Arcana Heart

"Hit me baby one more time!"

I never heard of Arcana Heart before Atlus picked it up and as soon as I saw school girls duking it out I had flashbacks to Rival Schools and knew I had to get this game.

Then Atlus released it at $30 and it was too much for me to drop on what could have been a shallow fighting game. Thankfully a website had the game on sale for $12 so I had to pick it up.

Once it came in the mail I quickly got my ass handed to me. Sure, I heard the game was hard but I always put it on the easiest difficulty for my first play time to get the hang of it all.

I quickly lost my very first fight by a lot. I was left being utterly hopeless. Then I kept playing and I started to do nice combos, breaks and aerial attacks. It all started to come together and I soon realized that the game has more to offer in the true sense of a fighting game and not the button mashing that can get you through the more recent ones (looking at you MK VS DC).

But I'm skipping all of the important stuff so let's actually look at each aspect of the game instead of my first impressions of it. Graphically the game is pleasing. I play all of my PS2 games on my PS3 due to the PS2 looking dark so please that that in mind and that I do play it on a HDTV.

With that being said I found the animations to not only be crisp and pretty but each girl has their own animations. It's very fluid and it feels like everyone is a different person and not a clone of everyone else (again, what's up MK vs DC?). Even the stages have a nice Japanese flair to them and the Arcana effects are pretty cool, always altering the background.

The game also has some sub par voice work which isn't exactly an important factor. What's more important is the music which is totally awesome. It's upbeat and very fitting to the style of the game. I really enjoyed some of the tracks to be honest with you, more so than most main stream titles these days.

The combat, which is really the main focus of the game, is off the wall crazy. It's pretty fast, somewhere between Street Fighter and Guilty Gear but the draw is the Arcana system. You get to pick a card that best represents you and that opens up some special skills for you. These are strong skills and as you deal damage you gain more power to use them. It's up to the style of the gamer to really pick the best choice but it opens a lot of different styles of play.

Not only that but the AI is damn good. It will beat your ass black and blue and you know what, I kept coming back, begging for more abuse because I was going to finally get it all together.

That's when I hit the ultimate flaw of the game. The end boss for story mode (which is fairly deep for a fighting game) is not only cheap but can seriously rape you within 10 seconds and score a flawless victory. It has infinite arcana use and can use all of them. Not only that she basically blocks 90% of attacks and one hit does a good 20% damage to you. The only way for a novice player to win is to spam slide attacks which isn't fun but after about 40 attempts I finally did it and damn did it feel good.

The game has the typical extra features like arcade mode and vs mode which I think the game would be really fun to play with someone else if the learning curve wasn't as tough as it was. You also unlock new artwork and other things as you play the game.

All in all I highly recommend the game to all fighting fans but if you're not willing to give it the time of day and learn it's battle system then you might want to pass. With it all said and done I'm glad I got the game but I'm unsure if I would buy the sequel if it ever came here, only because I fear it could be even tougher.

Story - 7/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 8/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 8/10
Replay Value - 7/10

Final Score - 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/14/08

Game Release: Arcana Heart (US, 04/10/08)