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Enchanted Arms
PlayStation 3
A Fun Game That Doesn't Take Itself Too Seriously
3.5/5 stars
“Enchanted Arms” was one of the first RPGs of this console generation. As such, it had a lot of heavy expectations dumped upon it. The fact that it came from From Software, a developer known for making terrible RPGs, didn't help. With its debut on the Xbox 360, “Enchanted Arms” was instantly dismissed as subpar due to the fact that Microsoft's consoles have not typically been the home of stellar Japanese Role Playing Games. I'm sure that the game's title's similarity to the “Wild ARMs” series caused confusion as well. The eventual port of “Enchanted Arms” to the PlayStation 3 was met with overwhelming apathy, perhaps perceiving the port as ‘too little, too late.' However, RPG fans who are still waiting for something good to come from their favorite genre this generation may want to give this game a second look.
Presentation
The environments are incredibly impressive; the characters, not so much. Everything in the game world is impressively rendered in 3D with particular attention paid to textures. I have yet to see a 3D game that has environments that look as impressive as “Enchanted Arms,” even down to fine details such as leaves blowing in the wind, small woodland creatures, and the movement of clouds in the sky. The world of “Enchanted Arms” feels very alive and is a pleasure to experience. The only problem is that this lively, vivid world is incredibly small. There are only a handful of areas to explore and very few of them are open and really merit the term ‘exploration.' Most areas consist of simple paths cut through the environment for the characters to follow. It felt to me like the entire game world was about as large as a small city and its suburbs, which made me pine for days gone by in which RPGs had world maps that clearly showed the breadth of the characters' travels. Speaking of characters, despite some interesting designs and decent animations, they still can't escape from the Uncanny Valley, partially because the textures that served so well to make the environments look alive serve to make the characters look like they are made of plastic. This unnaturalness isn't really a problem for most of the playable characters and enemies, as they are artificial in nature and should look a little plasticky.
The voiceacting is passable, but nothing to hold as a point of pride. The voices chosen for the main and supporting characters are suitable and the only annoying one is annoying on purpose. Unfortunately, nobody bothered to coach all of the voice actors on the proper pronunciation of Japanese names. There are frequent discrepancies in how certain characters' names are pronounced depending on which other character is talking about them. For example, the character Makoto's name should be pronounced ‘MA-coat-o,' but the main character's voice actor consistently pronounces it ‘ma-COT-o,' which makes him sound like he's talking about some kind of magical salami.
The music, unlike the graphics, is absolutely dreadful. Every track in the game, with the exception of one, consists of a-melodic layering of a handful of rhythms that are only 2-6 measures long, which repeat to the point of insanity. The battle theme is catchy, but not in a good way, as it features Latin lyrics that sound like someone repeatedly saying, “Fuzzy wuzzy wuzzy wuzzy, let us be.” Another musical problem with the game is that the final boss battles are unaccompanied, as are the end credits. I don't know if this problem exists in the Xbox 360 version as well or if it's a glitch, but I was quite disappointed in the lack of a dramatically-instrumented final confrontation and the dreadfully boring process of watching white text on a black screen in silence.
Story
The story isn't anything RPG or anime fans haven't seen before, but the game is completely unapologetic about this fact. Instead, it embraces the predictable ‘plot twists' and features moments of wry, sardonic dialog that come close to breaking the Fourth Wall at times.
