Arc the Lad: End of Darkness

"A very good Online game!"

Story 3/10
Uhg, Truly horrifying. Some pansy guy with 3 inch shorts decides he want to be a "Hunter". Which brings him on a journey to exercise "Malademons". Malademons are like, people who died and were bad people when they were alive. So anyways, he meets some new friends. The best part though it that most of them are from previous Arc The Lad games, which is really cool to see some of those 2D guys come to life in a 3D world. So overall, the story in his game is really bad.

Gameplay 6/10
As a hunter, you a required to go on missions for other people. And in these missions you will fight many monsters in a real time battle system. This battle system reminds me alot of Star Ocean 3, but its pretty average. Most of the game is fighting, so unless you like Real Time, don't pick this up.

Difficulty 5/10
Not a very hard game, this game has a few moments that you will get beat up so badly, you will put that controller down your pants, (That was a bad one I know). There are only around 3 of those parts, so it is pretty much Smoothe Sailin.

Graphics 6/10
Meh, Average.. The background looks horrifying, the characters... Meh, they are OK lookin. Nothing bad or good. Some of the special moves look cool visually. But other than that, pretty Average. At least they aren't polygonal. And its not Cell Shaded in case you were wondering........The charcters look unique for the most part.

Sound 7/10
Its pretty good. The music is from other Arc the Lad games, so it should sound pretty familiar to you. There are a few sound glitched. If you block with a certain character, it makes this "Whoosh!" noise. Well if she falls down while blocking, the whoosh sound keeps going and going a going, which is REALLY annoying.

Online 8/10
OH YEAH! This is where the game really shines! You can do Co-op, or Player Against Player!You can also do 4 on 4, which is fun because you get to be on a team with other players. You can use any character or items you got offline and use em online. You can also obtain helpful items online. To get the most out of online, I suggest buying a mic. Most of the people are nice on there, only a few people to stay away from. I also suggest beating offline before coming online. You will get beat up in seconds by some of the people on here (Me) if you don't have anything good on. There are many Co-Op quests to choose from also, so you can start out easy. The people on here are also very interesting to talk to.

Rent or Buy
I would say rent, and try online. If you like online buy it, because it doesn't get boring for ahwile.

So there you have, an Arc the lad review. Hope this helped! If you have any other questions, you can contact me online! My User is Hiros!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/05