Arc the Lad Collection

"Another excellent value-for-money package not released in Europe."

Arc the Lad Collection

Working Designs have a reputation for delaying their games but you cannot accuse them of treated fans with respect in their games and the extras included in the game packages. You only need to look at the intrinsic and extrinsic features of their games to see that a lot of work has gone into ensuring the players get the best deal. With Arc the Lad Collection, this is no different - there are plenty of positive things to say about the games themselves including the excellent script and the transition of the script from Japanese to English, the quality of the gameplay and the whole host of characters that inhabits Arc's world.

- Arc the Lad -

Think Vandal Hearts and Final Fantasy Tactics and you'll get the general idea of the gameplay of the Arc series. In battles, you need to manouvre your characters strategically to attack and kill the monsters pitted against you. The battles are fluid, smooth and controls are easy to use so even the most beginner of players can get the grip of Arc The Lad.

The first game in the series is a very short game - most people can complete this in 10-15 hours depending on whether they embark on the few side-quests on offer. Arc The Lad takes the player through the story in a rather linear manner with no opportunities to do stuff like shopping and going into towns for example. With all that is said, I had a lot of fun with Arc 1 and the battles fast-paced and action orientated at most parts. It is the shortness of the game itself and the linearity of the structure of the game that keeps it from being an absolute classic. The good news is that Working Designs have improved the sequels tremendously in response to the weak parts expressed in Arc 1.

- Arc the Lad 2 -

Improved in almost every way to the original, Arc the Lad 2 continues the story begun in Arc the Lad 1 with you taking upon the role of Elc, a hunter with one of your expected tragic past. This game now plays more like an RPG due to your freedom of movement into towns and the world map and the ability to equip your characters and go shopping. There are much more side-quests in this game with the chief one being the Hunter's Guild, where you can embark on up to 58 jobs in exchange for merits and earning cash.

There is a new level-up system for your weapons and armor, whereby the more you use a weapon the stronger it becomes and the more you get hit the stronger your armor becomes. This adds new strategic meaning to your game as you try and find the best weapons with the best means for levelling up. With one character, you are allowed to capture monsters and place them into your fighting party. This character/monster choice allows for much flexibility for you to play around with.

And what's more, you can use your current Arc 2 save to transfer your monsters into the expansion disc called ''Arc Arena'' where you can participate in monster battles and so on. With all this new additions, Working Designs have definitely scored a top notch improvement over the original game. One negative point about this game however, is the insanely high dodge/block rate of the enemy making it difficult to score a hit especially during the latter half of the game and makes battles longer than they need to be. Even attacking the enemy from behind, the enemy still maintains this high dodge and block rate meaning that magic spells are often the easiest ways to score a hit. After all said and done, Arc the Lad 2 is an excellent game that enhances and gives depth to the story begun in Arc the Lad 1. And with all the improvements added, this game will last a very long time.

- Arc the Lad 3 -

Arc the Lad 3 introduces the character of Alec, a young man who experiences a near fatal bandit attack on his village of Sasha. After a hunter helps save the village, Alec becomes determined to become a hunter himself and so, with his friend Lutz, Alec sets out to earn his place as a hunter. Though initially, the game doesn't seem to follow up on the events from the previous games, the storyline of Arc 3 eventually intertwines with what had happened in the past.

Now in this game, the Hunter's Guild and job hunting plays the important role of keeping the story running whilst in Arc 2, the Hunter's Guild simply played the part of a diversion from the main task at hand. Because this is the case, many of the jobs in Arc 3 have a lot more variation and individual characteristics than the sometimes monotonous jobs in the second game.

There are some questionable stuff absent in this game - notably, the excellent weapon/armor level up system from Arc 2 are scrapped but are replaced with the armor/item societies. These are places where you can synthesis and basically create your own items by mixing different ingredients. Battle-wise, the complaint about the high enemy dodge/block rate is dealt with, most of your normal attacks will hit the monsters so you can enable a swift end to the battles. The dialogue is much improved and there's plenty of humor and personality in everyone's speech. In my opinion, this is the best in the series.

MUSIC

All the games feature an excellent score even if Arc 2 does recycle quite a few of the tunes from the first game. Fortunately, the battle voice of the characters are for the most case in Japanese and not dubbed which creates a feeling of authenticity to how the Japanese players played this game quite a while ago. Excellent.

GRAPHICS

Not something to shout about, but the graphics do have a charm of their own and serve their purpose in renacting the Arc world on our screens. The graphics are generally improved upon each games that follows the previous. As always, don't judge games on whether they have excellent graphics or not, play for the gameplay itself and you'll find plenty to keep you occupied.

OVERALL

This is a collection that you definitely won't regret buying. With 3 games and an expansion disc, you'll find that you won't complete everything in a hurry especially with the long game lengths of Arc 2 and 3.

For European gamers, do import this game from the US. It is a tragedy that Working Designs refuse to release this gem outside of the US...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/06/02, Updated 10/06/02