"A Great Anime RPG From Atlus!!!"

Introduction

Thousand Arms can be considered one of the most innovative RPG i have ever played in 1999. It is not the best, but is worthwhile purchasing after you have completed Final Fantasy VIII and Anthology.

Story

The story thrusts you in a role of a spirit blacksmith, Meis, who is a descendant of the Triumph family. He and his companions are revolting against the Emperor, who is the only descendant of the clan of Darkness. The Dark Acolytes, ruled by the Emperor, are searching for the five holy flames. With that, the Emperor can rule the world.

In my opinion, the story is pretty standard for an RPG. It's like light VS Dark and evil will never triumph over good. The plot is not as good as Xenogears, but nevertheless, it isn't as complex as Xenogears and can be easily understood, which is a plus point. A relaxing plot, which i will say as you do not really need to stratch your head and figure out what is happening in the game.

Music

The tunes are fairly average and aren't as good as Square's games like Xenogears, FFs. But, one important vocal song/tune 'forces' me to give it a 9 instead of a 7. And, that song is none other than 'Depend on You', by Ayumi Hamasaki, a famous J-pop artist. Actually, i prefer 'Depend On You' instead of 'Eyes On Me'. Perhaps, you may say i am biased when it comes to English song. The ending vocal, 'Two of Us' is pretty nice too and is performed by Ayumi Hamasaki.

Control

The game takes place on a 3-D polygonal environment, much like Square's Xenogears, but slightly more impressive than Xenogears. In world map, towns, villages, you are allowed to rotate the environment by pressing L1 and R1. Environments are far easier to navigate than in Xenogears'. You can also press the Triangle button in towns, world maps etc to view a map. Besides, it supports vibration function and analog controller. However, much like Brave Fencer Musashi, in field screens, where places like dungeons, caves are, the camera is fixed. And, of course, there aren't any maps to view in such places.

I have one minor complaint only! In the world map, when you rotate your view, the characters don't rotate their view, much like Final Fantasy VIII. If you look at Final Fantasy VIII, there are two arrows or pointers, one points to the direction of the character/ vehicles and another one points to the direction of the camera angle, but Thousand Arms has only one, that is the one that points to the direction of the character is facing.

Nevertheless, the controls aren't that irritating! However, if you can rotate your camera in such a way that when the character turns, the camera is always facing the back of the character, the controls will be even better.

Voice-Overs

The main selling points of this game are perhaps the voice-overs and the anime cutscene. It features over 12 hours of spoken dialogs. At certain points, the voices seem to be really good, but can be really crappy sometimes too. Eg, I found Ratchet's voices quite annoying; Bandiger rather humorous voice. There are few games with voice-overs like Thousand Arms. Very few come close to it, maybe only the Lunar.

Anime

Adorning the visual fanfare are the superb anime cutscenes that seque seamlessly from the in-game proceedings. I have to agree that the developers have done a great job in this area. Even Xenogears have to give way to Thousand Arms. Characters, like Xenogears, are drawn using sprite-based, though very detail but looked very deformed and less proportionate than that of Xenogears'. [They seem to have bigger heads than their body! Forgive me if you don't agree.]

Innovation

Truly an innovative and original game, the dating system stands out to be one of its most attracting features. Throughout the game, you can date with some of the most beautiful ladies in the land. The 'chicks' are quite beautiful. [I think Wyna is the sexiest].

To date a girl, you need MP, which means elemental spirits. Visit the goddess statue and you will be able to give a girl a present, play a short mini-game with her or ask her for a date. There are certain specific spots where you can go for a date. You and the girl will be chatting and she will ask you questions. Depending on how you answer, you can make her leave you if you make her angry or raise her intimacy level with you. [Wow, this sounds cooler than Azure Dreams, definitely!]

If these aren't enough, you can take photos with your dream girl at various print club machines for a photo of 300 GP each. [Hmm... Did anyone mention NeoPrint???] Each girl also has a mood meter, which looks like a heart. The better her mood is, you stand a greater chance of increasing intimacy level with her.

As intimacy level with that girl increases, Meis, being a spirit blacksmith gets to forge a weapon and add new spells/ specials to the characters. Of course, increasing a level lets you forge a stronger sword but to learn new spells/special, you need to raise intimacy level.

Sadly and disappointingly, though the dating simulation sounds awesome, as you keep on going dates, you will realise that almost 80% of the questions are repeated and this makes it more boring and less attractive. Why not they group different questions according to the intimacy level? Isn't it better like this than having too many repeated questions, even for different girls?