The game takes place in a world where magic has been refined to the point of high technology and enchantment-powered golems (artificial life forms) perform all of the roles of animals and machinery. In this way, the game world is much like the world of “Pokemon,” except a lot less cartoony. The story begins with a trio of college buddies at the Enchanter University in Yokohama city. These friends form an interesting set of stereotypes: the dumb guy, the ‘class rep' guy, and the flaming homosexual (who attacks enemies using the world's most flamboyant saxophone… I kid you not!). I found myself smirking at their antics and dialog despite myself, as they went about cutting class and fighting their way past a variety of student organizations in order to reach the grounds of the Yokohama festival. Before long, it becomes apparent that the dumb guy, Atsuma, is the main character, as his genius friend Toya must explain every little aspect of the game interface to him, such as ‘stand in front of a box and press X to open it' or ‘stand in front of a ladder and press X to climb it.' These dialog-based tutorials are annoying at first, but they actually help the player to get inside Atsuma's head: he's so dumb he can't even understand simple concepts like ‘X is the action button, stand in front of things and press it to do stuff.' At first I thought that these tutorials were put in place for inexperienced RPG players (along with the completely out of place ‘this story is fiction and not based on any person, group, or events' message that displays before the title screen – come on, it's a fantasy game!). Of course, if that was the case, one would think that the battle and character customization systems, which actually ARE fairly complex, would have a whole slew of tutorials… but they have very little, just enough to get by. Thus I came to believe that all of this tutorial nonsense was put in place specifically to help the player get into the role of Atsuma, which is a novel approach for a Role Playing Game.
Once Atsuma, Toya, and the flaming Makoto reach the festival grounds, they have a good time watching Atsuma battle alongside his first golem in a “Pokemon-esque” arena battle. Their fun is shortlived, however, as the arena match is interrupted by every golem in the city going berserk as a mysterious energy-sapping snow begins to fall, draining the life force from every non-enchanter in the city. As the trio investigates, they stumble upon an ancient weapon beneath the college from the long-past Golem War, which suddenly awakens at the touch of Atsuma's mysterious right arm and proceeds to beat the stuffing out of Toya and Makoto. Believing his friends dead, Atsuma barely escapes the city and vows to avenge them. Thus ends the tutorial section of the game.
In the course of his journey, Atsuma encounters a trio of other characters who join his cause, all of whom are just as hilariously stereotyped as Atsuma and his college friends. First to join are the noble duo of Karin and Raigar, a spoiled rich girl and her stoically loyal bodyguard. Later on, Atsuma is subjected to the company of Yuki, who tries so hard to emulate “Final Fantasy 7's” Yuffie that it hurts. These ‘main' characters receive quite a bit of development over the course of the story and the player gets to learn a lot about their backstories and motivations. Despite not being particularly creative (there is only so much one can do with a story about ancient artifacts being reactivated and wreaking havoc), the story and characters are well-written and enjoyable, plus the localization is really high-quality (there are a few typos, but nothing major). While I was able to predict almost all of the plot ‘twists' miles before they appeared, it didn't matter, as they were still fun to experience. The pacing of the story is quite nice, with the whole thing lasting ~50 hours. It's long enough to be a substantial experience, but not so long that it requires padding and wears out its welcome.
Gameplay
“Enchanted Arms” is at odds with itself, featuring some gameplay elements that are stunningly well-done and others that are so horribly idiotic that it's a wonder that anyone thought they were a good idea, let alone approved them for inclusion in the final product.
The main battle system is an amazingly cool hybrid of TRPG grid-based battles and the speedier random battles of non-tactical RPGs. The battlefield is divided in half, with three rows belonging to the player and three rows belonging to the enemies. Neither player characters nor enemies can cross into each others' territory. Instead, characters and enemies must be strategically placed on the board in order to both avoid damage and deal the most damage possible. Facing is excised in this battle system, but there is a lot of emphasis on placement in order to maximize the number or targets hit or to provide cover for allies. The player's characters always go first in battle (except in cases of surprise attacks, which can be avoided by having a high Speed stat) and take their actions in the order they are input by the player. Each action, except using an item, requires the character performing it to spend an amount of EP (which is similar to MP in other RPGs) determined by the specific action. While item use does not cost EP, most items aren't very useful, as characters can only use them on themselves, with the exception of the revival item, which only affects characters directly to the left and right of the user. I found these limited item ranges to be quite annoying early in the game when only weak items were available in the shop. Later in the game when good items become available, they are much more useful, and self-targeting-only items become necessary for the sake of balance. Finally, the battle system features a simple elemental affinity system, in which each character and enemy is assigned an element and characters/enemies with opposite elements (Fire/Water, Earth/Wind, Light/Dark) deal significantly more damage to each other if they use an attack that shares their affinity.
