Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits

"A surprisingly excellent experience"

The Arc series stands in my mind as fairly obscure. Denied from us on this side of the ocean, the Arc series was touted as a highly enjoyable franchise that would remain in Japan only. Then, the wonderful people at Working Designs spoke up that they would in fact re-work the entire series for us North Americans. Much rejoicing ensued. Sadly, the Arc series was met with delay after delay, and when it finally was released it was looked over by many due to the cost, and lack of advertising. This is too bad, because the Arc series is very well done. Fast forward to today, the Arc series has received a new sequel that actually did get published on this side of the world. How would this new Arc be received? It was developed by a different company, would it live up to the relatively few Arc fan's expectations, and would it be a strong enough game to lure in those who were put off by the originals? The answer is yes, a glorious yes!

I suppose the list of why I love this game begins in the gameplay. At its roots, Arc the Lad - Twilight of the Spirits (TotS) is a tactical RPG. You assemble a team of warriors who will do battle in a grid-based environment and take turns, tactically. Fortunately, TotS takes this basic model and makes it great. No longer does a grid look like a grid, you have complete freedom to move in any direction and to line yourself up at any angle. A slick targeting feature allows you to position yourself exactly and then see how close you are to being able to make a hit. Positioning is the name of the game here, and you will find yourself cruising around the (beautiful) environments looking for the best way to attack.

While it is easy to just hack and slash away at the enemy, you won't get very far in this game until you begin working with the easy-to-use skill system. After the end of each battle, you are rewarded with a certain amount of skill points that you can use to ''buy'' new abilities/magic spells. These skills vary greatly and add a great amount of strategy to the game. There are also combo attacks that can be preformed at certain points of the game, but unfortunately not much time was spent to make these anything special. The result is that they are over-powerful and rather bland to watch.

Another innovative feature in TotS is the spirit stone system. Instead of using up mp, or magic points, each member of your party can carry a certain number of spirit stones. While in most RPGs you simply return to an inn to recharge your mp, in TotS spirit stones are a valuable commodity and must be purchased from a vendor. You can also keep a set amount of stones in your party's items allowing you to replenish your stones as you see fit. This leads to a small amount of resource handling which adds a welcome amount of strategy to the battles in the game.

In most tactical RPGs, towns are simply options on a menu and dungeons are usually just one fight after the other. TotS takes this standard and tosses it out the window. Each town is lovingly rendered and even the dungeons are works of art. You will solve (simple) puzzles, open treasure chests, converse with citizens, etc. This level of detail really adds a lot to the game and at some times I felt myself losing track of just what kind of game I was playing. The world map is done in the usual tactical standard however. That is to say you move your player across nodes on a map to get from place to place. Random encounters are done in much the same style as Final Fantasy Tactics in that whenever you cross over an area, there is a random chance you will run into a battle. Overall, not too shabby of a system.

The storyline in TotS is interesting in that it is really two storylines woven into one. Conveying the sides of light and dark, but in the form of species tension, two plots unfold. On the side of light (the humans in this case) we have Kharg, the standard do-gooder out to right the wrongs of the world. Thankfully, while his story might start out a little bland and clichéd, it soon conveys a few surprises that are sure to entertain. On the other side of things is Darc (a Deimos, half monster, half human), whose storyline is both intriguing and excellent. Darc's is truly a story of overcoming life's hardships. Both tales interweave themselves into a storyline that ends up as a save the world cliché, but not before moving over some very powerful subjects such as prejudice and hatred. Very well done, and very neat to play.

Graphically, TotS has grown substantially over its predecessors. The world has gone from very nice 2-D to beautiful 3-D. You can tell developer Cattle Call has some very talented artists on board. Each character is extremely well designed and moves very fluently. The faces on the characters change to convey emotion and their lips move when they speak. Gone are the CG cut-scenes of Arc’s past, and in their place are dialogue scenes done with the in-game engine. And done beautifully I might add. The new Arc is perhaps not the prettiest game on the PS2, but it certainly has no trouble standing on its own amongst its peers.

By far my favorite aspect of this game has got to be the music. Haunting and original in ways I have not heard in years, TotS's soundtrack has to be heard to be believed. After my first 4 hour playtime with TotS, I knew I had to own the soundtrack, it is that good. Each character set has their own themes, and all the tracks fit well into the storyline. Even the voice acting is well done. There are a few annoying voices, but overall they fit very well with the characters. It also is quite amazing that the voices are actually spoken with enthusiasm towards their respective situation. If it weren't for the in-battle voices getting a tad annoying (you can turn them off), I would say this is one of the finer RPG voice-acting experiences I have had.

All in all, I have nothing really bad to say about TotS. It has been a while since I found myself so intrigued in an RPG that I have actually been staying home every once and a while on the weekends to play it. The localization is fantastic, and the play time (it took me about 45 hours) is reasonable for your dollar and not too hard on your time constraints. If you have ever loved a tactical RPG, or have thought about trying one, this is the game for you. You can tell it was a labor of love for the developers and I truly hope that the Arc series starts to get some of the respect it so rightfully deserves, kudos.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/30/03, Updated 07/30/03