Enchanted Arms

"A Game for the Hardcore with time and Patience"

I've played a lot of RPGs. I mean a ton. I would go so far as to say that aside from rhythm games RPGs are the only other games I play. So now that you all know the breadth of my experience in general, let's talk about Enchanted Arms.

Enchanted Arms is a game revolving around Atsuma, a teenager attending a school for Enchanters, users of a lesser form of magic, in a modern fictional version of Yokohama city, also conveniently named Yokohama city. The world he lives in consists of three cities all of which use similar naming conventions known as completely ripping off real cities but taking the stereotypes of the cultures they're based in and blowing them so completely out of proportion that they can literally stare at their own irony and laugh. But that's really unimportant.

Either way, Atsuma and his friends Toya and Makoto are thrust into the daily life of a high school student attending a modern day Hogwarts and so obviously have to battle their way through teachers and students and soon find themselves on the brink of another Golem War similar to the one arbitrarily mentioned during the first five hours of gameplay.

Control:
As far as control goes it's pretty standard. I have the PS3 version, so I don't know about you XBox crazies, but for me X is confirm, O is cancel, triangle is menu, square has a few miscellaneous uses here and there and so do the other buttons. The Left analog stick is for movement, and the right analog stick is to rotate the camera in the places where you're allowed to do so, as though there isn't a time when you shouldn't.

Pretty standard, no surprises.

Story:
Fine, whatever. The box says there's 50 hours. I personally don't believe it, because I've played 14 and feel that I'm relatively far into the plot line, but what do I know? It also says Epic Level Story-telling, which I have ceased believing in since Final Fantasy 7 had me pacing around a farm waiting for two chocobos to have a good screw.

The story has it's moments. I try sometimes to find flaws in the story, and by that I mean points where the story has been ripped off from somewhere else, but I can't find any. So I guess it's pretty okay. You're a teenager at a school for powerful teenagers but find out that within you lies dormant a mysterious power left over from 1000 years ago that has only just become awakened due to yet another magical disaster from a power hungry official. This feels bland, but the way it's pulled off leads me to think that the designers actually had to sit and think about where they were going with this, not like what they did with FFX-2.

Graphics:
Meh. They're pretty, but not as pretty as any other PS3 title I've seen. The one, sorry, two real cut scenes I've seen in 14 hours of gameplay were nice, but still could have been done with the PS2 graphics card. That and they were only about 30 seconds long, so I can't really imagine why I'm counting them.

Overall though the graphics for general gameplay were unremarkable. Everything looks dead, bland, and monotonous. In London City every house is brown, with variations of brownish-black rooftops and light brown doors that are locked to keep you out of random people's homes. I guess the people from Hyrule told the ones in Enchanted Arms that brightly coloured adventurers like to come into houses and break their pots and boxes.

General Complaints:
I haven't finished the game yet so it's partially incomplete but what I can tell you is this: don't buy this game if you lack self-esteem. As soon as you start you'll be bombarded with tutorials on how to do the most mundane activities. At one point the game stopped and went through a lengthy scene of dialogue to show me that not only was the wall featuring a ladder was not empty, but that I could also grab onto the ladder and climb it up to the top by pressing X right in front of it. This repeats itself for opening chests, doors, picking up items, swinging across chasms, and pretty much every other task Atsuma will ever have to do.

But the previous complaint should be mentioned with this one as well. Not only will the game stop and give you lengthy instructions on how to press the X button, but it will call you stupid for not realizing it in the first place. Oh yes, far be for our main Hero to actually know something about the world around him. He begins the adventure, and remains for pretty much the entire adventure, constantly berated and called nasty names because he lacks the brain capacity to anything other than eat, sleep, and poop. On several occasions I actually had to shut the game off because I was getting TO'ed at being called a stupid moron for walking too close to my first encounter with something requiring the game to teach me about the all-powerful X button. It was apparently not enough for the game designers to make the in game instructions so easy a two year old crack addict with down-syndrome could understand them, but they felt they needed to berate the Hero, and by extension the player, by calling them a moron for having not bothered to read the instructions featured in their own tab in the menu. Far be it for them to extend the instruction manual to include the mundane activities and leave the name calling to the play ground bullies.

I know I said that the graphics were fine, and that they featured bland environments, but nowhere is this more apparent than pretty well everywhere you will ever go. Enchanted Arms continues a tradition that I call Walking Down a Hallway, taking after its lonely and hopefully never repeated game, Xenosaga. Pretty much all of your objectives are accomplished by making Atsuma move in the direction of a door or the light at the end of a tunnel, a short tunnel mind-you but a tunnel nonetheless and then walk through said door. My favourite example is when Atsuma throws a hissy fit and stomps off down the road to his home city, leaving the rest of the party to come up with their own poor excuses for tagging along. It's on this route that you're taken to what could potentially be a wide open area, but with a paved road that is raised perhaps 5 centimeters above the grass on either side. You are never allowed to deviate from that path. Trying to walk onto the grass makes Atsuma run on the spot attracting random battles, which happen so frequently that you better have two healers in a battle at all times like I did. Personally I can understand why they made all of the areas one big hallway. If they didn't then no one would be able to complete the area because of the so frequent random battles, which leads me to my next big complaint.

The designers of Enchanted Arms decided that they would try to make the piss easy combat system a little more difficult by creating what they call Vitality Points. These are used up by characters during battle. Usually on a one point for one turn basis, or three points for each round the character is unconscious. What this means is that: if you're pleased with the current party you've set up, then you're rushing from healing point to healing point (which grow farther and farther apart as the game progresses) before your vitality points run out. Because once they're gone the character is left at one hit point and one ether point until they receive the proper healing. Personally I think this aspect of the game can piss right off. I have never before seen a game so focused on limiting the number of turns a character can have in battle before they have to receive healing. It's an arbitrary limitation that causes me more headaches than it helps, because after you throw in the constant random battles you end up with a rationing system in your head about how many turns you can use in each successive battle before you're screwed.

I know there's more for me to complain about but I'm going to wrap it up with one final point.

The voice acting is terrible. I don't know if the English translation is accurate or not, but whoever did the voices of the main characters should be ashamed of themselves. All of the main characters are so monotone that I'm surprised they haven't imploded under their own irony yet. At a really tense moment when you'd expect a character to be having one of those "I'm so full of self-pity I need to cry" moments the acting is done with lots of ellipsis and gasping. That's the extent of voiced expression. If I wanted lots of gasping I'd watch the Matrix Reloaded in reverse... while smoking an onion. Luckily the game gives you the option of switching to the Japanese vocal cast, which are annoyingly squeaky, but sound at least like they have some emotion, or whatever those Japanese call it.

Overall:
I can't in good conscience recommend buying this game. It's too long for you to likely do in one rental, but if you really really want to get through it, all the more power too you. I bought it used, and got a discount, so I consider myself lucky. The graphics and story don't make up for calling me an idiot for 10 hours, so unless you're one of Ubisoft's rabid mongrel fans (like they deserve any) this game receives a 6 / 10.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/20/08

Game Release: Enchanted Arms (US, 04/03/07)