The rewards for battle consist of the standard money (called ‘Tablets' and abbreviated TB, which constantly made me think of tuberculosis), Experience, and Skill Points (SP). TB is used to buy things from the stores that dot the game world in the form of spinning purple diamonds. Stores sell new skills and combat items along with ‘core' materials, which are used to synthesize new golem characters and new weapons for the human characters. The Experience system is nicer than in many RPGs, as characters that have been K.O.'d or didn't participate in the battle still get the full allotment of experience. SP is used for both increasing character stats (in addition to the stat increases that come with gaining levels normally) and for learning new skills. Skill come in normal and support varieties. Normal Skills are the characters' attacks, healing, and stat boosting moves, whereas Support Skills provide percentage increases to a given stat, immunity to a given status ailment, etc. Each character can only equip a limited number of Skills and Supports at once, so it takes a bit of strategy to figure out which are the most useful.
Another notable feature is that “Enchanted Arms” does away with the ancient RPG convention of save points. Instead, the player is free to save absolutely anywhere. It's convenient, but it can end up causing problems if a player saves in a bad place. Another notable absence is inns or hotels of any kind for recovering life. Instead, there are occasional Healing Points scattered around the world, frequently near the shopping points, that heal characters for free. Unfortunately, this free healing comes with a catch that almost ruins the entire game…
The main failure in “Enchanted Arms'” gameplay is the inclusion of Vitality Points in a system that is remarkably similar to the dreadful “SaGa Frontier.” With this system, each character has a set amount of vitality which decreases at the end of each battle depending on how many turns it took to win, how much damage the character took, and whether or not the character was K.O.'d in the battle. Normally, characters are returned to full HP and EP at the end of battle, but when VP is reduced to 0, character HP and EP becomes set to 1 and will revert to 1 after a battle, no matter what it was at the end of the battle. This system forces the player to ‘ration' random battles and rush through areas quickly so as not to run out of VP while impossibly far from a Healing Point and be unable to progress. I have a sneaking suspicion that the VP system was added in an attempt to force the player to swap-in golem characters to save VP for the human characters, which is just plain cruel, considering how impotent golems are compared to the main cast. Plus, golems don't need the precious SP gained from battles nearly as much as human characters due to the fact that golems can't learn new skills. The SP would only go toward increasing their stats.
The other major flaw with the gameplay is the way in which SIXAXIS functionality was implemented. Since the Xbox 360 controller doesn't have any form of motion sensitivity, these ‘improvements' were foisted solely upon the PS3 version. In two cases of motion controls, when using the grappling hook or when injecting magic into a failing levitation platform, the player has a choice between rapidly pressing X or waggling the controller until they dislocate both shoulders. Unfortunately, the other two cases, in which waggle in MANDATORY, deal with combat, and are thus much more important to the game. The first mandatory wagglefest is the ‘Magic Dance,' a disturbingly Batusi-esqe series of gyrations which Atsuma can perform outside of battle to refill the EX gauge that allows characters to perform devastating special attacks. The other mandatory wagglefest is for filling the bonus gauge during battle that increases the potency of an EX Skill up to 20%. Unfortunately, the SIXAXIS is so unresponsive that I was lucky to break 15% without resorting to pounding the controller on the arm of my chair in order for it to register enough vibration. The implementation of motion controls in “Enchanted Arms,” while minimal, is still a textbook example of the WRONG way to include motion in a game. “Enchanted Arms” is a traditional RPG, it should be played with traditional controller inputs: There is nothing difficult about this concept!
Overall
“Enchanted Arms” is a decent RPG that doesn't take itself very seriously. The good parts of the gameplay, which are extremely good, help to make up for the bad parts and for the game's deficiencies in other areas. With just a few tweaks, this game could have been significantly better, but it's still pretty good, despite its flaws. Now that “Enchanted Arms” is a bargain bin game, frequently selling for under $20, I can easily recommend it to RPG fans who are looking for something less vainglorious than what the typical RPG has become or who are looking for a traditional game with a unique (in a good way) battle system.
Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 3.5/5
Overall (not an average): 3.5/5
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