Arc the Lad

"Short, sweet and simple"

This game is the first installment of the Arc the Lad series. It is a perfect game to get your familiar to the SRPG genre.

Story: 9/10
This SRPG takes place in sub modern times - there are trains, air travel, scientists. The story involves a young man named Arc Eda Ricolne who lives alone with his mother after his father disappeared 10 years ago. The boy feels it is time to find those responsible for his father's death and sets out on journey to avenge his pop's death.

Graphics: 7/10
This could have been easily a SNES game. Graphics are very basic, yet colorful. Characters have oversized heads, which look funny. There is no camera movement as basically you are always presented with an top down view, unless you going to the air ship or in a cut scene where you experienced side scrolling. There is no map travel, as you just select places on a map and you immediately go there. When main characters are communicating, you see their head shots, but there are no facial expressions.

Sound: 7/10
Sound is good, your typical 16 bits MIDIs and the theme of the series sounds good. There is no voice acting.

Game-play: 8/10
I will break it down to few sections. BATTLE SYSTEM: It is a turn based SRPG. There are no random encounters. You are fighting on a grid, and depending on your reach/jumping ability you can move x number of spaces in any directions. The order of who acts first depends on how high is one's agility attribute. If your foe is within your physical damage reach you can attack it. Depending on how you execute your attack - sides, front, back, the foe can counter it. Same goes for you when you are attacked. In addition you can do an ranged attack over large distances and use magic/ability which can effect a single square or multiple squares. 95% of the time when you kill all the foes, you exit the area. So basically you deal with one area at a time. Also if not mission related, when you enter an area you can abort the fight. In addition most of the time before entering you are prompted to save and if you do accept the fight, edit your equipment. Exiting a battle grants you full HP and MP. In addition to spells a bunch of summon monsters can be called, one at a time. Each summon has special ability/magic. LEVELING: Experience points are earned on the individual level only, so you don't level as a party You get experience points when you cast a spell, get hit or attack. In addition to your base level increase, your throw and jump ability can level as well and so are your spells/abilities. Leveling is very quick, and it maxes out at 60. You can also level your summons as they also max out on the same level. Magic/abilities caps at 3. EVERYTHING ELSE: no such thing as weapons change here. Each character has a unique weapon. The only thing that you can change in terms of a character are accessories. There are four slats for those.

Final Impression
It is a very simple and short main quest, takes about 10 hours to complete. However, this game has lengthy side-quests that take longer than the main quest. It is worth to complete those side-quests as levels and accessories are transferrable to Arc the Lad II. It is recommended that you play this before you play the second game in the series, because it is a direct continuation. Not only this game will introduce you to the epic Arc the Lad series, it can also introduce you to the SRPG genre, if you are new to it. The replay value exists, as this game is fun to play from time to time. You can get your hands on this game as part of the Arc the Lad collection new for $115 and used for $32, or the import.
I'll give it 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/12/07

Game Release: Arc the Lad (JP, 06/30/95)