Arc the Lad Collection

"Beyond the Hype"

The Arc the Lad Games were released a few years ago to massive hype and praise. Since the game was so steep, I avoided purchasing it until recently, and when I did get around to the three games enshrined within, I found myself trying to find out what people saw in these games?

I still have no answer.

Well, I'll review each game individually, and you can make up your own mind.

Arc the Lad 1:

The story is classic RPG fare. You are Arc, adventurous youngin' whose father disappeared mysteriously some time ago. You take some of your father's leftover equipment and strike out in the world to see what happened to him, and eventually get caught up in a plot to save the world from destruction(though the game stops before the actual saving occurs). It's utterly generic and cliche, involving backstabbing chancellors, some elemental guardians and idiot kings, and is pretty much just an excuse to get you to go from area to area. Not to mention the trite "Humanity is EVIL" storyline that beats you over the head. ?Character development is nonexistent too, as everyone is basically just a cliche(The Chosen Hero, the Heroine with Mystic Powers, The Cowardly Soldier That Has A Change of Heart, etc.)

The battle system itself is classic SRPG. Every battle is a grid in which you and your buddies and a amount of monsters move around and duke it out. Every character has different abilities and strengths; Arc is a physical tank, Kukuru is a healer and mage, Poco is a stat buffer with some backup damage, and so on. You eventually get to use all 7 part members, along with summons, who work like FFX's Aeons, in battle. The game mostly reminds me of Shining Force, except everyone is healed at the end of a battle so you can go nuts and not have to worry. However, the game is extremely easy so I doubt you'll ever have more than a few losses, or even have to exert that much effort. The battle system itself gets dull, but the game is so short (I beat it in two days) that it won't wear out it's welcome. But that's what Arc the Lad 2 is for. I should mention that if you're a fan of dungeon crawling that this game is not for you; every dungeon is composed of one strat battle and a few scenes, maybe some walking around.

Graphics themselves are fine, with no glitches or anything odd. If you have a thing against sprites you probably should avoid the collection entirely, though Arc the Lad 3 does have some pretty CGI in it.

Of all the games in the collection, I'd say that playing this one would probably be your best bet, but that's like choosing between the gas chamber and the firing squad; best just to avoid the situation in the first place.

My Rating 5/10

Arc the Lad 2, or We Made a Bad Game Even Worse and Charged 70 Dollars for It:

So. Arc the Lad 2. If you want the short version of this game just take everything I said about Arc the Lad 1 and double the bad parts.

The storyline picks up almost exactly where Arc the Lad 1 leaves off. You are Elc, a Hunter (organization of mercenaries that do odd jobs) who takes a job and meets a young woman named Lieza, who can talk to monsters(and even has her own pet wolf, Paundit), and as you save her, you run afoul of a mysterious organization controlled by one of the Generals in Romalia(country that is the origin of the traitorous Andel from Arc the Lad 1), and eventually you end up -you guessed it- saving the world once again. Once again it's pretty cliche. Humanity is evil, the Guardians are right, Romalia is a evil empire blah blah blah. Characters are basically as flat as they were in Arc the Lad 1. One amusing note is that almost every dungeon you go through explodes after you finish it; it makes one wonder how Romalia became the superpower it is today if they have such shoddy architecture.

The Battle System itself has a few tweaks, but is basically Arc the Lad 1 all over again. You have a few more options with using Items and Magic, which is nice. And then you have the evade mechanic, which almost seems like a creation of a extremely sadistic game programmer that wants us all to suffer. You see, in battle, every enemy has some evade. This isn't so bad in the beginning, but in later battles it becomes extremely irritating, as your 100 or so points of damage you can cause get whittled down to 5 or 6, purely because of that idiotic mechanic. This drags out battles so much that the whole thing becomes a exercise in tedium. And since enemies generally have it much easier, it can cause several resets, which cost money to do, which in turn disallows you to do much in the way of getting better equipment, which in turn causes more grief. And, even better! The Game is now horrendously long, full of fetch-quests and silly ways to drag the experience out, so now instead of a nice, short game like Arc the Lad 1, you get a 50 hour snoozefest. One thing I do like about the battle system, though, is that every character (You have all of the cast from Arc the Lad except 2, plus the newer characters like Elc and Lieza) has a different use, and everyone can be useful if you use them correctly. It's nice to have such a unique cast. Pity the rest of the game is crap. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that the Final Boss's HP is quadrupled from the previous boss (The final boss has two forms), so that even with your strongest attacks you end up sitting there for a hour or more chipping away, and that's if you can manage to last through his punishing attacks and break his defense and evade.

