Thousand Arms

"Would you be comfortable floating an air biscuit in front of me?"

Wow, the amazing double demographic game! Never thought I'd review this.

You're Meis Triumph, heir of a family of womanizers. It probably doesn't sound very heroic right now, but the functionality of it comes into play before long. Anyway, the Triumphs are known as spirit blacksmiths, who imbue the weapons they make with spiritual energy to make them stronger than ordinary weapons. But like typical anime girl chasers the Triumphs are nowhere to be seen when the heat is on, and quickly evacuate the town of Kant when our villains for the evening, the Dark Acolytes, show up to make life difficult.

So we join Meis as he wanders down the road, alone, penniless and hungry. His vigor is restored when he chances upon a pretty girl being attacked by bandits, but promptly gets his butt kicked and wakes up in the care of the girl, Sodina, and her brother, a legendary spirit blacksmith named Jyabil.

Meis finally gets serious about becoming a spirit blacksmith, although we learn that chasing girls is part of it, because the happier he makes the girls he knows, the better the weapons he can make. The game spouts some junk about girls affections being a source of the elemental power used to infuse weapons with spirits, but it's just the easiest way they could think of to meld the genres of RPG and dating sim.

Which means that pretty much the entire time Meis isn't questing with his friends to stop the Dark Acolytes and finding sources of holy flame in order to summon holy beasts, he needs to be dating the babes he encounters along the way. And being a dating sim, there a quite a few, each with their own personality, quirks, and preferred gifts (i.e., girly-girl Sodina likes jewelry, but inevitable tomboy Wyna likes workout gear). And this being a fantasy game, some are REALLY weird (think of Nelsha once you find out what she's really like). The dating sim aspect is a breath of fresh air in the US gaming arena, but unfortunately gets a little repetitive.

First thing you do when you feel like charming a babe is find a goddess statue in whatever city you're in. After you do, you can pick one of the girls to date (if they join your party you can date them anywhere you want but others stay in one place, so you have to be in their hometown to date them). Then you go somewhere, and if it's an appropriate place you're given the option to hold the date there. Each girl supposedly has a "best" date location, but I've never had one have slightest reaction to wherever I picked. Why have this location feature at all then?

And the experience of actually having the date is uniform as well, because the girl just throws a couple questions at you, and that's how it goes every time. You'll eventually start hearing the same questions. If you get enough right you get a goodnight kiss and her "intimacy rating" (no guys, it never goes beyond kissing) goes up, otherwise you get a gentle brush-off. I thank Atlus for including the idea, and making it have a point since the higher the intimacy rating, the better the weapons you can make in that girl's name, but eventually it starts to feel kind of the same.

The combat system is a bit weird, with you having up to three characters in your party at a time, but only one fights, the others offering support by casting spells or using items on their forefront friend, or taunting or cheering if they're not told to do anything else. It's not really a bad system, but it does feel a bit awkward to someone used to team-based combat in an RPG.

The game looks and sounds great, however. There are plenty of animated sequences that manage to be cool without being full-motion, and the voice talents are decent. They bring to life characters like a rival spirit blacksmith who thinks strength is all that matters and doesn't get why Meis is better at it than him, and a warrior who's invincible in battle but paralyzed when a pretty girl gets within arm's length. Ah, good times.

If I have one glaring complaint about Thousand Arms, it's that I wish Atlus hadn't used the wildly swinging camera in city areas that they did. It's disorienting, and will make you rely on the switch-on maps that much more.

To sum it all up, Thousand Arms is an interesting little RPG experiment, letting you make your own weapons and pursue romantic entanglements, and is fun for trying that, but could do more with both. Maybe they figured that since Thousand Arms was the only game in town, they didn't need to. Maybe Atlus figured this would interest people enough that they'd do more in a sequel. Sadly, Two Thousand Arms remains only a fitful fantasy to people who managed to enjoy this game in spite of some minor faults, like me.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/13/04, Updated 07/14/04