Combat

Cast dating aside first, the frontline and backline combat is another innovative feature, but definitely, this isn't the best combat system. Combats are mostly one to one. The frontline does all the attacking and the two people at the backline do all the assisting such as casting spells, using items, taunts or just standby. Battles do show a reminiscent of Tales Of Destiny, but not totally. [It reminds me of the front and back row in Final Fantasy series.]

In order for you to perform an action, you must wait for the gauge bar in the top-right to fill, then press the action button. For the frontline, the action button is X and for the backline, the action button is Circle. It is quite similarly to Final Fantasy's Active Time Battle, but not totally.

Being a spiritual blacksmith, Meis is the only one, capable of summoning elemental beasts, much like Espers in FFVI or Guardian Force in FFVIII. The pros are that the elemental beast sequence aren't that long as those you see in FFVIII and some really looks very cool, though they are all animated, instead of polygonal. As for the rest, they have special attacks, which Meis do not have. To some extent, i have to agree that the special attacks and the elemental beast looks very well animated and maybe nicer than those Guardian Force as seen in Final Fantasy VIII.

While so, the combat does have many flaws. Basically, the concept of frontline and backline characters doesn't provide enough flexibility for strategy. Combats are almost the same overtime and it may get tired. The backline characters usually have very little involvement during battle than frontline character, which is a major minus.

Conclusion

Overall, Thousand Arms is one good game, which you cannot miss in 1999. The gameplay is generally quite good and there are some really very good concepts. Challenge is moderate and the game may require more than 25+ hours. I recommend you to buy it after you have completed FFVIII/ FFA or Suikoden II. It's not the best RPG yet, but it has what it takes to be one of the most unique games. Despite all the flaws that i have mentioned about the dating simulation, it is probably the greatest feature that attracts me a lot. Anyway, who wouldn't agree that Meis is a philander; Muza, a guy who would 'freeze' when he met a girl, especially Wyna. It deserves an 8, nothing more or less. Once again, i applause Atlus for making a good RPG again.

I will clarify some doubts of what humaetorcH said in his review:

First of all, i would like to apologise to him if it was because of my review that he went to get Thousand Arms. Perhaps, i shouldn't mention anything about Xenogears in my review right from the start.

Here's some reasons why it scores:

1)FFVIII's prerendered backgrounds were nice. And, i had played FFVIII a million times and even wrote several faqs on it. But, there's one thing that makes TA and Xenogears score. That's exploration. Environments in TA and Xenogears are in full 3-D polygonal environments. Where are the huge dungeons, caves in FFVIII? Talk about the huge Phoenix Cave in FFVI.

2)Navigation is much easier than Xenogears. Controls are definitely better. Besides, it supports Analog Controller and vibration function. There is even a map in the town so that makes no excuses if you get lost.

3)I have to admit that the loading is pretty long if you want to view the menu like the status screen and so on. But, everytime when you try to enter a house or open a door, the camera zooms in. I thought that was really a very nice feature. Is the loading long? No! And, want to talk about long loading. Don't you know that the PlayStation is 'infamous' for long load times? What about games like FFV and VI in the Anthology package. A 16-bit game on a 32-bit system, yet loading is much longer. If you want to compare, Xenogears seems to have longer load times.

4)The animation cutscenes are definitely better than Xenogears. There's simply no doubt about it. The voices again sounded much better than Xenogears. And, Xenogears doesn't have that much animation as TA.

5)The dating simulation can be dull and interesting. I did mention that a lot of questions in it are repeated. But, what's the fun? I love to mess up the dates sometimes. Watch and observe the girl's expressions, reactions. Observe how they react when they are angry, happy, sad and so on. That's part of an 'essence' of an RPG. And, besides, it's a decent dating system and not many RPG has that. The only game i know that has something similar is Azure Dreams. I do admit that it can be further improved but considering that it's something new, don't penalise it too much. It's unfair!

6)I do admit that the combat system has flaws but it's original. On the other hand, i like the idea of dating to increase intimacy level so that you can forge a stronger weapon and learn new magic spells or special attacks.

7)I was pretty impressed with some of the little features that TA had. You can pause your game anytime you want. Though it doesn't mean much, at least, you won't waste any unnecessary time just in case something crops up ^. I like the icons too. Whenever you are near a door, an icon which looks like a door will appear, indicating that there is an exit. Very considerate!