Note-Missions from the Hunter Guild are available, but they aren't necessary and are only there for some extra income.

Graphics are somewhat improved from Arc the Lad, but only a little. No crashes or glitches, except that the floor disappears in battle if you move your cursor over it. But that's not that big a deal. Still mostly sprite based, though there are a few FMV's of the assorted exploding dungeons.

Of the three games I'd say this is the one you should avoid, though my thoughts about this were expressed in the Arc the Lad review.

My Rating-3/10

Arc the Lad 3:

The Story of Arc the Lad 3 is once again standard. You are Alec, a youngster from a Podunk town who has aspirations of being a Hunter(the same group from Arc the Lad 2), and eventually leaves with his friend Lutz on his way to fulfill his aspiration, and eventually gets sucked into a plot to -say it with me- Save the World. The generic storyline is now told almost entirely through Hunter Missions, which were merely a sideline thing in Arc the Lad 2, but now take up most of your time. You do a mission, either complete it or fail, and you get money and Merit(points for a successful job) if you manage to succeed. The more Merit you get, the higher your rank, and the harder and more involved jobs you acquire. The Jobs themselves mostly revolve around silly missions helping people with various problems, and they mostly revolve around puzzles, battling monsters, or timed button presses. Only a select number of jobs need to be completed to advance the storyline, so you can mow through the game pretty quick, if you wanted too. More often than naught it's worth your while to do extra ones, for the rewards, or simply for bragging rights among your fellow Hunters. Also, the "Humanity is EVIL" theme is still going strong, though now the effort mostly seems to be focused on science.

The Cast is generic once again, but now they up the annoyance Ante with Lutz, your eternally hard-up idiotic friend that constantly takes center stage in jobs. Lutz's dialogue is sooooo long and pointless that the bare 2 minutes of dialogue in a Hunter Job can be inflated to 5, 6, or even 7 minutes long because of Lutz being a jackass. This causes the game to drag badly, and really really aggravates you before the game is even a quarter of the way done. Bravo, game designers.

The battle system is a little better in some ways, worse in others. Gone is the extremely irritating evade mechanic in Arc the Lad 2, which certainly helps. Losing in battle now does not cost money, though some battles make you fail Hunter missions if you lose, so it evens out. The cast is much smaller and is also pretty generic compared to Arc the Lad 2's, but you still have your basic Tank, Mage, Gun-user, etc. Synthesizing equipment, a sidetrack in Arc the Lad 2, now has a more important role in Arc the Lad 3, due to the Item and Weapon Society's, places where you can customize and experiment to your hearts content. A new addition is Monster Cards, which can be used by a character in your party for dramatic effects, and can also be traded in Monster Societies. You can only have 5 at a time, so any Pokemon addicts will have to make do.

Graphics are somewhat better than Arc the Lad 2, but are still sprite based and nothing to write home about, though the FMV's are present and nicely done. Glitches and bugs are nonexistent.

The game is better than Arc the Lad 2, but still has the same problems as Arc the Lad 1. It's extremely easy, it gets dull, the story is still bad, and there are plenty of Fetch Quests and boring methods to move the story along. The Final boss in this game also gets a HP inflation, but it's not as bad as Arc the Lad 2 because your damage is better and you don't have to grapple with the evade system. A mixed bag, at best.

My Rating 5/10

Adding the collection as a whole....

5/10
3/10
5/10= 13/3=4.333.....

Which rounds down to a 4. Trust me, I'm being generous here.

In conclusion, this is a collection you definitely want to avoid at all costs. It was way too expensive then, and is way too expensive now. If you MUST get the game, I suggest rummaging around in bargain bins for it. Don't blame me when you need hours of therapy in order to block the game's effects from your brain, however.

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