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Enchanted Arms
This is the PS3’s first RPG, and it’s a 360 conversion. No hype and no fanfare then. The game takes place in fictional versions of cities such as Yokohama, London and other varied but typical settings such as forests, deserts and icy landscapes. The story is about a small unlikely (aren’t they always?) team trying to save the world from the Ice Devil Golem, a recently awakened ancient demon. Atsuma, the main character has a dark force inside his right arm that is thought to be key to both the destruction of the world and / or defeating the Ice Queen.
There are options for the voices to be in English or Japanese. Neither are great, but it’s worth leaving it on English for Makoto alone.
Makoto is the most openly gay comedy character seen in any game to date. He disappears quite soon in the game, but is a blast of amusing fresh air while he’s there trying to gain the affections of one of the guys in your party.
The party collect Golems (monsters that inhabit the world) by defeating them in battle then using ingredients at Synthesis Stores to create them. There are around 100 of them to collect to be used if you wish in battle. Some of them have unique abilities that can’t be found elsewhere or have brute strength. Even though they can be levelled up you are better off sticking to your human party members when you can.
The fighting is turn and grid based, you move each character into position then decide their action. It takes ages. But wait; by pressing Triangle, an option for ‘auto’ play comes up. This will let the AI pick what it judges to be the best course of action for the turn; this involves choosing the best position and tactic. For general fights and levelling up it works great and really speeds things up. After a while though you’ll begin to feel a bit detached from the action as it feels like just going through the motions. All that changes with the more difficult boss fights where you need to step in and take control for yourself as the AI will get you butchered as it will choose to ‘Raise Strength by 10%’ rather than give an almost dead character any health.
For when you do screw up though and get your party wiped out you can choose to ‘retry’ the battle or reload your game. This is great because you can save anywhere you like so there is no running to a boss for five minutes only to get killed and have to keep running back again and again. After each battle your health and ability points are completely restored, so you can go into each battle and not hold back anything. However you do have ‘Vitality Points’ which go down by one for every turn a character takes in battle, these can only be restored at restore points and inns. If they run out then the character becomes very vulnerable. It’s annoying but only happens once in a while when you get lost.
Overall though, the above helps the game to flow along very nicely and encourages you to try anything in battle because you are less than a minute away from being able to reload at any point if you screw it up. At 40-50 hours of play it is quite impressive that you don’t have to go back and do loads of levelling up, as the random fights you have while moving between areas are enough to keep your team capable. This game is a rare thing in that it’s an RPG that actually wants you to finish it.
But will you want to? The story is a bit basic and although everything is done to a reasonable standard, nothing shines. It’s like watching a TV movie and being pleasantly surprised by it not being that rubbish after all. But you’ll never play it again once it’s finished. (6.5/10)
Presentation: 6/10 Reasonable menu layout is hampered by a hard to read font that isn't very clear at a distance. Most talking is done with a barely moving image of a character with subtitles underneath.
Graphics: 6/10 Still backgrounds, not even as good as the old PS2 Onimusha ones. Too few cutscenes. Doesn't really feel next-gen.
Sound: 7/10 The music is nothing special but doesn't irritate. Standard sound effects. Some bad, but some funny voice acting.
Gameplay: 8/10 An easy fighting system enables pro's and newbies to enjoy. Too many random battles per distance walked maybe?
Lasting Appeal: 6/10 Good length. Once it's finished there is nothing to go back for. Some extra boss battles if you want better weapons, but they aren't that much better. Pick it up cheap if you're desperate for an RPG.
Overall 6/10
Developer: From Software
Publisher: Ubisoft
Genre: Role playing
Age: Teen
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3
