose one previous RPG to which I could compare Enchanted Arms, it would have to be Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Like FFTA, the turn-based battles of the game take place on a grid. You pit the unique abilities of each character on your roster against the numerous baddies you randomly encounter throughout your travels.
Speaking of your roster, in true RPG fashion you start with your main character and a couple of friends. As you progress you collect "Golems", which I would liken to summons, except that each Golem is it's own character and is not summoned by anyone. One of the highlights of this game is the quantity and variety of Golems you can collect as well as the level of detail that went into each Golem, not to mention the human characters!
While the visuals may be stunning, particularly the in-battle animations, the voice acting and storytelling can be annoying and even down right insulting. One character has a flaming lisp and clothing that made me ask "Was that entirely necessary?" In addition, most of the controls are mind-bogglingly simple (i.e. "Push A") but the game insists on forcing you through a cut scene during which one of your companions provides you with a dissertation on the proper technique for pushing A.
Some would also argue that battles are too easy and become repetitive, but to that I would advise simply switching out a few of your Golems- you'll be amazed how quickly the battle dynamic changes.
In the long run, any complaints I might have are trivial at best. The bottom line is that I thoroughly enjoyed myself while playing Enchanted Arms and if you like RPGs, you will too.
Summary:
Pros
-Stunning Visuals
-Wide variety of party members
Cons
-Fairly linear
-Unnecessary tutorials
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