8)I am really sick of people complaining about high enemy encounter rate. For every five seconds, you will encounter an enemy.. blah.. blah.. blah.. I do admit that high enemy encounter rate gets boring and frustrated especially when you want to clear an area as quickly as possible. But, if you were to ask me, the enemy encounter rate in TA was much lesser when you compared to games like FFV/ VI. What's wrong with high enemy encounter rate? Do you penalise an RPG just because of high enemy encounter rate?

I am glad that Humaetorch had read my review and responded to my review. Anyway, some of his points that he mentions do make some sense but...

1)I am not saying that exploration means the ability to twist and turn camera angles. You misinterpreted it! I didn't want to use FFVIII as a comparison but you were complaining that if the graphics were as good as FFVIII, you might be able to tolerate the long load times. Comparing prerendered backgrounds to polygonal environments? What nonsense is this? A poor comparison! It's true that a polygonal environment provides more interactions than prerendered backgrounds. Anyone, disagree? If TA is remade using prerendered backgrounds, what do you think the game will play like? Besides, the animated characters have very clear facial expressions, bright and colourful. The facial expressions in FFVIII aren't that noticeable too and it doesn't have treasures. ''Expecting exploration features in the background on a console RPG?'' What's the difference if we play console RPGs, and not computer RPGs? I don't know what you are talking about...

2)If you think that loading plays a major factor in influencing how good an RPG is, then you are utterly wrong. I don't think there's any reviewer out there, who stops playing a game because of long load times. 8 seconds? Too exaggerating!!!

3)Little features like supporting analog controller and vibration function, pausing the game, icon etc may be insignificant but it does tell a lot about the developers. These little features eventually accumulate together to form one big ''Plus'' factor. Given two identical games, one that supports analog and vibration function, and the other do not, which one will you play? [Assuming you have a dual shock controller.]

4)As i have mentioned before, the dating simulation is one of TA's attracting feature. Tell me where you can find a dating simulation game like it? Talks about dates, those ''mushy'' words are definitely going to be said. Can you avoid saying words like love, beautiful and so on? So, i don't really mind if certain questions are repeated for different girls. Besides, it's quite cool to answer the same question but to different girls.

5)What's the difference if you are fighting one on one or having three to fight together? Even with FF's ATB, i still find myself bored after fighting for over 20 times. Eg. Uncursing the cursed shield to get Paladin shield in FFVI. I don't think that the one on one combat in TA will make you feel bored. If you are wise enough and know who to put in the frontline, battles can finish very fast. Leveling is very fast in TA. Games like FFV and FFVI take a very long time to level up. So, is this one on one combat a very reasonable excuse to cover up your laziness? Definitely, no! Oh yes, i apologise myself for using CT as a bad example.

6)Game companies aren't lazier at all. Do you know that TA took nearly four years to make? Why do Atlus spend the time translating TA? I mean, they need to redo the voices again and change it to English. And, if they want to make a crappy game, why do they need to spend money, hiring Ayumi Hamasaki to sing Depend On You and Two Of Us? If they have Nobuo Uematsu or Yasunori Mitsuda, they won't need Ayumi Hamasaki. Talk about originality. TA has it. Why don't they make a traditional RPG something like Beyond the Beyond, instead of investing in animation and voice-overs. Atlus may not be as good as Square. But, is Square good in voice-overs? Perhaps, in the future. Definitely not before 1999.

7)Have you ever thought of the game's main emphasis? Take FFVIII as example. Square places very strong emphasis, not in the gameplay, but the story- the love theme. The same may apply to Thousand Arms too. The story is much like traditional setting. There may not be many events to show characterisations like Xenogears. But, characterisation can be shown in another way that is through dialogues. The animation and the voices bring the characters to life. FFVIII don't have voice-overs and i don't even know what they are talking about sometimes during FMVs, even though you can see their lips moving. The emphasis on Meis, being a philander, like his father, is pretty interesting. Besides, after playing a game with confusing plot like Xenogears, it's nice to have a change of taste and play some relaxing and short games. Furthermore, the ending isn't lame.

I still hold on to my opinion, giving it an 8. A 2 is ridiculously too low. Don't forget that originality helps TA to score!

Story : 8.5/10.0
Graphics : 9.0/10.0
Concept : 8.0/10.0
Control : 7.5/10.0
Music : 9.0/10.0
Sound : 8.5/10.0
Voice : 7.5/10.0
Gameplay : 8.5/10.0
Replay : 7.5/10.0
Challenge : 6.5/10.0
Originality : 9.0/10.0
Presentation : 7.0/10.0
Overall : 8.0/10.0

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/00, Updated 12/16/02