Thousand Arms

" A typical rpg that offers something americains usually don't see but is ruined by a bad battle system"

When I first looked at this game I thought ''Cool, another anime influenced rpg!'' I look at the back and see a very cool feature: You can date! But after a couple of days of playing it, I figured it wasn't what it should be.

Gameplay

First, I will get to gameplay(which is one of the games biggest flaws). It seems to be standard turn-based combat, but you can only fight with one character at a time while two other characters are behind doing healing spells are rooting for you and such. Something that's very noticeable in the game is the battle ratio. You get into a battle every couple of steps, and to make matters worst they just add to your exp. which is probably way ahead of what it should be. This leads to the game being way too easy. One of the characters can defeat a boss in a matter of hits. Also the battles get extremely tedious after a while just pressing the attack button and watching your character attack. The dating part of the game is pretty fun considering I never played a dating game before. But its true that there is probably over 7 hours of dialogue each girl asks the same questions. I thought it would be better to use that dialogue to better use, I mean if they pay for the people to do the voice overs they might as well make different questions up for them. Some of you people may be asking, Why date? I suppose its not that crucial but it raises there ''intimacy'' level so you can forge better weapons. Even with the dating the gameplay still leaves much to be desired.

Score: 5

Story

For a rpg this story is incredibly bland. I was hoping for a little more depth but this is as generic as it gets. Your a blacksmith following in your fathers name when bad people attack your town you got to flee, you meet this girl, and you have to defeat the bad guy ...you get the idea. The characters though despite some being generic anime girls are pretty interesting though like so girl that's a ''dress master'' which she changes personality's depending on what she's wearing. So the characters aren't too bad.

Score: 7

Graphics

Not really much too look at but there not really ugly either. The main problem is that every battle takes place in 2-d so it just adds more to the monotonous battles.

Score: 6

Sound

Again like the graphics nothing special but the music does get tedious in battles. The opening song is pretty cool and the town music isn't that bad on the ears. As for actual sound affects, the sword attacks sound as though your cutting butter. But there are 7 hours of dialogue and the voice-overs are pretty good.

Score:8

Overall
Get this game if you want a idea of what dating sims are like, just don't expect a epic rpg with wonderful character development and exciting battles. There really is a lot of girls to choose from so that can keep you busy for a weekend rental.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/05/01, Updated 08/05/01